solved to bring it
to an issue. There is good reason to believe that the affair of the
18th Fructidor (September 4) was intended to have taken place two days
before; but on recollecting that it was the 2d of September, a day
mournful in the annals of the revolution, it was postponed. When the
issue arrived, the faction found to its cost it had no party among the
public. It had sought its own disasters, and was left to suffer the
consequences. Foreign enemies, as well as those of the interior, if
any such there be, ought to see in the event of this day that all
expectation of aid from any part of the public in support of a counter
revolution is delusion. In a state of security the thoughtless, who
trembled at terror, may laugh at principles of Liberty (for they have
laughed) but it is one thing to indulge a foolish laugh, quite another
thing to surrender Liberty.

Considering the event of the 18th Fructidor in a political light, it is
one of those that are justifiable only on the supreme law of absolute
necessity, and it is the necessity abstracted from the event that is to
be deplored. The event itself is matter of joy. Whether the manouvres in
the Council of Five Hundred were the conspiracy of a few, aided l>y the
perverseness of many, or whether it had a deeper root, the dangers were
the same. It was impossible to go on. Every thing was at stake, and
all national business at a stand. The case reduced itself to a simple
alternative--shall the Republic be destroyed by the darksome manouvres
-of a faction, or shall it be preserved by an exceptional act?

During the American Revolution, and that after the State constitutions
were established, particular cases arose that rendered it necessary to
act in a manner that would have been treasonable in a state of peace. At
one time Congress invested General Washington with dictatorial power.
At another time the Government of Pennsylvania suspended itself and
declared martial law. It was the necessity of the times only that
made the apology of those extraordinary measures. But who was it that
produced the necessity of an extraordinary measure in France? A faction,
and that in the face of prosperity and success. Its conduct is without
apology; and it is on the faction only that the exceptional measure has
fallen. The public has suffered no inconvenience. If there are some men
more disposed than others not to act severely, I have a right to place
myself in that class; the whole of