The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville — John Shaqi
The Recollections of Alexis de TocquevilleTocqueville, Alexis de
History
The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville
Tocqueville, Alexis de
France -- History -- February Revolution, 1848
"... The time will come when the country will find itself once
again divided between two great parties. The French Revolution,
which abolished all privileges and destroyed all exclusive rights,
has allowed one to remain, that of landed property. Let not the
landlords deceive themselves as to the strength of their position,
nor think that the rights of property form an insurmountable
barrier because they have not as yet been surmounted; for our times
are unlike any others. When the rights of property were merely the
origin and commencement of a number of other rights, they were
easily defended, or rather, they were never attacked; they then
formed the surrounding wall of society, of which all other rights
were the outposts; no blows reached them; no serious attempt was
ever made to touch them. But to-day, when the rights of property
are nothing more than the last remnants of an overthrown
aristocratic world; when they alone are left intact, isolated
privileges amid the universal levelling of society; when they are
no longer protected behind a number of still more controversible
and odious rights, the case is altered, and they alone are left
daily to resist the direct and unceasing shock of democratic
opinion....
"... Before long, the political struggle will be restricted to
those who have and those who have not; property will form the great
field of battle; and the principal political questions will turn
upon the more or less important modifications to be introduced into
the rights of landlords. We shall then have once more among us
great public agitations and great political parties.
"How is it that these premonitory symptoms escape the general view?
Can anyone believe that it is by accident, through some passing
whim of the human brain, that we see appearing on every side these
curious doctrines, bearing different titles, but all characterized
in their essence by their denial of the rights of property, and all
tending, at least, to limit, diminish, and weaken the exercise of
these rights? Who can fail here to recognise the final symptom of
the old democratic disease of the time, whose crisis would seem to
be at hand?"
I was still more urgent and explicit in the speech which I delivered in
the Chamber of Deputies on the 29th of January 1848, and which appeared
in the _Moniteur_ of the 30th.
I quote the principal passages:
"... I am told that there is no danger because there are no riots;
I am told that, because there is no visible disorder on the surface
of society, there is no revolution at hand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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