Voting is the act of
a ruler, and therefore a privilege of the new sovereigns, which is the
view of it entertained by both sovereigns and subjects:[81] "a
republican minority operating legally must prevail against a majority
influenced by royalism."[82] They are to see the government on
election days, launching forth "in each department its commission
agents, and controlling votes by threats and all sorts of promises and
seductions,[83] arresting the electors and presidents of the primary
assemblies," even pouncing on refractory Jacobins, invalidating the
returns of a majority when not satisfactory to them, and rendering the
choice of a minority valid, if it suited them, in short, constituting
itself the chief elector of all local and central authorities. -
Finally, all institutions, laws, public and private rights, are down,
and the nation, body and soul, again becomes, as under Robespierre,
the property of its rulers with this sole difference, that the kings
of Terror, postponing their constitution, openly proclaim their
omnipotence, whilst the others hypocritically rule under a
constitution which they have themselves destroyed, and reign by virtue
of a title which interdicts royalty to them.
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