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#Post#: 20309--------------------------------------------------
Robespierre speech "Republic of Virtue"
By: Long Knives 88 Date: January 13, 2016, 3:05 pm
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5-2-1794
Robespierre's Republic of Virtue
What is the aim we want to achieve? The peaceful enjoyment of
liberty and equality; the reign of that eternal justice whose
laws are engraved not in stone and marble, but in the hearts of
all men, even in the heart of the slave who forgets them or of
the tyrant who disowns them.
We want a state of affairs where all despicable and cruel
passions are unknown, and all kind and generous passions are
aroused by the laws; where ambition is the desire to deserve
glory and to serve the fatherland; where distinctions arise only
from equality itself; where the citizen submits to the
magistrate, the magistrate to the people and the people to
justice; where the fatherland guarantees the well-being of each
individual, and where each individual enjoys with pride the
prosperity and glory of the fatherland; where all souls elevate
themselves through constant communication or republican
sentiments and through the need to deserve the esteem of a great
people; where the arts are the decorations of liberty that
ennobles them, where commerce is the source of public wealth and
not only of the monstrous opulence of a few house.
In our country we want to substitute morality for egoism,
honesty for honor, principles for customs, duties for decorum,
the rule of reason for the tyranny of custom, the contempt of
vice for the contempt of misfortune, pride for insolence,
magnanimity for vanity, love of glory for love of money, good
people for well-bred people, merit for intrigue, genius for wit,
truth for pompous action, warmth of happiness for boredom of
sensuality, greatness of man for pettiness of the great; a
magnanimous, powerful, happy people for a polite, frivolous,
despicable people -- that is to say, all the virtues and all the
miracles of the Republic for all the vices and all the
absurdities of the monarchy.
In one word, we want to fulfill the wishes of nature, accomplish
the destiny of of humanity, keep the promises of philosophy,
absolve Providence from the long reign of crime and tyranny.
What kind of government can realize these marvels? Only a
democratic or republican government.
But what is the fundamental principle of the democratic or
popular government, that is to say, the essential strength that
sustains it and makes it move? It is virtue: I am speaking of
the public virtue which brought about so many marvels in Greece
and Rome and which must bring about much more astonishing ones
yet in republican France; of that virtue which is nothing more
than love of the fatherland and of its laws.
Terror in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in
the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
If the strength of popular government in peacetime is virtue,
the strength of popular government in revolution is both virtue
and terror; terror without virtue is disastrous, virtue without
terror is powerless. Terror is nothing but prompt, severe, and
inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation of virtue; it is
less a particular principle than a consequence of the general
principle of of democracy applied to the most urgent needs of
the fatherland. It is said that terror is the strength of
despotic government. Does ours then resemble the one with which
the satellites of tyranny are armed. Let the despot govern his
brutalized subjects through terror; he is right as a despot.
Subdue the enemies of liberty through terror and you will be
right as founders of the Republic. The government of revolution
is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.
#Post#: 20311--------------------------------------------------
Re: Robespierre speech "Republic of Virtue"
By: mistermax Date: January 13, 2016, 4:01 pm
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Terror in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in
the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
:)
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