THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY. Steve Zolno

       There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.²²⁹

      Slavery dominated debate in Congress and the rest of the young country. The assumption that the United States was founded on egalitarian principles ensured that the debate would continue. The economy of the South was based on cotton, and the economy of the North based on industry, so a slavery based economy was harder for some to give up than others. In 1782, Virginia passed a law allowing slave owners to free their slaves if they decided to, which resulted in 12,000 being freed. Jefferson, in Notes on the State of Virginia, suggested a proposal that would free all slaves after the year 1800. Gouverneur Morris of New York, a signer of the Constitution, stated that slavery was a curse, and that slave owners should be compensated by Congress for its dissolution. The issue was not resolved until the country broke apart in 1861.²³⁰

      Edmund Burke, known as the founder of conservatism in England, supported the American Revolution due to British incursions on the liberty of the colonists, such as the imposition of the Stamp Act.²³¹ But he opposed the excesses of the French Revolution.²³² He saw change as being essential to the continuation of society: “ ‘A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.’ ”²³³

      In France, political opposition came from the nobles who had a hold on Parliament. While there was much agreement about what was wrong with their society, there was little agreement about what system should replace it, a problem that led to instability in France for long after its revolution.²³⁴

      Louis XVI assumed the throne in 1754. He was a timid man easily influenced by his ministers. At first his popularity was boosted by his support of the American Revolution, but the ideals of the Declaration of Independence did not encourage his subjects to support him. Due to a need for funds partly brought on by a poor harvest, and after the land-holding clergy refused his request to raise taxes, the king was forced to convene the Estates General for the first time in 175 years in May 1789. At this meeting the Third Estate (those others than the nobles and clergy) made demands for equality inspired by the new American nation. When the king locked them out, some took over a tennis court and made an oath not to leave until a new constitution was put in place. On July 14 the crowd stormed the Bastille, a small prison, to obtain arms in a battle against the king’s troops, and the French Revolution had begun. When Louis fled in 1791, he was brought back to face trial, and the fate of the French monarchy was sealed.²³⁵

      Since the French Revolution took place in the largest and most powerful European nation, it immediately aroused the monarchies of surrounding countries to suppress it. Meanwhile, the Constituent Assembly worked for the next two years to set up a constitutional monarchy on the order of Britain. Lafayette had just returned from aiding the American Revolution – he was joined by the likes of Danton, Robespierre and Marat. They wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, which later would become a model for the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.They abolished the Three Estates and replaced them with the American model of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government. France introduced suffrage for all men in 1792 – still excluding women – and the number of eligible voters jumped from 250,000 to about nine million. The working day was reduced to ten hours and slavery was abolished in the colonies. The lands of the Church – about eight percent of the country – were sold off.²³⁶ Despite the promises of universal freedom contained in the Declaration, the terror that followed, and the despotism that followed that, deprived many not only of their liberties but their lives.

      After the trial and execution of Louis in 1792, an alarmed coalition of powers including England, Prussia, Russia, Spain, Austria, Sardinia, and Naples united against the Revolution while a civil war raged within the country. At this point the leaders of the new Republic began executing revolutionary leaders and established a dictatorship. A conscription of 600,000 men was called which successfully challenged the invading armies. Robespierre, who had come to represent the absolutism that he had worked to overcome, met the guillotine in July of 1794.²³⁷

      Despite a promising beginning that was supported by advocates of democracy in Britain and the US, the French Revolution devolved into a terror that devoured itself. It had been largely inspired by the Enlightenment writers that spurred the American insurrection, but like many revolutions it became obsessed with tearing out its disease without prescribing a cure. There was no generally agreed way forward – no commitment to creating a vision for the country to replace its dysfunction. And so the dysfunction changed from one form to another and yet to another with no end in sight.

      Napoleon Bonaparte impressed his officers with his skills as a member of the artillery in the battle against Italy. He initiated a coup and had himself declared Emperor of France in 1804. Over the next ten years his empire was to include present-day Austria, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, but when he tried to replace the king of Spain a rebellion weakened him. He then lost a half million soldiers in his invasion of Russia in 1812. He was forced to abdicate in 1814, was exiled, then returned, and then was defeated once again by the British at Waterloo in 1815, after which we was exiled again and died at age fifty-two on the remote island of Saint Helena. A dichotomy between populism and autocracy has remained France’s legacy ever since.²³⁸

      The revolution of 1830 was caused by the autocratic policies of Charles X, who was forced to flee, and who was succeeded by Louis-Philippe, an ex-revolutionary. He, in turn, was forced out by the 1848 revolution which featured the student barricades described by Victor Hugo in Les Miserables:

      The barricade St. Antoine was monstrous; it was three stories high and seven hundred feet long. It barred from one corner to the other the vast mouth of the Fauborg, that is to say, three streets. . . . Merely from seeing it, you felt an immense agonizing suffering that had reached that extreme moment when distress rushes to catastrophe.

      The Second Republic of 1848 gave way, by 1852, to the Second Empire under Louis Napoleon, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, who ruled as Napoleon III. The French economy grew during his reign: he encouraged more industry to develop and stayed in power longer than any French leader after the Revolution. He also was responsible for a modernization of Parisian boulevards by Baron Haussmann and major parks. He attacked Prussia (Germany) in an attempt to match the glory of his uncle with an outmoded and undertrained army, which led to defeat and the end of the Second Empire in 1870.²³⁹

      Nationalism spread, starting in Europe, and then to America, but it took a long time for individuals to learn to identify with a nation rather than their local interests. The French began to think of themselves as one country as they went to war with the rest of Europe under Napoleon. Britain was forged from England and Scotland. Nationalism also took hold in those countries they fought. Americans, who were about one-half originally opposed to their Revolution, gradually began to think of themselves as united. National anthems and holidays strengthened that process. Ideas of racial identify – including those of an Aryan, Caucasian or Slavic race, were introduced in Europe in the late 1800s which increased national unity. This led to movements to expel minorities. Separatist movements by those who preferred to identify with their region rather than a country ran counter to nationalism.²⁴⁰

      The census of 1790 shows a total of just under four million inhabitants of the United States. About twenty percent were slaves, with only two New England states having none. Acts for the gradual abolition of slavery were in place in many northern states and some countries. Slavery was abolished in Russia in 1723, in England 1807, and in France 1815. Russia abolished serfdom in 1861.

      John