"The Law," "The State," and Other Political Writings, 1843-1850

Glossary of Subjects and Terms

453 Anti–Corn Law League (Corn League, or League). Founded in 1838 by Richard Cobden and John Bright in Manchester. The initial aim of the League was to repeal the law restricting the import of grain (Corn Laws), but it soon called for the unilateral ending of all agricultural and industrial restrictions on the free movement of goods between Britain and the rest of the world. For seven years they organized rallies, meetings, public lectures, and debates from one end of Britain to the other and managed to have proponents of free trade elected to Parliament. The Tory government resisted for many years but eventually yielded on 25 June 1846, when unilateral free trade became the law of Great Britain. Association pour la liberté des échanges (Free Trade Association). Group founded in February 1846 in Bordeaux. Bastiat was the secretary of the Board, presided over by François d’Harcourt and having among its members Michel Chevalier, Auguste Blanqui, Joseph Garnier, Gustave de Molinari, and Horace Say. Le Bien public. Journal founded by Lamartine at the end of 1843 “to serve as the organ of the serious but not radical opposition,” as he stated in his Récapitulation. Extrait du bien public (1844), which was taken from Le Bien public, 21 November 1844. Collège de France. Institution created under François I in 1529 to deliver advanced teaching not yet available at the universities. It grants diplomas, chiefly in engineering. Conservatoire national des arts et métiers. Public institution of higher education created by Abbé Grégoire in 1794. It is intended for people already engaged in professional life and grants diplomas, chiefly in engineering. Constituent Assembly. After the overthrow of Louis Philippe on 24 February 1848, an election was held on 23 April to elect a Constituent Assembly which would draw up a new constitution. The election was Glossary of Subjects and Terms 454 Glossary of Subjects and Terms by universal male suffrage and involved nearly eight million Frenchmen. Bastiat was successful in this election, representing the département of the Landes. A Constitution Committee of Twelve was appointed to draw up the constitution, which was approved 739 to 30 on 4 November 1848. La Démocratie pacifique: Journal des intérêts des gouvernements et des peuples. Fourrierist journal, launched and edited by Victor Considérant. The journal advocated the creation of “harmonious communities.” It ran from 1843 to 1851. Département. French administrative division. Départements are the equivalent of counties and enjoy a certain administrative autonomy. Doctrinaires. Group of liberal constitutional monarchists who emerged during the restoration of the French monarchy, between 1815 and 1830. They included such people as Pierre Paul Royer-Collard, François Guizot, Élie Decazes, and Maine de Biran, and the journals in which they wrote included Le Constitutionnel and Le Journal des débats. The aim of the Doctrinaires was to steer a middle course between an outright return to the pre-1789 status quo (supported by the Legitimists) and a republic based on full adult suffrage (supported by the socialists and the radical liberals). The Doctrinaires supported King Louis XVIII, the constitution of 1814, and a severely restricted electorate of wealthy property owners and taxpayers who numbered barely one hundred thousand people. Their main principles were articulated by François Guizot in Du gouvernement représentatif et de l’état actuel de la France (1816). Les Économistes (The Economists). Self-named group of liberal, freetrade political economists. Bastiat and his colleagues believed that, because their doctrine was founded on natural law and a scientific study of the way markets and economies worked in reality, there could be only one school of economics (just as there could be only one school of mechanics or optics). On the other hand, the opponents of free markets (such as the followers of Fourier, Robert Owen, Étienne Cabet, Louis Blanc, Pierre Proudhon, and Pierre Leroux) had as many schools of socialist thought as they could imagine different ways in which society might be restructured or reorganized according to their utopian visions. February Revolution. See the entry for “Revolution of 1848” in this glossary. Fourierism. See the entry for “Fourier, François-Marie Charles,” in the Glossary of Persons. Glossary of Subjects and Terms 455 Fourierist. See the entry for “Fourier, François-Marie Charles,” in the Glossary of Persons. General Council. Chamber in each French département that deliberates on subjects concerning...