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chapter one: On the Admiration for Coups d’Etat - Benjamin Constant, Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments [1815]

Edition used:

Principles of Politics Applicable to a all Governments, trans. Dennis O’Keeffe, ed. Etienne Hofmann, Introduction by Nicholas Capaldi (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2003).

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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


chapter one

On the Admiration for Coups d’Etat

Across the centuries people have been agreed in their admiration for certain examples of expeditious illegality and political outrage. To admire these at one’s leisure, one considers them in isolation, as if the facts which followed them did not form part of their consequences. The Gracchi,1 so it is said, were endangering the Roman Republic. All established legal forms were impotent. Twice the Senate had recourse to the terrible law of necessity and the Republic was saved. The Republic was saved, that is to say that its loss must be dated from this period. All rights were ignored; all constitutionality overturned. The people, in terror one minute, soon resumed their claims, now fortified by vengeance. They had demanded no more than equal privileges; they now vowed that the murderers of their champions should be punished. The ferocious Marius came to preside over this vengeance. Catilina’s accomplices were in irons. It was feared that other sympathizers might release them. Cicero2 had them put to death without trial; and people constantly praise him for his prudence. To be sure, the fruits of his prudence and swift and illegal measures were at least short-lived. Caesar gathered Catilina’s supporters around him and Rome’s freedom died even before Cicero.3 But if he had struck Caesar, Anthony was there; and behind Anthony [106] were yet others. The ambitions of the Guises much disturbed the reign of Henry III. It seemed impossible to bring them to trial. Henry had one of them murdered. Did his reign thereby become more peaceful? He was murdered himself. Twenty years of civil wars tore the French realm apart. For perhaps forty years afterward the admirable Henry IV bore the burden of the crime of the last Valois. In crises of this kind the guilty souls who are killed are never more than few in number. Others keep quiet, hide, and wait. They take advantage of the indignation which violence has repressed in people’s minds, and of the consternation which seeming injustice spreads among law-abiding souls. In casting off the law, the government has lost both its legal character and its greatest asset; and when it is attacked by factions with weapons similar to its own, the mass of citizens may be divided, for it seems to them they have only a choice between two factions. The interests of the State, the dangers of delay, public well-being: if you accept these lofty excuses, these specious words, every government or party will see the interests of the State in the destruction of its enemies, the dangers of delay in an hour spent pondering, and public safety in a condemnation without trial or proof.

When the presumed leaders of a conspiracy cannot be tried without fear that the people will release them, then the disposition of this people is such that punishing the leaders of this conspiracy is pointless. In this frame of mind the people will not be lacking in leaders. People speak casually of the effectiveness of coups d’Etat and of that expeditiousness which, by not giving factions time to get their bearings, reaffirms the authority of governments and the constitution of sovereign realms; yet history affords us not a single example of illegal stringencies producing a lasting salutary effect.

Doubtless political societies face moments of danger any degree of human prudence will find hard to avert. Such dangers, however, simply cannot be averted by violence and injustice, by bringing back the chaos of the state of savagery into the social state. On the contrary, this requires our adhering more scrupulously than ever to the established laws and to the tutelary observances and legal guarantees which protect us. Two advantages result from this courageous persistence in what is just and legal. Governments leave to their enemies all the odium [107] of impropriety and the violation of the most sacred laws. They also win, by the calm and security to which they bear witness, the trust of that timorous mass, who would remain at least undecided if extraordinary and arbitrary measures by the authorities showed that they felt there was a pressing danger. Finally, it must be said, it is sometimes decreed by destiny, that is to say by the inexorable chain of causes and effects, that a government must die, when its institutions form too great a contrast with the mores, habits, and outlooks of those it governs. There are, however, certain actions which the love of life cannot legitimize in individuals. It is the same with governments, and perhaps we will cease calling this simple moral rule simple-minded if we stop to reflect that it is fortified by an experience confirmed in the history of all nations. When a government has no other means than illegal measures to prolong its stay, these measures delay its fall only for a little while, and the overthrow it thought to prevent operates then with all the more misfortune and shame. My advice to those in power will always be: above all act justly, for if the existence of your power is not compatible with justice, then your power is not worth the trouble of conserving. Be just, for if you cannot live with justice, however hard you try with injustice, you will not last long.

