Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 7.djvu/170



in the court of nature, between crime and virtue, between liberty and tyranny, is finally decided in favor of crime and tyranny.

When a nation has been forced to resort to the right of insurrection it returns to a state of nature as regards its tyrant. How can the latter invoke the social compact? He has annihilated it. The nation can preserve it still, if it thinks fit, in whatever concerns the interrelations of its citizens: but the effect of tyranny and insurrection is to break it entirely as regards the tyrant; it is to throw them into mutual war; the tribunals, the judiciary procedures, are made for the members of the city. It is a gross contradiction to suppose that the Constitution can preside over this new state of things; that would be to suppose that it survived itself. What are the laws which replace it? Those of nature, which is the basis of society itself; the safety of the people. The right to punish the tyrant and that to dethrone him are the same thing. The one does not admit of different forms from the other. The tyrant's trial is insurrection; his judgment is the fall of his power; his penalty, whatever the liberty of the people demands.

Peoples do not judge like judiciary courts. They pass no sentences; they hurl the thunderbolt. They do not condemn kings: they thrust them back into oblivion; and this justice is not inferior to that of courts. If they arm themselves against their oppressors for their own safety, why should they be bound to adopt a