Haller contra the Fraud of "Constitutional Government"

The hidden history and true original purpose of the Liberal constitution-fetish

(Adapted from Karl-Ludwig von Haller, "Fragmens d'un Dictionnaire Libéral", in Mélanges de Droit Public et Haute Politique, Tome Premier, Paris: August Vaton, [1839] 1889, pp. 247-69, trans. mine)

FORMERLY, there were no constitutions, properly so-called, except in republics, or in corporations and communities, since a disparate multitude needs to be unified, constituted, and, so-to-speak, organized into a species of deliberating body, in order to manifest a common will, and to have it executed. These constitutions were sometimes called statutes or regulations, sometimes fundamental laws, since these laws in fact found an artificial society. In origin, they were never made by the members of the community, but instituted by the previous masters who formed it, and subsequently through successive regulations, to the extent that needs or abuses demanded remedies or preventatives. Everyone submits to them upon entry into the community, as to an existing law, and that one didn't make. Their principal object is to form, or rather to preserve the community itself. The rules of admission or exclusion from citizenship, those on the internal organization of the association, on the forms of convocation, election or deliberation, are their main components; these are regulations to uphold, to the extent possible, the natural law that must rule in a community; more or less beneficial, but always highly-imperfect, preventatives for stopping the particular will of one or several individuals from becoming able to prevail over the opposing will of others, something that nonetheless doesn't fail to happen all too frequently. Whatever falls within the internal regime of the community, whatever comes under the domain of its action, of its possessions, of its legitimate liberty, however important it may be, is in no way part of the constitution, any more than the fortune of an individual, his lifestyle or his various relations with other men belong to the physical constitution of his body.     

     However, in the natural relations of a father with his children, of a master of whatever sort with his servants, of a king with the various classes of his subjects, there is no, there can be no constitution, or at least it is a highly-improper expression, since in them there is no community that needs to be constituted, no equality of rights, benefits, and obligations, but everyone has his own proper obligations, and equality, or rather justice, commands to leave them what belongs to them. The liberals thus have reason to say that there is no constitution in the old monarchies; but us, we're mistaken to believe they need one. Nature herself is tasked with constituting and organizing the regnant individual, that is to say opulent, powerful, and independent, around whom those need his benefits and protection come to gather. His relations with his servants and his subordinates don't rest upon a constitution written in titles, chapters, sections, and paragraphs; but upon mutual assistance, upon an exchange of services, upon the order of nature, and upon an infinite number of private agreements, much more free than a so-called social contract, where one is subjected to the arbitrary will of one's equals, without them giving you anything in return. Furthermore, the word constitution was formerly unknown in monarchies, and was put into vogue only since it has been sought to revolutionize them or turn them into republics. England herself has none, or better yet we dare the liberal set to show it to us; they won't find an example in all of Great Britain. No more do the rights and duties of the king of France rest upon a constitution, but upon titles of acquisition or of possession of his various domains, upon wills and testaments, purchases or donations, peace treaties, royal concessions, upon innumerable private agreements; finally, upon the natural law of respecting the rights of others, even of protecting them, and upon the equally natural obligation of fulfilling his promises and keeping the faith of treaties, at least as long as the other party exists, and observes them in his turn. Here is what formed that vast and beautiful family of the French people, united to their king by the heart, by sentiment, by recognition and by glorious memories, and not by cold and icy constitutions.

     It was roughly the same in all the other kingdoms and in all the other principalities of the world, even in private seniories, those secondary links in the great social chain; for the great landowners in their domains, the heads of a commercial enterprise or a big factory, have yet, to my knowledge, to give constitutions to their people or their subordinates, who would in any case have just as much of a right to demand them. These gentlemen would find it most odious that their tenants, their workers, and their assistants should seek to form themselves into a sovereign or independent corporation, call the house of their boss a public institution, give laws to their master, and claim that his domains or his capital are national or communal property [Marx of course commenced to agitate for exactly that just a few years later -trans.]. The very Charter that the king of France gave upon  returning to his kingdom, and which we do not intend to praise in any case, is in no way a constitution of the French people, but is at most a constitution of the Chamber of Deputies and the Chamber of Peers, two assemblies that would never have existed without it. As to the private rights that it accords or recognizes, it is nothing but a concession or a royal promise. There has also been similar charters or promises in other countries in the wake of analogous events; but never were these called constitutions, since the State, the king and his people existed before the Charter, and are in no way constituted by it. 