I agree that this applies only to governments, whether republican or monarchist, claiming to rest on reasonable principles and affecting a show of moderation. A despotism like that of Constantinople can benefit from violating constitutional proprieties. Its very existence violates them permanently. It has perpetually to rain down blows on innocent and guilty alike. It condemns itself to live in fear of the accomplices it enlists, flatters, and enriches. It subsists by coups d’Etat until a coup d’Etat brings its own death at the hands of its henchmen. Any [108] moderate government, however, any wishing to rest on a system of proper order and justice, loses its way by any suspension of justice or any deviation from proper order. As it is in its nature to grow milder sooner or later, its enemies wait for just such a time to take advantage of memories which will do it damage. Violence seemed to save it for a moment. In fact it made its end the more inevitable, because in delivering it from certain adversaries it extended to everyone the hatred these adversaries bore it.

Many men see the causes of the day’s events only in the acts of the day before. Thus, when violence, having produced a momentary stupor, is followed by a reaction which destroys the effect of this stupor, these men attribute this reaction to ending the violent measures, to insufficient proscriptions, and to the government’s relaxing its grip. It seems to them that even more injustice would have prolonged the government’s life.4 This is like the reasoning of those bandits who are sorry they did not kill the travelers who denounce them, not stopping to think that murderers too are sooner or later discovered. It is in the nature of iniquitous decrees, however, to fall into disuse. Justice alone is stable. It is the nature of government to soften naturally, even without knowing it. Precautionary measures which have become odious are weakened and neglected. Public opinion counts despite its silence; power bends. But because it bends out of weakness rather than moderating itself for just reasons, it does not reconcile hearts to itself. Conspiracies begin anew and hatreds accumulate. The innocent victims of despotism reemerge stronger. The guilty condemned without trial seem innocent. The evil which was held back a few hours returns worse still, aggravated by the evil which has been done.

No, there is no excuse for means which serve all intentions and purposes alike, means which, invoked by good men against brigands, are found again in the words of brigands bearing the authority of good men, with the same apologia: necessity; and the same pretext: public well-being.

[109] The law of Valerius Publicola, which permitted the summary killing of anyone aspiring to tyrannical rule, on condition that the necessary evidence for the accusation would then be submitted, was a tool in turn of aristocratic and popular fury and brought down the Roman Republic.5

To permit society, that is, those in whom political power is invested, to violate legal proprieties is to sacrifice the very end one has in view to the means one uses. Why do we want the government to repress those who would attack our property, our freedom, or our lives? So that our lives, freedom, and wealth are secure. But if our wealth can be destroyed, our freedom threatened, our lives harassed by despotism, what assured good are we deriving from government protection? Why do we want government to punish would-be conspirators against the constitution of the State? Because we fear these conspirators will substitute an oppressive State for a lawful and moderate one. But if the government itself exercises this oppressive power, in what way is it better than the guilty people it punishes? Perhaps there is de facto superiority for a while, since the arbitrary measures of an established government will be less extensive than those of factions which have to establish their power; but this very advantage is lost progressively if governments act arbitrarily. Not only does the number of their enemies multiply in line with the number of their victims; but suspicion grows out of all proportion to the number of their enemies. One blow against individual freedom calls forth others. Once the government enters this fatal road, it finishes soon by being in no way preferable to a faction.

Almost all men have a mania for parading themselves as something more than they are. The mania writers have is for showing themselves to be statesmen. The result is that coups d’Etat, far from being reproved all around as they deserve, have generally been reported with respect and described obligingly. The author, seated peacefully at his desk, casts despotic advice in all directions. He tries to insert into his style the briskness he is recommending [110] in policy. He fancies himself for a moment cloaked in power because he is preaching its abuses, warming up his speculation with all the soaring force and potency which adorn his sentences. He thus gives himself something of the pleasure of government, repeating at the top of his voice all the grand words about the well-being of the people, the higher law, and the public interest. He admires his own profundity and marvels at his own energy. Poor fool! He is talking to men who ask nothing better than to listen to him and one day make him the first victim of his own theory!

This vanity, which has perverted the judgment of so many writers, has caused more difficulties than one might think during our civil upheavals. All the mediocre minds which the flood of events put fleetingly at the head of affairs, filled as they were with all these maxims, all the more agreeable to stupidity in that they served it in cutting through the knots that it could not untie, dreamed only of measures for the public well-being, grand measures and coups d’Etat. They reckoned themselves amazing geniuses, because with each step they diverged from ordinary means. They proclaimed the vastness of their intellects, because justice seemed to them a narrow thing. Is there any need to say where all that has led us?

[1. ]See Constant’s Note A at the end of Book VI.

[2. ]See Constant’s Note B at the end of Book VI.

[3. ]See Constant’s Note C at the end of Book VI.

[4. ]See Constant’s Note D at the end of Book VI.

