three millions to a nation that pays six hundred, and which would not have three hundred and fifty to pay, if for these thirty years past she had had an annual National Assembly?

It hath even been said to me: Who will wish to become a member of the National Assembly, if it is to have annual sessions?-And to these extraordinary words I answer: Not you, who ask the question-but every worthy member of the clergy, who shall be willing and able to prove to the unfortunate, how useful is the clergy-every worthy member of the nobility, who shall be willing and able to prove to the nation, that the nobles likewise can serve it in more ways than one-every member of the commons, who may wish to say to every nobleman, proud of his title, How often have you sate amongst the legislators?

In fine, the English, who have done every thing, yet assemble every year, and always find something to do-and the French, who have every thing to do, are not to assemble every year !—

We shall have, then, a permanent assembly; and this sublime institution will, in itself alone, become a sufficient counterpoise to the royal veto.

What! say those who take alarm at a great power, because they judge of it only by its abuses, the royal veto to be unlimited! Should there not be a moment determined by the constitution, when this veto could no longer shackle the legislative power? Would not that government be a despotism, where the king could say: This is the will of my people; but mine is contrary to it, and it is mine that shall prevail.

They who are troubled with this apprehension, propose what they term a veto suspensive: that is to say, that the king shall have the power of refusing his sanction to a legislative project which he disapproves; he shall have the power of dissolving the National Assembly, or of waiting for a new one; but, if that new assembly re-propose to him the same law which he hath already rejected, he shall be obliged to receive it.

Herein consists the whole force of their argumentation. When the king refuses to sanction the law which the National Assembly hath proposed to him, it is to be supposed that he deems that law to be contrary to the interests of the people, or that it encroaches on the executive power, which resides in him, and which it is his duty to defend in this case, he appeals to the nation, the nation elects a new legislature, intrusts its wishes to its new representatives, consequently it declares its will; the king then must either submit, or deny the authority of that supreme tribunal, to which he himself had ap. pealed.

This objection is very specious, and if I am able to perceive the falsity of it, it is only from having examined the question under all its aspects; but we have already had an opportunity of seeing, and it will become still more observable in the course of the debate, that:

1. It supposes falsely that it is impossible that a second legislature should not convey the wishes of the people.

2. It supposes falsely that the king will be tempted to prolong his veto, in opposition to the known wish of the nation.

3. It supposes that the veto suspensive is attended with no inconveniences; whereas, in many respects, it hath the same inconveniences as if the king were allowed no veto.*

* This arrangement is certainly not what should be expected in a well-digested speech. But when, in consequence of a very defective mode of discussion, they have, among us, rendered it physically impossible to debate, and laid each author of an opinion under the necessity of waiting three days, in order to refute objections which are sometimes forgotten by those who made them (lucky if he gets an opportunity even then) the man who loves the publick welfare better than his own reputation, is obliged thus to anticipate, and, as far as in him lies, to get possession of the assembly beforehand, or he will not have it in his power to reply. I demanded yesterday the liberty of replying; it was refused me; I dare believe

It was necessary to render the crown hereditary, in order that it might not prove a perpetual cause of civil dissensions; thence resulted the necessity of rendering the king's person unblameable and sacred, without which the throne could never have been sheltered from the attempts of the ambitious. Now what power is there not already in the hands of a chief, who is rendered hereditary and inviolable? Shall his refusing to execute a law, which he deems contrary to those interests, of which his character of head of the executive power makes him guardian-shall such a refusal, I say, suffice to hurl him from his high prerogatives? That would be destroying with one hand what you had built up with the other; it would be coupling to a precaution of peace and security, the means most proper to raise continually the most dreadful tempests.

Let us pass from this consideration to the instruments of power, which ought to be in the hands of the supreme head of the nation. It is over five-andtwenty millions of men that he is appointed to command; it is over every point of an extent of thirty thousand square miles that his power must be, without intermission, ready to show itself for the purposes of protection or defence; and will any one pretend, that the chief, the lawful depositary of the means which such a power requires, may be obliged to execute laws to which he hath not given consent?

however, that I had driven the partisans of the veto suspensive to their last intrenchments.

I venture to promise that I will invincibly establish these three points against every objection which the partisans of the veto suspensive may raise against the royal sanction, when at the conclusion of the debate I shall have liberty to answer them. At present, I only ask them to reflect on the formidable power with which the king of a great empire is necessarily invested, and how dangerous it is to provoke him to turn it against the legislature, as must infallibly happen, if they determine upon any one moment whatever, when he sees no way of escaping the necessity of promulgating a law to which he hath not consented.

Note of M. De Mirabeau,

But, through what dreadful troubles, through what convulsive and sanguinary insurrections would they send us to combat the resistance of the royal power? When the law is under the safeguard of publick opinion, its sway is truly imperious over the ruler whom you have armed with the whole publick force; but which is the moment when we may reckon upon this empire of publick opinion? Is it not when the head of the exceutive power hath himself given his consent to the law, and when that consent is known to all the citizens? Is it not then, and then alone, that publick opinion sets the law irrevocably above him, and compels him, under pain of becoming an object of general horrour, to perform what he hath promised; for his consent, in quality of head of the executive power, is nothing else than a solemn engagement to execute that law on which he hath just conferred his sanction?

And let it not be said, that the generals of armies are depositaries of very important powers, and are, nevertheless, obliged to obey the orders of their superiours, be their opinion what it may with respect to the nature of those orders. The generals of armies are not hereditary chiefs; their persons are not inviolable; their authority ceases in the presence of him whose orders they perform; and, if the comparison is to be pushed still further, we must necessarily admit that those are, for the most part, but very indifferent generals, who carry into execution dispositions which they have not approved. Such then are the dangers which you are going to risk. And for what object? Where is the real efficacy of the veto suspensive?

Is it not expedient, as in my system, that the constitution should take certain precautions against the royal veto? Should the king overturn those precautions, will he not easily set himself above the law? Your plan, therefore, is useless, even in your own theory; and I will prove it to be dangerous in mine."

The refusal of the royal sanction can be supposed only in two cases:

In that where the monarch should deem that the proposed law would prove injurious to the interests of the nation; and in that where, deceived by his ministers, he should resist laws that were contrary to their private views.

Now, in both the one and the other of these suppositions, the king, or his ministers, being deprived of the capability of obstructing the law by the peaceful means of a legal veto, would they not have recourse to an illegal and violent resistance, according as they considered the law to be of more or less importance? Can it be doubted that they would prepare their means long before hand? For it is always easy to form a notion of the degree of attachment which the legislature will entertain for its law. It might happen, then, that the legislature might find itself chained down, at the very moment marked by the constitution for rendering the royal veto ineffectual; whereas, if that veto remains always in force, illegal and violent resistance becoming useless to the prince, he can no longer employ it, without revolting, in sight of the whole nation, against the constitution; a circumstance which soon renders such resistance extremely dangerous for the king himself, and particularly for his ministers. Observe that this danger is no longer the same, when the prince hath only opposed a law to which he hath not consented.

In this latter case, as violent and illegal resistance may always be supported by plausible pretexts, the revolt of the executive power against the constitution always finds partisans, particularly when it is the measure of the monarch. With what facility did not Sweden return into the arms of despotism, by desiring that her king, although hereditary, should be only the passive and blind instrument of the will of the senate!

Let us not, then, arm the king against the legislative power, by letting him perceive any moment whatsoever when his consent might be dispensed with, and when, consequently, he would be no more than a blind and forced executor. Let us be con