THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. - CONDITIONS REQUIRED FOR THE FRAMING OFGOOD LAWS.
Among the most difficult undertakings in this world is the formulation of a national constitution, especially if this is to be a complete and comprehensive work. To replace the old structures inside which a great people has lived by a new, different, appropriate and durable set of laws, to apply a mold of one hundred thousand compartments on to the life of twenty-six million people, to construct it so harmoniously, adapt it so well, so closely, with such an exact appreciation of their needs and their faculties, that they enter it of themselves and move about it without collisions, and that their spontaneous activity should at once find the ease of familiar routine, - is an extraordinary undertaking and probably beyond the powers of the human mind. In any event, the mind requires all its powers to carry the undertaking out, and it cannot protect itself carefully enough against all sources of disturbance and error. An Assembly, especially a Constituent Assembly, requires, outwardly, security and independence, inwardly, silence and order, and generally, calmness, good sense, practical ability and discipline under competent and recognized leaders. Do we find anything of all this in the Constituent Assembly?
I.
These conditions absent in the Assembly - Causes of disorder and irrationality - The place of meeting - The large number of deputies - Interference of the galleries - Rules of procedure wanting, defective, or disregarded.- The parliamentary leaders -Susceptibility and over-excitement of the Assembly - Its paroxysms of enthusiasm. - Its tendency to emotion. -It encourages theatrical display - Changes which these displays introduce in its good intentions.
We have only to look at it outwardly to have some doubts about it.
At Versailles, and then at Paris, the sessions are held in an immense hall capable of seating 2,000 persons, in which the most powerful voice must be strained in order to be heard. It is not calculated for the moderate tone suitable for the discussion of business; the speaker is obliged to shout, and the strain on the voice communicates itself to the mind; the place itself suggests declamation; and this all the more readily because the assemblage consists of 1,200, that is to say, a crowd, and almost a mob. 'At the present day (1877), in our assemblies of five or six hundred deputies, there are constant interruptions and an incessant buzz;there is nothing so rare as self-control, and the firm resolve to give an hour's attention to a discourse opposed to the opinions of the hearers. -- What can be done here to compel silence and patience? Arthur Young on different occasions sees "a hundred members on the floor at once," shouting and gesticulating.
"Gentlemen, you are killing me!" says Bailly, one day, sinking with exhaustion. Another president exclaims in despair, "Two hundred speaking at the same time cannot be heard; will you make it impossible then to restore order in the Assembly?" The rumbling, discordant din is further increased by the uproar of the galleries.[1]
"In the British Parliament," writes Mallet du Pan, "I saw the galleries cleared in a trice because the Duchess of Gordon happened unintentionally to laugh too loud."Here, the thronging crowd of spectators, stringers, delegates from the Palais-Royal, soldiers disguised as citizens, and prostitutes collected and marshaled, applaud, clap their hands, stamp and hoot, at their pleasure. This is carried to so great an extent that M.
de Montlosier ironically proposes "to give the galleries a voice in the deliberations."[2] Another member wishes to know whether the representatives are so many actors, whom the nation sends there to endure the hisses of the Paris public. Interruptions, in fact, take place as in a theater, and, frequently, if the members do not give satisfaction, they are forced to desist. On the other hand, the deputies who are popular with this energetic audience, on which they keep and eye, are actors before the footlights: they involuntarily yield to its influence, and exaggerate their ideas as well as their words to be in unison with it. Tumult and violence, under such circumstances, become a matter of course, and the chances of an Assembly acting wisely are diminished by one-half; on becoming a club of agitators, it ceases to be a conclave of legislators.