     Hence whenever the liberals and revolutionaries of all lands, speak of constitutions in monarchies, in touting their necessity, seeking to introduce them in one way or another, by this word they by no means understand, the laws under which life is lived, existing rights and relations, since nothing would have changed unless it were otherwise; but they understand, in the rigorous sense of the term, very gently, or sometimes violently, transforming monarchy into republic, seniory into company; they seek to form a vast community, oppose a hostile corporation to kings, at first to thwart them, then dominate them, then finally dethrone them. Should they consent to such constitutions being made or introduced by kings, it is by no means because they recognize their right, nor because this would be in keeping with their principles, but in order to adapt to hard necessity, since, without the power of kings, these constitutions would never get themselves made, whether by want of agreement between so many framers, or by want of means. Indeed, suppose for a moment that a king, having the sentiment of real liberty, consequently of his own, were to address the following speech to the revolutionaries of his country: "Gentlemen, that call yourselves a sovereign people, I will by no means stop you from making a social contract between yourselves and as many constitutions as you want; but, as to me, also a man, I have absolutely no desire to join your community; I want neither to be your colleague, nor your functionary, still less give you my properties and my revenues to squander, or to make use of at your will; I reserve my original liberty and my independence to myself, since I am strong enough to protect myself, whether by myself, or with the help of my friends; I will recognize you as an independent State, and I'll live in peace with you, for as long as this is possible; but should it happen, what displeases God! that, as a result of your constitution and your government, you violate my personal rights, my liberty, my property, or that of my servants who stayed loyal to me, and who perhaps request my support, I will declare war on you, not as to subjects, since you don't want to be that, but as to enemies". Certainly, after a speech such that the king of France could, for example, have addressed to the left wing of the so-called constituent assembly, these gentlemen would have been too embarrassed to answer, and would have promptly abandoned their constitutional project. Moreover, they very well know it, since they avowedly need kings; but they know how to advocate these constitutions to them, demand them, get them, and so usurp the power of kings, here by hypocritical adulations and there by threats. It is in this sense that they are in fact the legislative power, and that they call those kings, who want to be, their executive power. It is in this sense yet again that we have often heard them say, and that they have written: "It is wrong to accuse us of coveting the power of kings; we need them, we can't do without them, at least provisionally".   

     The ordinary and patent sense of the word constitution, applied to a monarchy, is to strip kings of their power, their wealth, and their sovereignty, in order to invest it in the people, or an assembly of whatever sort that purports to represent them. But in the language of liberals, this word additionally has a hidden or esoteric sense, which is good to know, and which reveals itself in their writings, even to uninformed but attentive readers. It's that it is always implied that the members of the liberal fraternity disseminated throughout all Europe, alone are men and citizens; they alone, taken together and as a collective, comprise the human species, and in each country, that is to say in each province of this so-called human species, they alone comprise the people or the nation; something self-evident, since all who oppose their projects are deemed enemies of the people, and guilty of the crime of lèse-nation. Consequently too, they alone are to be constituted, organized, invested with power; they alone are to become free, independent, sovereign, in the place of despoiled kings, and that, in a most simple manner, without it costing them the slightest effort. For it is clear that as soon as a constitution is introduced, it takes men who are favourable to it to make it work and to maintain it. Now, since nobody likes those constitutions or those institutions known as liberal, except for the liberals or revolutionaries themselves: it goes without saying that they alone should occupy and in fact do occupy all public offices, especially the highest, and consequently enjoy sovereign power. Hence, we have seen this necessary and unmistakable result in every country where such constitutions have been introduced. If others sometimes come into positions, it happens furtively, it is by subterfuge or subversion; these are traitors, foreigners; they don't last long, and if ever the liberals should come to draw all the conclusions of their constitutions, namely doing away with kings, provisional instruments, but henceforth incommodious, and establishing their republic, which, according to the decamisados of Spain, must make for the delight and the well-being of free humanity; you can furthermore expect that this republic will belong only to them, and will be constituted by them and for them alone; they will be the sole members and the sole directors; the rest of us, we'll make up nothing but the subjects or slaves. As to us, we protest against this last quality, and we don't aspire to even the first; but there remains a third, that of their enemies.