Europe and the American Revolution 197
oneself.”^35 The incredible triviality of the last two words was unfortunately not
limited to Brissot.
Nevertheless Brissot is an exceptionally good example of the American influ-
ence. His Gallo- American Society of 1787 was a little comical. He founded it with
three others, Bergasse, the Genevese Clavière, and the Americanized St. John de
Crevecoeur. The first meeting, however, revealed an ideological difficulty, for
Clavière found the aim of the society too narrow, since he had “devoted all his
thoughts... to truths useful and beneficial for all men in general, without distinc-
tion of nation.”^36 The society never had much success, influence, or membership;
but we can already see the Girondist crusade of all peoples against all kings—
Clavière, too, like Brissot, was a minister of state in 1792.
Soon after this attempt to found a Gallo- American Society Brissot went to the
United States, and spent several months in that country during the debates over
ratification of the federal constitution. He quickly grasped the essential new doc-
trine of the American Revolution, as I have described it in the last chapter—the
idea of the people as a constituent power, creating, delimiting, and granting au-
thority to organs of government, through the mechanism of a convention chosen
for that purpose only. He returned to France in the fall of 1788, during the prepa-
rations for the Estates- General. He published, early in 1789, a “Plan of Conduct”
for the deputies who were about to meet.
Here he clearly applied the American doctrine. A constitution, he declared, was
“the act of apportioning the legislative, executive, and judicial powers.” These
grants of power could come from the people alone; for Brissot was in revolt against
all constituted bodies. None of the powers thus constituted by the people had au-
thority to change the constitution. Only a constitutional convention could do that;
hence the Estates- General could not draw up a constitution for France. And
whence came this device of a constituting convention? “We owe its discovery to
the Free Americans, and the convention which has just formed the plan for a fed-
eral system has infinitely perfected it.” Moreover, “this device or method of the
Free Americans can perhaps be very easily adapted to the circumstances in which
France now finds itself.”^37
The great problem (and it was a real problem) was to prevent the powers thus
constituted from usurping more authority than they had been granted. According
to one school, the several constituted powers of government, by watching and bal-
ancing and checking one another, were to prevent such usurpation. According to
another school, which regarded the first school as undemocratic or mistrustful of
the people, the people itself must maintain a constant vigilance and restraint upon
the powers of government. There were partisans of both schools on both sides of
the Atlantic. Brissot belonged emphatically to the second school. The Constituent
Power, or People, he said, must keep a perpetual watch over government. He
thought the amending process provided in the new American federal constitution
35 Ibid., 150–60.
36 Ibid., 108. See also L. A. Vigneras, “La Société gallo- americaine de 1787,” in Bulletin de
l ’Institut français de Washington, December 1952.
37 Brissot, Plan de conduite des déeputés du peuple aux Etats- Généraux de 1789 (Paris, 1789),
240–42.