an by consent,
power that does not emanate from those for whose use it exists, is a
usurpation, the two first orders must be regarded as wrongdoers. They
ought to be repressed, and the means of doing harm taken from them.

Although Sieyes neither wrote well nor spoke well, yet within a
fortnight of his maiden speech he had vanquished the ancient order of
things in France. The Court, the Church and the _Noblesse_ had gone
down before the imposing coherence of his ideas. He soon lost
confidence in the Assembly, as it fell under the control of intruding
forces, and he drew back into an attitude of reserve and distrust.
Many of his measures were adopted, but he deemed that they were spoilt
in the process, and that men who sought popular applause were averse
from instruction.

Sieyes was essentially a revolutionist, because he held that political
oppression can never be right, and that resistance to oppression can
never be wrong. And he was a royalist, not as believing in the
proprietary right of dynasties, but because monarchy, justly limited
and controlled, is one of many forces that secure the liberty which is
given by society and not by nature. He was a Liberal, for he thought
liberty the end of government, and defined it as that which makes men
most completely masters of their faculties, in the largest sphere of
independent action. He was also a democrat, for he would revise the
constitution once in a generation; and he described the law as the
settled will of those who are governed, which those who govern have no
share in making. But he was less a democrat than a Liberal, and he
contrived scientific provision against the errors of the sovereign
nation. He sacrificed equality by refusing the vote to those who paid
no taxes, and he preferred an elaborate system of indirect and
filtered election. He broke the direct tide of opinion by successive
renewals, avoiding dissolution. According to his doctrine, the genuine
national will proceeds from debate, not from election, and is
ascertained by a refined intellectual operation, not by coarse and
obvious arithmetic. The object is to learn not what the country
thinks, but what it would think if it was present at the discussion
carried on by men whom it trusted. Therefore there is no imperative
mandate, and the deputy governs the constituent. He mitigated
democracy by another remarkable device. The Americans have made the
guardians of the law into watchers on the lawgiver, giv