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282 [vol. 5, p. 407. “Paix et liberté ou le budget républicain.” February 1849. n.p.] A program! A program! That is the cry that rises from all sides to the cabinet.2 How do you understand home affairs? What will your foreign policy be? Through what major measures do you mean to raise revenue? Are you undertaking to remove from us the triple plague that appears to be hovering over our heads: war, revolution, and bankruptcy? Will we at last be able to devote ourselves in some degree of security to work, enterprise, and major undertakings? What have you drawn up to ensure for us the tomorrow you promised to all citizens the day you took the helm of our affairs? This is what everyone is asking, but alas! the minister makes no reply . What is worse, he appears to be systematically determined not to say anything. What should we conclude from this? Either the cabinet has no plan, or, if it has one, it is hiding it. Well then, I say that, in either case, the cabinet is failing in its duty. If it is hiding its plan, it is doing something it has no right to do, since a government plan does not belong to the government but to the public. We are the ones interested in the plan, since our well-being and security depend on it. We ought to be governed not according to the hidden intentions of the government but according to intentions that are known and approved. It 2. On the very day of his election as president of the Republic, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte appointed a cabinet. It was headed by Odilon Barrot and included a number of outstanding personalities, among them two well-known liberals, Hyppolite Passy (finance ) and Léon Faucher (public works and the interior).  15  Peace and Freedom or the Republican Budget1 1. (Paillottet’s note) A pamphlet published in February 1849. One month earlier in Le Journal des débats, the author had written an article that we are copying at the end of Peace and Freedom because it is on the same subject. Peace and Freedom 283 is up to the cabinet to set out, propose, and take the initiative, up to us to judge it, accept or refuse it. But in order to judge, we need knowledge. He who climbs onto the driving seat and takes the reins is declaring by this very act that he knows or thinks he knows the destination to be reached and the route that must be taken. At the very least he should not keep destination and route a secret from the travelers when these travelers form the whole of a great nation. If there is no plan,3 let him judge for himself what he must do. In all eras government calls for an idea, and this is especially true today. It is very clear that we can no longer follow the same old ruts, the ruts that have already overturned the coach in the mud three times. The status quo is impossible and tradition inadequate. Reforms are needed, and although the words have a hollow ring, I will say, “We need something new,” not something new that undermines, overturns, and terrifies, but something new that maintains, consolidates, reassures, and rallies. Therefore, in my ardent desire to see a genuine republican budget appear, and discouraged by government silence, I remembered the old proverb, “If you want something done properly, do it yourself,” and to be sure of having a program I drew one up. I submit it to the public’s good sense. And first of all, I have to tell you in what spirit it was conceived. I love the Republic, and, to make an admission that may surprise some people,4 I add that I like it much better than on 24 February.5 These are my reasons. Like all political writers, even those from the monarchical school, including Chateaubriand among others, I believe that a republic is the natural form of normal government. The people, the king, and the aristocracy are three powers that can coexist only during their conflict. This conflict has armistices known as charters. Each power stipulates in these charters a part that relates to its victories. It is in vain that theoreticians have intervened and said, “The height of art is to settle the attributions of the three jousters in such a way that they counter each other mutually.” The...

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