TOPICS OF THE DAY.
"LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY."
Ann the statesmen who have the management of the national programme in France about to realize the promise of their motto? Never has the institution of a republic been watched' by a world so wide, so intelligent, or so critical; never has it had such pow- erful patrons. The attempt will be regarded by large sections of Europe as an experimenturn or:4th. If it fail, Republicanism will be condemned for generations to come: if it succeed, it will not only give the strongest impulse to the advance of Liberal opi- nions, but will vastly smooth away difficulties in the peaceful metamorphosis of institutions. If the words of their motto be realized in deedsl—but the past fills us with more fear than hope. Republics have before promised " liberty ": they have never given it.- In the "freest' of republics, the thraldom of the indi- vidual to the state has been more irksome than the oppression under the most absolute despotism. Look at Sparta, where the state undertook, as the breeder of human animals, to intrude its interference into the very conjugal chamber. Rome was not free—it had its privileged classes and its oppressed. Venice was a proverbial tyranny. Switzerland exhibits rapid alternations of military tyranny, mob tyranny, and religions-minister tyranny. The former French Republic demanded, like the dragon of fairy tales, its sacrifices of blood. In the United States no man pos- sesses himself, but is possessed by the most exacting and obtru- sive "public" in the worldp—a public minutely and presumptu- ously represented by every individual composing it, so that each man is at the mercy of everybody else. He can indeed. "do what he damn pleases?' if he is prepared to vindicate his mighty plea- sure with a bowie knife—he can ''repudiate," swear, wittle, ques- tion, spit, and kick niggers at pleasure : but then, like the prize- fighting "champion of all England," he must have a standing challenge against all the world, or be repudiated, sworn at, spat upon, and kicked like a .nigger. And America is the land of slavery. It is to be presumed that the French Republic is to be better than the American at least. Perhaps as good as the Athenian—or better even : no ostracism. "En 1792," says La- martine "le peuple n'etait que l'instrument de la revolution, il n'en etait pas l'objet : aujourd'hui la revolution s'est faite par lui et pour ' But that is not enough. So it was in the older re- publics we have named ; but the people became the tyrant, de- stroyed liberty, left nothing worth fighting for, and so handed over the republic to some individual tyrant—usually some mili- tary victor—the General Taylor or General Scott of those days. Real. "liberty" is a thing without distinction or class reserva- tions: is it to be so in France ?
"Equality "—is that te be a word or a thing? The Provisional Government has somewhat hastily abolished titles wilt that establish equality? We denot resort to the quibble of those who say that social equality is impossible because men are not equal by nature. The inequality decreed by nature is one in which elevation is earned by individual capacity or merit; and, broadly considered, it always works for good) since the deeds by which it is earned are performed in the service of the public that bestow it, or the qualities that attain, it are such as the public prize and en- joy. The inequality artificially decreed is a very different thing, without inherent reason or any clearly established beneficial working. In -France, _says M. Marrast's National, "The privi- leged castes have disappeared ; the nation has become amalga- mated in one homogeneons body." Then there will be no laws of exclusion directed against Bourbons, none against "aristocrats." But what do the Republicans mean by using the title Citoyen"? "Fraternity "—kindness betwixt man and man, mutual help ; a vague promise: , but the abolition of capital punishments for political offences is a great earnest of performance. We should feel the more confidence in the performance of these magnificent promises, if we were sure that Lamartina is right when he says "Cinquante annees de liberte de penser, de puler, et d'ecrire, ant' prodnit leur resultat." We do not know in what country there has been this liberty of discussion. Certainly not in France, with its laws of September, its prosecutions of the press, its prohibition of public meetings ; nor in Germany, with its prohibition of political activity, only now breaking down; nor in Italy ; nor in ignorant, court-ridden, sword-ridden, priest-rid- den Spain; nor in the United States, where the correlative of freedom, slavery, must not be debated ; nor in England, where social and religious topics can only be canvassed, however con- scientiously, in a manner so veiled and restricted as to be all but 'fruitless of result—where you must only enter upon the discus- sion of many subjects within conventional limits and with pre- determined conclusions—must fix beforehand the result of the intellectual arithmetic, however the figures may work. We do not know, therefore, here there has been this freedom of discus- sion; free discussion being the inevitable preliminary to true freedom of action..
The writer in the National, who speaks with the highest au- thority, promises that "everything will be discussed," and all kinds of political clubs tolerated— "And what can the friends of innovation, those who are founding clubs and aSsociations, desire on their side? That their harangues may be unrestricted. He would assuredly despair of the goodness of his cause, who in a country like France—so free and so devoid of all prejudice—undertook to maintain his opinions at the point of the bayonet, and public indignation would effectually dispose of him. Citizens of all classes whatsoever may be the social theories to which you are attached, you are electors, you are eligible! you enjoy the publicity of the press; you have the advantage of clubs and associations. Well, then, insure the triumph of year ideas, if it be possible, before the tribunal of the majority; and you need not be told that when once your ideas have thus once been consecrated nothing on earth can hinder from their passing into law. "In order to survey things from the trite point of view, we must consider the present victory as a triumph over brute force? A greater freedom has just been secured to liberty of discussion. Since 1789, every successive shock has swept away a remnant of the old social order from the surface of our soil; and now all classes of opinion are definitively called upon to make themselves manifest before the face of France without restriction or reservation. None will be.able to com- plain of oppression; none will be able to call themselves the dupes of fraud; and this free and public elaboration will end by asserting, in the minds of the most retrograde, as well as in those or the greatest innovators, the force of the real principles on which social order is henceforth to repose.
"The Government is, and can only be, the expression of the common will; and as such will be always accessible to all opinions. The clubs must only be con- sidered as councillors speaking aloud."
We have not the slightest doubt, that the writer believes what he is saying : but is it true—will it be carried out infects? Will absolute freedom, "without restriction or reservation, be allowed to "all classes of opinion," and "all social theories "—from Re- publicanism to Royalism, from Communism to Free Trade or Pro- tected Privilege ? If it be so, a spectacle will be presented to the world wholly without precedent—a people impartially watching the conflict of opinions and calmly abiding by the result. A people so disciplined and enlightened would indeed be capable of any self-government ; but, we repeat, the world is wholly without ex- perience of such a state of things.
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