Proudhon - A Biography

THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE
*It was on the 26th September, 1848, that, to my great surprise,
I was asked to visit M. Louis Bonaparte... The conversation
turned on the organisation o f work, finance, foreign policy, the
Constitution. M. Bonaparte spoke little, listened to me amiably
and appeared to agree with me in almost everything. He was not
at all misled by the calumnies spread against the socialists; he
blamed unreservedly the policy o f General Cavaignac, the suspen­
sion o f the newspapers, the state o f siege, and that army o f the
Alps which seemed to say to an Italy risen for independence:
My heart would and would not... In all, we were given reason to
believe that the man who posed before us had no longer any­
thing in common with the conspirator o f Strasbourg and
Boulogne, and that it was possible that, as the Republic had
once perished by the hand of a Bonaparte, it might be made
secure in our own day by the hand of another Bonaparte...
‘I find in my notebook, under the date of the 26th September,
these few lines, which I reproduce exactly: “ Visit to Louis'
Bonaparte. This man appears well-intentioned, chivalrous head
and heart; more filled with the glory o f his uncle than with a
strong ambition. A t the same time, a mediocre intellect... For
the rest, be on your guard. It is the custom of every pretender to
seek out first of all the heads o f the parties” .’
Meanwhile, the legislative machine creaked on towards the
elections on which Louis Bonaparte was basing his plans. After
months of committees, in which the right wing had progressively
weeded out every mildly revolutionary clause, the Constitution
that the Assembly had been elected to formulate was finally
approved on the 4th November, by 739 votes to 30. The minority
consisted of 14 Royalists and 16 Democratic Socialists; Proudhon
was among the latter, but whether he acted from the same
motives as his companions seems doubtful when one reads his
statement to Le Moniteur on that day:
‘I voted against the Constitution because it was a Constitution.
What makes the essence of a Constitution— I mean a political
Constitution since there can be no question o f any other— is the
division of sovereignty, in other words, the separation of powers
into legislative and executive... I am convinced that a Constitu­
tion whose first act is to create a Presidency, with its prerogatives,
its ambitions, its culpable hopes, will be a danger rather than a
guarantee to liberty.’