Reform what?
Reform the constitution? It is impossible. Though the entire
nation should enter the constitutional convention, it would not
leave it until it had either voted its servitude under another
form, or decreed its dissolution.
Reconstruct the code, the work of the emperor, the pure substance
of Roman law and custom? It is impossible. What have you to put
in the place of your proprietary routine, outside of which you
see and understand nothing? in the place of your laws of
monopoly, the limits of whose circle your imagination is
powerless to overstep? More than half a century ago royalty and
democracy, those two sibyls which the ancient world has
bequeathed to us, undertook, by a constitutional compromise, to
harmonize their oracles; since the wisdom of the prince has
placed itself in unison with the voice of the people, what
revelation has resulted? what principle of order has been
discovered? what issue from the labyrinth of privilege pointed
out? Before prince and people had signed this strange
compromise, in what were their ideas not similar? and now that
each is trying to break the contract, in what do they differ?
Diminish public burdens, assess taxes on a more equitable basis?
It is impossible: to the treasury as to the army the man of the
people will always furnish more than his contingent.
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