, should be
reduced to its on-eighty-third proportion of influence. It is monstrous
that, in a capital of 700,000 souls, five or six thousand radical
Jacobins should oppress the sections and alone elect their candidates;
in the sections and at the polls, all citizens, at least all
republicans, should enjoy an equal and free vote. It is monstrous that
the principle of popular sovereignty should be used to cover up attacks
against popular sovereignty, that, under the pretense of saving the
State, the first that comes along may kill whom he pleases, that, on
the pretext that they are resisting oppression, each mob should have the
"Right" to put the government down.--Hence, this militant "Right" must
be pacified, enclosed within legal boundaries, and subjected to a fixed
process.[3350] Should any individual desire a law, a reform or a public
measure, let him state his on paper over his own signature and that of
fifty other citizens of the same primary assembly; then the proposition
must be submitted to his own primary assembly; then in case it obtains a
majority, to the primary assemblies of his arrondissement; then, in case
of a majority, to the primary assemblies of his department; then, in
case of a majority, to all the primary assemblies of the nation, so
that after a second verdict of the same assemblies twice consulted, the
Legislative body, yielding to the majority of primary suffrages, may
dissolve and a new Legislative body, in which all old members shall be
declared ineligible, take its place.--This is the final expression and
the master idea, of the theory. Condorcet, its able constructor, has
outdone himself. Impossible to design on paper a more ingenious or
complicated mechanism. The Girondists, in the closing article of this
faultless constitution, believe that they have discovered a way to
muzzle the beast and allow the sovereign people to fully assert their
rights.

As if, with some kind of constitution and especially with this one,
one could muzzle the beast! As if it was in the mood to crane the
neck allowing them to put the muzzle on! Robespierre, on behalf of the
Jacobins, counters with a clause radically opposed to the one drafted by
Condorcet[3351]:

"To submit 'the right to resist oppression' to legal formalities is
the ultimate refinement of tyranny... When a government violates the
people's rights, a general insurrection of the people, as well as
portions of the people, is the most sacred of dutie