Vindiciae Gallicae - 1837 Author:James Mackintosh Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SECTION III. POPULAR EXCESSES WHICH ATTENDED THE REVOLUTION. That no great revolutions can be accomplished without excesses and miseries at which humanity ... more »revolts, is a truth which cannot be denied. This unfortunately is true, in a peculiar manner,' of those revolutions, which, like that of France, are strictly popular. Where the people are led by a faction, its leaders find no difficulty in the re-establishment of that order which must be the object of their wishes, because it is the sole security of their power. But when a general movement of the popular mind levels a despotism with the ground, it is far less easy to restrain excess. There is more resentment to satiate and less authority to control. The passion which produced an effect so tremendous, is too violent to subside in a moment into serenity and submission. The spirit of revolt breaks out with fatal violence after its object is destroyed, and turns against the order of freedom those arms by which it had subdued the strength of tyranny. The attempt to punish the spirit that actuates a people, if it were just, would be in vain, and if it were possible, would be cruel- They are too many to be punished in a view of justice, and too strong to be punished in a view of policy. The ostentation of vigour would in such a case prove the display of impotence, and the rigor of justice conduct to the cruelty of extirpation. No remedy is therefore left but the progress of instruction, the force of persuasion, the mild authority of opinion. These remedies, though infallible, are of slow operation; and in the interval which elapses before a calm succeeds the boisterous moments of a revolution, it is vain to expect that a people inured to barbarism by their oppressors, and which has ages of oppression to avenge, will be punctiliou...« less