Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/167



"It is the duty of the Commune to confirm and ascertain the aspirations and wishes of the people of Paris. The precise character of the movement of the 18th of March is misunderstood and unknown, and is calumniated by the politicians at Versailles. At that time Paris still labored and suffered for the whole of France, for whom she had prepared by her battles an intellectual, moral, administrative, and economic regeneration, glory, and prosperity. What does she demand? The recognition and consolidation of the Republic, and the absolute autonomy of the Commune extended at all places in France, thus assuring to each the integrality of its rights, and to every Frenchman the full exercise of his faculties and aptitudes as a man, a citizen, and a producer. The autonomy of the Commune has no other limits but its rights. The autonomy is equal for all Communes who are adherents of the contract, the association of which ought to secure the unity of France. The inherent rights of the Commune are to vote the Communal budget of receipts and expenses, the imposing and alteration of taxes, the direction of local services, the organization of the magistracy, internal police, and education. The administration of the property belonging to the Commune, the choice by election or competition with the responsibility and permanent right of control and revocation of the communal magistrates and officials of all classes, the absolute guarantee of individual liberty and liberty of conscience, the permanent intervention of the citizens in communal affairs by the free manifestation of their ideas and the free defence of their interests; guarantees given to those manifestations by the Commune who alone are charged with securing the free and just exercise of the right of meeting and publicity; the organization of urban defence, and of the National Guard, which elects its chiefs and alone watches over the maintenance of order in the city. Paris wishes