Finally a moment would have arrived when everybody would have come looking for de Gaulle, but at what price? Thus I decided to intervene in time to prevent the drama” ( Peyrefitte 1995, 262). I could just let things take their course: the paratroopers in Paris, the parliamentarians in the Seine, the general strike, the government of the Americans: it was written on the wall. In his inimitable telescoping, “In 1958 I had a problem of conscience.
The constitution of the Fifth French Republic was adopted when the parliamentarians of the Fourth Republic granted full powers to the Gaulle under the pressure of events in Algeria. If we compare the two drafts made by the Committee of Constitution of the French constituent assembly of 1848, before and after the June insurrection of the Parisian workers, the second was considerably less radical than the first, by abolishing the right to work and substituting proportional for progressive taxation. One member of the Right Center was beaten up, and two were killed. The work of the Frankfurt constituent assembly of 1848 was “threatened by the hunt of the crowd for unpopular members of the assembly” ( Eyck 1968, 312). Before I discuss them, I shall mention a few other cases. The American and French cases certainly confirm this expectation. In these settings, strong passions are inevitable and violence is likely. “No liberal democratic state has accomplished comprehensive constitutional change outside the context of some cataclysmic situation such as revolution, world war, the withdrawal of empire, civil war, or the threat of imminent breakup” ( Russell 1993, 106). II.7), constitutions are typically written in a calm and reflective moment that enables sober and public-spirited framers to design institutions that will prevent the interests and passions of future actors from acting against the general interest. According to a cliché to which I have unfortunately contributed ( Elster 1984, ch. We should not be surprised that constitution-making goes together with violence. When de Montaigne ( 1991, 83) wrote that “it is fear I am most afraid of” and FDR said that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”, they were referring to prudential fear of visceral fear (thanks to Ken Shepsle for this observation). As an example, “I fear that it will rain” means “I believe it will rain and I do not want it to rain”. Whereas the former is a genuine emotion, caused by the belief in an imminent danger to the agent, the latter does not amount to more than a simple belief–desire complex ( Gordon 1987, 77 and passim). I shall also distinguish between visceral or emotional fear of violence and prudential or rational fear. In a broader perspective, we should also include acts of resistance or disobedience to authorities. Specifically, I shall consider the role of violence in the making of the two constitutions: actual violence, threats of violence, warnings of violence, fear of violence, and even hope of violence.
On the basis of my readings about the American and French constitution-making processes in the late eighteenth century, I shall try to distill some ideas that may have general application.
I am not an historian, but I read historians and some of their primary sources. This is an essay in macro-historical sociology. It is not in calm times that one can adopt uniform measures”.) (Comte de Clermont-Tonnerre, AR 9, 461) 1. (“Anarchy is a frightening but necessary passage, and the only moment when one can establish a new order of things. Ce n’est pas dans des temps de calme qu’on prendrait des mesures uniformes. L’anarchie est un passage effrayant, mais nécessaire, et c’est le seul moment où l’on peut arriver à un nouvel ordre des choses.