634 Chapter XXVI
world, or Ottoman Empire in Europe and Asia Minor, could be dissolved or dis-
tilled into a democratic republic.
In Britain, Ireland, and America a process akin to departmentalization took the
milder form of the demand for representation according to numbers, that is, of
election of representatives by something approaching universal suffrage in equal
electoral districts. In England this demand had accompanied the parliamentary
reform movement since the 1770’s; the purpose was to undercut borough- owners,
entrenched town corporations, and other such entities of the English old regime.
In America the principle of numerical representation was incorporated in the state
constitutions issuing from the Revolution, and in the federal constitution of 1787.
In Ireland in 1794, before they turned revolutionary, the United Irish drew up a
proposal for parliamentary reform. By this plan “the nation, for the purposes of
representation solely,” that is, for election to the Irish House of Commons, “should
be divided into 300 electorates... as nearly as possible equal in point of popula-
tion.” It was hoped thus to break “the vassalage of tenant to landlord,” and in the
long run, by overcoming the vested interests, to get rid of tithes paid to the Angli-
can church, reform the taxes, and make it legal for newspapers to be sold for a
half- penny.^45
In France and the states associated with it in 1798 the changes at the concrete
local level, in departments and municipalities, proved more permanent than the
short- lived republics within which they were first projected. After 1800 the Napo-
leonic administrators continued to develop and strengthen these local arrange-
ments, which also survived the Restoration of 1814, in different degree in different
countries, and so became part of the fabric of modern Europe.
At the more general level of democratic constitutional doctrines a difference
between Europe and the United States was already apparent. It may be recalled,
from the first part of the present book, that the American state constitutions, when
they became known in Europe in the 1780’s, had been the subject of much eager
discussion. It does not seem (though the matter has not been thoroughly studied)
that the American practice was much cited in the constitutional discussions that
went on in Holland, Switzerland, or Italy after 1795. The French example had in
the intervening years thoroughly overlaid the American, but in any case the Amer-
ican example did not meet the needs in Europe, where democra tization required
the building up of a central authority by which the territory could be “departmen-
talized.” The point is borne out by a rare publication which appeared in Paris in
1798.^46 It presented in four languages—French, Italian, German and English—the
constitutions of the French, Cisalpine, and Ligurian Republics, and the Declara-
tion of Independence of the United States. Perhaps the publisher hoped to circu-
late it widely as a handbook throughout the new republican order. If so, its rarity
45 E. Curtis and R. B. McDowell, Irish Historical Documents 1172–1922 (London, 1943), 237–38;
McDowell, Irish Public Opinion, 197–98.
46 Constitutions des républiques française, cisalpine et ligurienne, avec l ’acte d ’ indépendance des Etats-
Unis d ’Amérique, dans les quatre langues française, anglaise, allemande et italienne (Paris An VII). This
title was advertised in the Moniteur, 2 Vendemiaire VII (September 23, 1798). A copy with a variant
title, Acte d ’ indépendance des Etats- Unis d ’Amérique, et constitutions... , without place or date, is at the
New York Public Library.