of remark; that the executive power, acting continually upon the people, is more immediately connected with it; that, charged as this power is with the care of maintaining the equilibrium, of counteracting the partialities, the preferences towards which the smaller number continually tends, to the prejudice of the greater, it is of importance to that people, that that power should constantly possess effectual means of supporting itself.

These means consist in the right conferred on the supreme head of the nation, of examining the acts of the legislative power, and of granting or refusing them the sacred stamp of law.

Called upon by the very nature of his institution, to be at once the executor of the law, and the protector of the people, the monarch might be compelled to turn the publick force against the people, if his intervention was not requisite for completing the acts of legislation, by declaring them conformable to the will of the community.

This prerogative of the monarch is particularly essential in every state, where the people, incapable of exercising, in any shape, the legislative power, is obliged to intrust it to representatives.

As, from the nature of things, it must necessarily happen, that, in the election of representatives, the choice will not be directed to the most worthy, but to those whom situation, fortune, and particular circumstances seem to mark out as persons who can willingly sacrifice their time to the business of the publick, there will always result from the election of those representatives of the people, a kind of virtual aristocracy, which, incessantly tending to acquire a legal consistence, will become alike hostile to the monarch, with whom it will wish to put itself on an equality, and to the people, whom it will constantly endeavour to abase.

Hence that alliance, so natural and so necessary, between the prince and the people against every species of aristocracy; and as this alliance is founded upon their having the same interests, the same appre

hensions, they must have the same object, and consequently the same will..

If, on one hand, the greatness of the prince depends on the prosperity of the people, on the other, the happiness of the people rests chiefly upon the tutelary power of the prince.

It is not, therefore, for his particular advantage that the monarch interferes in legislation, but for the interest of the people; and in this sense it is, that we can and ought to say, that the royal sanction is not the prerogative of the monarch, but the property, the domain of the nation.

I have hitherto supposed an order of things to which we are making great strides, I mean an organized and constituted monarchy; but, as we are not yet arrived at such an order of things, I must explain myself clearly. It is my opinion, that the right of suspending, and even of putting a stop to the action of the legislatve body, ought to belong to the king when the constitution shall be settled, and the sole question be the preservation of it. But this right of stopping, this veto, must not be exercised, when the question is concerning the formation of the constitution, I do not see how you could dispute the people's right of giving itself a constitution, by which it chooses to be governed henceforward.

Let this point, therefore, be the sole object of our inquiry, whether, in the constitution which we are about to form, the royal sanction ought to enter as an ingredient in the legislature.

Undoubtedly, to him who siezes only the surface, strong objections will present themselves against the idea of a veto, exercised by any individual whatsoever, in opposition to the wishes of the representatives of the people. When we suppose the national assembly, composed of its true elements, presenting to the prince the fruits of its deliberations, offering up to him the result of the most free and most enlightened discussion, the produce of all the knowledge and information it could gather together, that, one would think, is all that human prudence requires

for stating, I will say not only the general will, but likewise the general understanding; and, undoubtedly, in this abstract point of view, it may seem repugnant to good sense to allow that a single person should have a right to answer: I oppose this general will this general understanding. This idea even becomes still more unpalatable, when it is to be settled by the constitution, that the man armed with this terrible veto shall be likewise armed with the whole publick force, without which the general will can never be certain of being executed.

All these objections vanish before this important truth, that, without the right of resistance in the hands of the depositary of the publick force, that force might frequently be employed, in spite of him, to execute a will that was contrary to the gene-. ral will.

Now, to prove, by an example, that this danger would exist, were the prince despoiled of the veto upon all legislative propositions which might be presented to him by the national assembly, I ask you only to suppose an improper choice of representatives, and two interiour regulations, already proposed and authorized by the example of England; namely:

The excluding the publick from the house of assembly upon the simple requisition of a member; and the interdicting the publick papers to give an account of the debates.

These two regulations once obtained, it is evident that the next step, and that very quickly, would be the expulsion of every indiscreet member; and the terrour of the despotism of the national assembly operating upon the assembly itself, nothing further would be wanting, under a weak prince, than a little time and address to establish by law the domination of twelve hundred aristocrats, reduce the royal authority to be nothing but the passive instrument of their will, and replunge the people into that state of degradation, which ever accompanies the servitude of the prince.

The prince is the perpetual representative of the people, as the deputies are its representatives elected for a certain term. The rights of the one, like those of the others, are founded only on the interest of those who gave them their political existence.

None exclaims against the veto of the national assembly, which, in fact, is only the right of the people intrusted to its representatives, in order to be opposed to every proposition which might tend to the re-establishment of ministerial despotism. Wherefore, then, exclaim against the veto of the prince, which is likewise but a right of the people intrusted specially to the prince, since the prince is as much interested as the people in preventing the establishment of aristocracy?

But, it is said, the deputies of the people in the national assembly, being invested with power for a limited time only, and having no share in the executive power, the ill use which they might make of their veto can never be attended with such fatal consequences, as those which would ensue where an unremoveable prince opposed a law that was just and reasonable.

In the first place, if the prince hath not the veto, who shall hinder the representatives of the people from prolonging, and, soon after, from eternizing their duration? (It was thus that the long parliament overturned the political liberty of Great Britain, and not, as you have been told, by suppressing the house of peers.) Nay, who shall hinder them from appropriating to themselves that part of the executive power which disposes of employments and favours? Will there be wanting pretexts to justify this usurpation? Places filled so scandalously! Favours prostituted so unworthily! &c.

Secondly, the veto, whether of the prince or of the deputies to the National Assembly, possesses no other virtue than that of quashing a single proposition: there can result, then, from the veto, of whatever kind it be, only an inaction of the executive power with respect to the measure in question.

Thirdly, the veto of the prince may, doubtless, oppose the passing of a good law; but it may likewise preserve us from a bad one, the possibility of which last is incontestable.

Fourthly, I will suppose that the veto of the prince does actually prevent the enaction of a law framed with the deepest wisdom, and most advanta geous to the nation; what will be the consequence, if the annual return of the National Assembly be as solidly secured as the crown upon the head of him who wears it; that is to say, if the annual return of the National Assembly be secured by a law truly constitutional, which forbids, under pain of conviction of incapability, the proposing either the grant of any kind of impost, or of the military establishment, for more than one year? Let us suppose that the prince hath made use of his veto; the assembly will first determine, whether the use which he hath made of it is, or is not, followed by consequences inimical to liberty. In the second case, the difficulty raised by the interposition of the veto being found of no avail, or of very slight importance, the National Assembly will vote the impost and the army for the ordinary term, and then all will remain in the order already established.

In the first case, the assembly will have divers means of influencing the king's will; it may refuse the taxes; it may refuse the army; it may refuse both one and the other, or merely vote them for a very short term. Whatever may be the measure adopted by the assembly, the prince, threatened with a paralytick stroke to the executive power at a certain period, is reduced to the sole expedient of appealing to his people by a dissolution of the assembly.

If, then, at such a juncture the people should return the same deputies to the assembly, will it not necessarily follow that the prince must obey? for that is the true word, whatever idea he may hitherto have conceived of his pretended sovereignty, when he ceases to agree in opinion with his people, and the people knows what it is about.