where Buzon took the initiative. Though the active core of these
committees consisted o f old Proudhonians or working-class
militants with whom Proudhon had made contact during the
past three years, these were by no means the only elements who
joined in the campaign. Among the Republicans there were a
number of men, distant from Proudhon in most respects, who
were impressed by the arguments he had put forward for ab
stention as a means of fighting against the despotism. The
most prominent was Jules Bastide, who had been Minister of
Foreign Affairs in the Provisional Government of 1848, and
whom Proudhon had then described as ‘one o f most honourable
men of the party.’ With such support Proudhon (who admitted
at this time: ‘For more than thirty years I have got into the habit
of upholding lost causes’) began to feel that there was a chance of
giving his views a much greater impact than he had first antici
pated.
Proudhon’s first contribution to the abstentionist campaign was
a detailed exposition o f his arguments for presentation to the
general public. It appeared in April, 1863, under the title o f Les
Democrates Assermentes et les Refractaires (Oath-taking Democrats
and Non-Jurors).
As the title suggests, Proudhon’s main object was to mark
clearly the line between those willing to co-operate in a limited
degree with the Empire by becoming candidates for the legis
lative corps and those, like himself, content only with complete
opposition to the State as constituted. He described it as ‘a little
philosophy o f universal suffrage, in which I show that this great
principle of democracy is a corollary o f the federal principle or
nothing.’ But he went beyond this objective by exposing the false
ness o f a pretended democracy where the Press was not free,
where executive power remained firmly in the hands o f the dynast,
where the representatives o f the people could not discuss and
criticise the actions o f the government, and where the alleged
sovereignty o f universal suffrage was belied by the oath of alle
giance to an emperor He contended that in such circumstances
only the people’s refusal to participate in the mockery of the
elections would shake the power o f the dynasty and prepare a
revival o f the revolutionary way.
Les Democrates Assermentes was a well-argued pamphlet, concise
and brisk, and it was read with much attention. But it did not
THE STRICKEN YEARS