force. The need of the state, at that moment, was for a stronger government than this constitution created. The same convention accordingly framed another constitution, two years later, constructing a more powerful government, and submitted this again to the plébiscite. It was approved by an overwhelming majority; and by the help of the military, commanded by the young artillery officer of Toulon, Bonaparte, it was put into operation. The new government did not, still, prove strong enough for the necessities of the state. In 1799, Bonaparte suppressed it with his soldiers and appealed to the plébiscite for his justification. His doctrine also was, therefore, that the sovereign, the state, is the people organized in their electoral assemblies or districts. The constitution which he submitted was ratified by the popular vote, 3,011,007 in favor of it, to 1562 against it.2 The amendment of this constitution in 1802, and finally the establishment of the imperial constitution of 1804, rested likewise upon the plébiscite. In the imperial system, therefore, the jacobinistic doctrine, that the state is the people organized in their voting precincts, was preserved.

After the overthrow of Bonaparte and the restoration of the Bourbons, the first constitution, that of 1814, proceeded wholly from the King.3 The doctrine which lay at the base of this constitution was, therefore, that the state. was organized in the King. The King shrewdly applied this principle, without theoretical enunciation, in amending the constitution in some points to meet the popular views. The successor of Louis XVIII was not so wise. Charles X proclaimed the sovereignty of the King over the constitution, and undertook to exercise the same in the issue of measures obnoxious to the people. The revolution of 1830 was the result.

1 Lebon, Das Staatsrecht der französischen Republik, S. 13.

The legislature created by the Bourbon constitution anticipated the people, or rather the populace; revised the constitution, and demanded its acceptance by Louis Philippe as the condition of his elevation to the throne by the suffrage of the legislature. He accepted it, and thereby acknowledged the sovereignty of the people as organized in the legislature.

This solution of the question of the organization of the state could not, however, be permanently satisfactory. In the first place, the qualification for suffrage was so high that the legislature represented only about 300,000 voters; and, in the second place, the King had a veto upon all acts of the legislature, whether they were amendments to the constitution or ordinary statutes. The resistance of the King to the extension of the suffrage-an extension which would have made the legislature a truer organization of the state-provoked the revolution of 1848.2 The provisory government, which assumed power after the expulsion of the King, called upon the people to elect, by universal suffrage, members to a constituent convention. This was accomplished during the month of April, and upon the 4th of May the assembly was organized. It was the sovereign organization of the state.3 It framed and ordained the constitution of 1848. Under it Louis Napoleon was elected President of the republic.

But Napoleon took advantage of the weakness of the French democracy for the plébiscite, and in his conflict with the legislature ignored the method prescribed in the constitution for effecting changes in the organic law, and appealed to the people to empower him by direct vote to put in force a constitution, the framework of which he presented to them in his appeal. That is, he reintroduced the principle that the state is the people organized in their voting precincts. His appeal was ratified by the people, and the principle of the plébiscite

1 Lebon, Das Staatsrecht der französischen Republik, S. 16, Anmerkung. 2 Ibid. S. 16.

3 Stern, Revolution de 1848, Tome II, pp. 212 ff.

upon the constitution re-established.1 At last the imperial constitution of 1852 was established by the plébiscite.2

The

The overthrow of the Empire in 1870 and the capture of the Emperor necessitated a provisory government. members of the legislative body of the Empire representing the constituencies of the city of Paris assumed power; issued a call on the 8th of the month (September) for the election, by universal suffrage, of members to a constituent convention; fixed the day of assembly upon the 16th of the following October, and designated the city of Paris for the place. The approach of the German armies moved the provisory government to send a delegate, Crémieux, to Tours, to provide for the event of the severing of communication between Paris and the provinces. It also resolved to hasten the elections to the convention, and appointed the 2nd of October, instead of the 16th, for the day. Before the 20th of September, however, the Germans had surrounded the city, cutting off all communication with the country. The delegation of the provisory government at Tours was thus forced to assume the government outside of Paris. It annulled the order for elections to a constituent assembly, and manifested the determination to establish itself in dictatorial power for the purpose of driving out the invader. The provinces of the south and west, however, immediately resented the action and attitude of the Tours government, and threatened to act upon their own responsibility. The government at Tours reconsidered its resolution annulling the elections, and ordered that these be held upon the day originally designated, viz; October 16th. The government in Paris was advised of this last act by balloon communication, and, under the influence of Gambetta, annulled this second order for elections. On the 8th of October Gambetta escaped by balloon from Paris and went to Tours. He immediately assumed

1 Lebon, Das Staatsrecht der französischen Republik, S. 16 ff.

2 Ibid. S. 17.

the war department and dictatorial power, in order to organize the provinces for the rescue of Paris. But the south revolted. The league of the south formed itself in Toulouse, and Esquiros assumed dictatorial power in Marseilles, independent of both Tours and Paris. Gambetta was able, however, to overcome these movements, and, on the 2nd of November, the Tours government issued the call for the levée en masse for the expulsion of the invader. The advance of the Germans compelled the overnment to withdraw to Bordeaux. From this point, it inaugurated the campaign for the relief of Paris. This was a failure, and on the 28th of January, 1871, Paris capitulated. The Germans demanded that the provisory government at Paris should immediately order elections to a constituent assembly, which should meet within fourteen days, at Bordeaux, to deliberate upon the preliminaries to the treaty of peace. The Germans were unwilling, of course, to treat with the provisory government, on the ground that the French people might refuse to regard themselves as bound by its acts. Pressed by the invader, the Paris government issued the decree for the elections and ordered them to be held on the 8th of the following month (February). The Paris government was, however, obliged to rely upon the branch at Bordeaux to execute the decree. Gambetta offered some resistance, but finally, on the 31st of January, sent out the necessary order to the proper officers, but commanded the disfranchisement of the Bonapartists. Of course the Germans could not permit this, for the reason that the international engagements, which an exclusively republican assembly might assume, might not be regarded by the disfranchised party as binding upon them, in case they should succeed again to power. Bismarck, therefore, protested against this measure and the Paris government annulled it and proclaimed the powers of the Bordeaux branch withdrawn. The elections were held on the 8th of February, and on the 13th the convention met at Bordeaux. This body was elected by universal

suffrage and, therefore, represented the whole people. It took upon itself, first, the powers and duties of government, and, after six years of existence in this capacity, it framed and ordained the present constitution of the French republic. The French state, therefore, upon which the present constitution rests, is the people, organized in national constituent convention.

It is to be hoped that the French democracy has finally worked itself clear of the fallacy that the plébiscite is the proper form of organization of the state. The system of the plébiscite is a very subtile bit of political deception. Its dangerous points are, first, that the organization of the people in their electoral assemblies is a very loose form of organization; in fact, it is not a very great departure from disorganization, when viewed from any central standpoint. The natural purpose of this kind of organization is the selection of a number of persons, all of whom taken together may possibly work out, by interchange of opinion, a well-digested view of the law and policy of the state, but it is not naturally adapted at all for the immediate consideration and decision of the principles of that law and policy. In the second place, its employment upon such subjects is dangerous, because it gives rise to the popular notion that it is no matter who proposes the constitution or the statute, so long as the plébiscite ratifies the same. This, as we have seen, opens the way for Cæsar, who, having once attained the powers of government, will give the people the alternative between ratifying his own arbitrary régime and the horrors of revolution. The body which proposes the constitution, or the amendment of the constitution, must be a truly representative body of the whole people in order to a true organization of the democratic state; and it is then a matter of little concern whether the plébiscite be employed to ratify the work of such a body or not. employment will more often be hurtful than advantageous. It will thus be seen that all four of the states, whose con

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