[5. ]This probably refers to the law of Valerius Poplicola, Consul in 509 , to whom Livy refers, Histoire Romaine, II.8.2: “Among others the law which permits an appeal to the public against a magistrate and that which places anathemas on the person and goods of anyone who aspires to the throne. . . .” Livy, Histoire romaine, Livre II, text edited by Jean Bayet and translated by Gaston Baillet, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1954, p. 13.

[A. [Refers to page 85.]]N.B.: “The Gracchi wanted a revolution,” says M. Ferrand, Esprit de l’histoire, Tome I, p. 262, “which no one has a right to want, which in a lawfully constituted state carries a sentence of death. Theirs was therefore pronounced by law, by the commonweal, by public order. It was not carried out by legal means, because they themselves had rendered these means impossible, because by disturbing society they had put themselves in a state of war. You will find some writers who have upbraided the Senate for the death of the Gracchi, just as they have upbraided Cicero for the death of Catalina’s conspirators, and Henri III for the death of the Guises. In the circumstances in which these events took place, they derived from the right to security, which, belonging to every individual, is all the more the right of every society. A sovereign State, any State whatever, is doubtless at fault when it lets itself be reduced to this necessity as a result of developments it might have been able to stop; but it is guilty of a much greater one if, in turn applying the principles of society to what is subverting them, it did not carry out the condemnation pronounced by the first of these laws, salus populi [the safety of the people]. . . . When there is only one way of saving the State, the first law of all is to use it.”10

I ask: what answer would there have been to the Committee of Public Safety, if these arguments were accepted? Note that when it is a question of a people, rather than a constituted government, it is quite another matter. Then M. Ferrand claims that the laws of proscription called salus populi have never saved the people;11 that “any man living in a society has acquired three rights no one can take away from him and that he cannot lose other than by his own fault or will; these rights are his personal liberty, his property, his life”12 (ibid., pp. 307, 310, 319). Now, therefore, [122] we will say to M. Ferrand, if you condemn him without due process or trial, how do you know his fault is such that he has merited losing these benefits? M. Ferrand continues: “It is not by dint of injustice that one can reorganize a state.”13 But is there not injustice legally, when you violate due process; and how do you know there is not also substantive injustice?

Wretched supporters of despotism who never see it except as a weapon you want to seize for yourselves!14

[B. [Refers to page 85.]]Here give homage to the character and intentions of Cicero.

[C. [Refers to page 85.]]“L. Flaccus, interrex, de Sylla legem tulit, ut omnia, quaecumque ille fecerit, essent rata . . .—nihilo credo magis, illa justa est ut dictator, quem vellet civium, indicta causa, impune possit occidere.” Cicero. [Lucius Flaccus, chief magistrate of the interregnum, passed a law in respect of Sulla, that everything he did was valid . . .—I believe nothing more strongly than that it is just that a dictator should be able to kill whomsoever he wishes of the citizens, with impunity, cause having been given (indicta causa).] And were not Catilina’s accomplices put to death indicta causa?15

[[123] D. [Refers to page 87.]]Following the insurrection in the Cévennes occasioned by the persecution of the Calvinists, the party which had solicited this persecution claimed that the revolt of the camisards was caused only by the relaxation of repressive measures. If the oppression had continued, this party said, there would have been no uprising. If the oppression had not begun, said those who were opposed to the violence, there would not have been any malcontents. Rulhière, Eclaircissements sur la Révocation de l’Edit de Nantes, II, 278.16

[A. [Refers to page 85.]]N.B.: “The Gracchi wanted a revolution,” says M. Ferrand, Esprit de l’histoire, Tome I, p. 262, “which no one has a right to want, which in a lawfully constituted state carries a sentence of death. Theirs was therefore pronounced by law, by the commonweal, by public order. It was not carried out by legal means, because they themselves had rendered these means impossible, because by disturbing society they had put themselves in a state of war. You will find some writers who have upbraided the Senate for the death of the Gracchi, just as they have upbraided Cicero for the death of Catalina’s conspirators, and Henri III for the death of the Guises. In the circumstances in which these events took place, they derived from the right to security, which, belonging to every individual, is all the more the right of every society. A sovereign State, any State whatever, is doubtless at fault when it lets itself be reduced to this necessity as a result of developments it might have been able to stop; but it is guilty of a much greater one if, in turn applying the principles of society to what is subverting them, it did not carry out the condemnation pronounced by the first of these laws, salus populi [the safety of the people]. . . . When there is only one way of saving the State, the first law of all is to use it.”10

I ask: what answer would there have been to the Committee of Public Safety, if these arguments were accepted? Note that when it is a question of a people, rather than a constituted government, it is quite another matter. Then M. Ferrand claims that the laws of proscription called salus populi have never saved the people;11 that “any man living in a society has acquired three rights no one can take away from him and that he cannot lose other than by his own fault or will; these rights are his personal liberty, his property, his life”12 (ibid., pp. 307, 310, 319). Now, therefore, [122] we will say to M. Ferrand, if you condemn him without due process or trial, how do you know his fault is such that he has merited losing these benefits? M. Ferrand continues: “It is not by dint of injustice that one can reorganize a state.”13 But is there not injustice legally, when you violate due process; and how do you know there is not also substantive injustice?

