Historical voices

The principles harmonise with the forms, and both with their origin.

It must show man the proper character of man; and the nearer it can bring him to that standard, the stronger the National Assembly becomes.

It is not their interest to cherish ignorance, but to dispel it.

Their station requires no artifice to support it, and can only be maintained by enlightening mankind.

They have not to hold out a language which they do not themselves believe, for the fraudulent purpose of making others believe it.

The difference between a republican and a courtier with respect to monarchy, is that the one opposes monarchy, believing it to be something; and the other laughs at it, knowing it to be nothing.

But there is a truth that ought to be made known; I have had the opportunity of seeing it; which is, that notwithstanding appearances, there is not any description of men that despise monarchy so much as courtiers.

It is already on the wane, eclipsed by the enlarging orb of reason, and the luminous revolutions of America and France.

They are evidently of the vassalage class of manners, and emphatically mark the prostrate distance that exists in no other condition of men than between the conqueror and the conquered.

Their Parliamentary language, whether for or against a question, is free, bold and manly, and extends to all the parts and circumstances of the case.

They sprung not from the filth of rotten boroughs, nor are they the vassal representatives of aristocratical ones.

They were elected by the greatest body of men exercising the right of election the European world ever saw.

Speech is, in the first place, one of the natural rights of man always retained; and with respect to the National Assembly the use of it is their duty, and the nation is their authority.

The President of the National Assembly does not ask the King to grant to the Assembly liberty of speech, as is the case with the English House of Commons.

This also is in the natural order of things, because laws must have existence before they can have execution.

The French Constitution puts the legislative before the executive, the law before the king; la loi, le roi.

The House of Commons did not originate as a matter of right in the people to delegate or elect, but as a grant or boon.

The executive power in each country is in the hands of a person styled the King; but the French Constitution distinguishes between the King and the Sovereign: It considers the station of King as official, and places Sovereignty in the…

The union of church and state has impoverished Spain.

In America, a catholic priest is a good citizen, a good character, and a good neighbour; an episcopalian minister is of the same description: and this proceeds independently of the men, from there being no law-establishment in America.

Take away the law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity.

Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is alway the strongly-marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law.

The inquisition in Spain does not proceed from the religion originally professed, but from this mule-animal, engendered between the church and the state.

By engendering the church with the state, a sort of mule-animal, capable only of destroying, and not of breeding up, is produced, called the Church established by Law.