The emperor confessedly holds his power by the grace of God and
the will of the nation, which is a clear acknowledgment that the
sovereignty vests in the French people as the French state; but
the imperial constitution, which is the constitution of the
government, not of the state, studies, while acknowledging the
sovereignty of the people, to render it nugatory, by transferring
it, under various subtle disguises, to the government, and
practically to the emperor as chief of the government. The
senate, the council of state, the legislative body, and the
emperor, are all creatures of the French state, and have properly
no political functions, and to give them such functions is to
place the sovereign under his own subjects! The real aim of the
imperial constitution is to secure despotic power under the
guise of republicanism. It leaves and is intended to leave the
nation no way of practically asserting its sovereignty but by
either a revolution or a plebiscitum, and a plebiscitum is
permissible only where there is no regular government.
The British constitution is consistent with itself, but imposes
no restriction on the power of the government. The French
imperial constitution is illogical, inconsistent with itself as
well as with the free action of the nation. The American
constitution has all the advantages of both, and the
disadvantages of neither.
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