Wretched supporters of despotism who never see it except as a weapon you want to seize for yourselves!14

[C. [Refers to page 85.]]“L. Flaccus, interrex, de Sylla legem tulit, ut omnia, quaecumque ille fecerit, essent rata . . .—nihilo credo magis, illa justa est ut dictator, quem vellet civium, indicta causa, impune possit occidere.” Cicero. [Lucius Flaccus, chief magistrate of the interregnum, passed a law in respect of Sulla, that everything he did was valid . . .—I believe nothing more strongly than that it is just that a dictator should be able to kill whomsoever he wishes of the citizens, with impunity, cause having been given (indicta causa).] And were not Catilina’s accomplices put to death indicta causa?15

[[123] D. [Refers to page 87.]]Following the insurrection in the Cévennes occasioned by the persecution of the Calvinists, the party which had solicited this persecution claimed that the revolt of the camisards was caused only by the relaxation of repressive measures. If the oppression had continued, this party said, there would have been no uprising. If the oppression had not begun, said those who were opposed to the violence, there would not have been any malcontents. Rulhière, Eclaircissements sur la Révocation de l’Edit de Nantes, II, 278.16

[10]Ed. cit, pp. 261–263.

[11]Ibid., p. 319: “This is why the laws of proscription, of confiscation, which are called: Salus populi, have never saved the people.”

[12]Ibid., p. 307, as Constant’s first reference indicates; here is Ferrand’s precise text: “Any man living in a society, and who [122] has explicitly or implicitly sworn to obey the laws, has acquired three rights which no one can take from him and which he cannot lose save by his own fault or choosing: the right to liberty, the right to safety, and the right to property.”

[13]Ibid., p. 310. Here is the complete citation of this sentence: “Indeed it is not by dint of injustices that one can reorganize a State, which is only a justly constituted society.”

[14]In De la force du gouvernment, Constant had written in the same way: “As long as you think of arbitrary government as only a tool to be snatched from your enemy for you to use, your enemy will strive to snatch it from you.” Ch. 8, p. 104 of the 1796 edition.

[15]This Latin quotation has been recopied from Ferrand’s work, op. cit., t. I. 2e éd. 1803, p. 418, n. 1, which gives the following reference: “Cic. Hist. pp. 170–171.” The first part of the quotation, up to the ellipsis, comes from De lege agraria, III, 5; here is the complete text and the translation: “Omnium legum iniquissimam dissimillimamque legis esse arbitror eam quam L. Flaccus interrex de Sulla tulit, ut omnia quaecumque ille fecisset essent rata.”—“Of all the laws, I judge to be the most iniquitous and least like a law that which the interrex Lucius Flaccus passed in respect of Sulla, to legalize all the acts of the dictator.” Cicero, Discours, t. IX, Sur la loi agraire . . . , text edited and translated by André Boulanger, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1932, p. 109. The second part of the quotation comes from De Legibus, I, 42, whose exact text is “Nihilo credo magis illa [lex] quam interrex noster tulit, ut dictator quem vellet civium nominatem aut indicta causa inpune posset occidere.”—I believe in no right more strongly than that law which an interrex passed in our case that a dictator may kill which people he may nominate, with impunity, cause having been given. Cicero, Traité des lois, text edited and translated by George de Plinval, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1959, p. 24. [The French translation (pp. 122–123 of the Hofmann edition) is very free and seems to be rendering indicta causa as “without a trial” (sans proces). One of the three classicists consulted by the translator thought that indicta causa might be best rendered by “the case made public” or “the case having been made public.” Translator’s note]

[16]Claude Carloman de Rulhière, Eclaircissements historiques sur les causes de la Révocation de l’Edit de Nantes et sur l’etat des protestants en France, s.l., 1788, t. II, pp. 278–279. “At the first report of these movements (the insurrection in the Cévennes), each of the two parties mutually accused each other of having caused them. If the oppression had continued, said one, there would have been no uprising. If the oppression had not started, said the other, if the policy had remained that of conversions by enlightened instruction and gentleness, there would have been no malcontents.”