With us it was the case of a legal monarch attempting
arbitrary power; in France it is the case of an arbitrary monarch
beginning, from whatever cause, to legalize his authority. The one was
to be resisted, the other was to be managed and directed; but in neither
case was the order of the state to be changed, lest government might be
ruined, which ought only to be corrected and legalized. With us we got
rid of the man, and preserved the constituent parts of the state. There
they get rid of the constituent parts of the state, and keep the man.
What we did was in truth and substance, and in a constitutional light, a
revolution, not made, but prevented. We took solid securities; we
settled doubtful questions; we corrected anomalies in our law. In the
stable, fundamental parts of our Constitution we made no
revolution,--no, nor any alteration at all. We did not impair the
monarchy. Perhaps it might be shown that we strengthened it very
considerably. The nation kept the same ranks, the same orders, the same
privileges, the same franchises, the same rules for property, the same
subordinations, the same order in the law, in the revenue, and in the
magistracy,--the same lords, the same commons, the same corporations,
the same electors.
The Church was not impaired. Her estates, her majesty, her splendor, her
orders and gradations, continued the same.
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