The same person, M. Garnier-Pagès, who was at once an eminent actor in these scenes and their most authentic historian, thus again dwells on the true idea of a Republic:-- “The Republic, that government of _all by all_, where each has his place, his duty, and his right; the Republic, that is to say, Liberty itself, the liberty to do every act and to give utterance to every thought not prejudicial to others; the Republic, that fraternal ground where are admitted all parties, the representatives of the past as well as of the future, where all minds, all associations, can have free scope.”[173] This precise definition is fitly crowned by the remarkable words revealing the soul of De Tocqueville:-- “I should, I think, have loved Liberty at all times, but in the times in which we live I feel inclined to adore it.… There is no legislator sufficiently wise and sufficiently powerful to maintain free institutions, _if he does not take Equality for first principle and symbol_. All our contemporaries, then, who would create or assure the independence and dignity of their fellow-men, must show themselves the friends of Equality; and the only worthy way of showing themselves such is to be so. Upon this depends the success of their holy enterprise.”[174] To the authentic testimony of modern France, in harmony with our own country, I add the definition of a very recent foreign publicist, who, after dwelling on Equality as the idol sentiment of a Republic, says:-- “This shows us the nature and the end of republican government. It is a government founded on the general interest and equality.”[175] Admirable words!--in themselves a definition. And here, before closing this testimony, let me call attention to two authorities, contemporary with our fathers, which stand apart,--one English, and the other German. The first is that of Dr. Richard Price, the friend of John Adams, who very early appreciated the American Revolution, and vindicated it before the world. Here is his idea of good government, compendiously expressed:-- “Legitimate government, as opposed to oppression and tyranny, consists only in the dominion of _Equal Laws_ made with _common consent_, or of men over _themselves_; and not in the dominion of communities over communities, or of any men over other men.”[176] The German was none other than the great thinker, Emanuel Kant, who, in his speculations on Perpetual Peace, says, that to this end every state should be a Republic, which he defines:-- “That form of government where _every citizen_ participates by his representatives in the exercise of the legislative power, and especially in that of deciding on the questions of peace and war.”[177]