THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT TO THE FRENCH PEOPLE.

New Zealander, Volume 4, Issue 234, 26 August 1848, Page 3

THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT TO THE FRENCH PEOPLE.

Citizens— ln all the great acts of the life of a people, it becomes the duty of the Government to make its voice be heard by the nation. You are about to accomplish the greatest act of the | life of a people: to choose the representatives of the country ; to produce from your consiences and your suffrages not a mere Government but an entire constitution ! You aie going to organize the Republic For our part, we have only proclaimed it. Carried by acclamation to power during the interregnum of the people, we did not wish, and we do not wish, for any other dictatorship but that of absolute necessity. If we had refused the post of peril, we ihould have been cowards. If we should remain in it one hour more than neeesiity commands, we should be usurpators. You alone are itrong. We count the days. We hasten to give back the Republic to the nation. The provisional election law which we have made is the widest that in any nation of the earth has ever convoked a people to the exercise of the supreme right of man, his own sovereignty. The election belongs to nil without exception. From the date of this law there- are no more subjects in France. Every Frenchman of verile age is a political citizen. Every citizen is an elector. Every elector is sovereign. 1 lie law is equal and absolute for all. There is no citizen who can say to another * You arc more sovereign than I.' Contemplate your power. Prepare to exercise it, and be worthy of entering into pobsessiun of your reign. The reinn of the people is called the Republic. " If you aik us what Republic we understand by this *vord, and what principle!, what politics, what virtues, we desire in the Republicans whom ye are going to elect ?— we answer, ' Regard the people of Paris and of France since the proclamation of the republic 1 ' The paople has fought with heroism. The people has triumphed with humanity. The people lias suppressed anarchy from the first hour. The people has itself, immediately after the. combat, bioken the weapon of itb just anget : it has burnt the scaffold. It has proclaimed the abolition of the punishment of death against its enemies. It hai respected individual liberty by not proscribing any one. It has respected conscience in religion, which it wishes to be free, but which it wishes to be without inequality and without privilege. It hai respected property. It has pushed probity to those instances of sublime disinterestedness which are the admiration and the charm of history. It has chosen everywhere, in order to place them at its head, the names of the most honest and the foremost men who have fallen under its hand. It has not uttered a cry of hatred or of envy against fortunes. Not a cry of vengeance againgt persons. It has made, in onewoid, of the name of the people, tho name of courage, of clemency, and of virtue. We have not a single instruction to give you. Inspire yourselres with the people : imitate it. Think, feel, vote, act like it. For its own part, the Provksional Government will not imitate the governments which are usurpers to the sovereignty of the people, which would corrupt the electors, and which would buy at an immoral price the consciemce of the country. What would be the good of succeeding to those governments, if it were only to imitate them ? What would be the good of having created and adored the Republic, if the Republic were to enter from the first day of its existence into the track of the abolished royalty ? It considers it as one of its duties to throw over the operations of the election that light which enlightens consiences without oppressing them. It limits itself to the ueutralizing of the hostile influence of the old administrations, which has pei verted and destroyed the right of election. The Provisional Government wishes that the consience of the public should reign. It does not disquiet itself with the old parties. The old partici have grown older by an age of three days ! The Republic will convince them, if it be sure and just to them. Necessity it a great master. The Republic, know it well, has the happiness to be a government of necessity. Reflection is for us. It is impossible to return to impossible royalties. No one wishes to descend to unknown anarchy. We shall be republican by reason. Give only security, reason, and respect for all ; insure to others the independence of suffrages which you wiih for yourselves. Do not notice what names those whom you believe to be your enemies write upon the bulletins, and be sure beforehand that you will write the only name that can save them j that is to say, that of a capable and honest republican. Security, liberty, respect for the consciences of all citizens who are electors : what is the intention of a Republican Government, that is its duty, that is yours 1 That is the safety of the people ! Have confidence in the good sense of the country. It will have coufidence in you. Give it liberty, and it will give you hack the Republic. <•' Citizens, France U attempting at this moment— in the midst of some financial difficulties, bequeathed to her by royalty — but under providential auspice*, the greatest work of modern times, the foundation of the government of the entire people— the organization of the democracy — the Republic of all rights, of all interests, of all the intelligences, and of all virtues ! Circumstances are propitious. Peace is possible. The new idea may be able to take its place in Europe, Without any perturbation but that of the prejudices which people have against it. There is no anger in the minds of the people. If the fugitive royalty was not carried awuy with all the enemies of the Republic, it has left them powerless ; and although they are invested with all the rights which the Republic guarantee! to mojoiitiei, their interest and their prudence in" sure to us that they will not themselves trouble the jeacable foundation of the popular constitution.

" In three days tlmtwoik which it was thought was postponed to distant times, has been accomplished without a drop of blood being spilt in France, without any other cry hut that of admiration being heard in our departments or on the frontiers. Let us not lose this unique occasion in history. Let us not abdicate the Srcatoat force of the new idea— the secuiity which it inspires in citizens, the astonishment which it inspires in the world. " Yet a few days of magnanimity, of devotion, of patience, and the National Assembly will receive from our hands the new-born Republic. From that d.iy all will be saved. When the nation, by the hands of its representative';, shall have seized the Republic tiic Republic will be strong and great, like the nation ; lioly, like the idea of the people ; inuerishablc, like the country (patriej*'*