270 ANNUAL REGISTER, 
a new act of treachery. at the very 
moment they were coming to com- 
plain of those of which they had 
long been the victims. 
In the midst of these disasters, 
the National Assembly, afflicted, 
but calm, took the oath to main- 
tain equality and liberty, or to die 
at their post; they took the oath to 
save France, and they sought forthe 
means. 
They saw but one, which was 
that of recurring to thewillsupreme 
of the people, and inviting them to 
exercise immediately their inalien- 
able right of sovereignty, which the 
constitution has recognized, and 
which it could not subject to any 
restriction. The public interest re- 
quired that the people should ‘ma- 
nifest their ‘will by the sense of a 
national “convention, formed of 
representatives invested by them 
with unlimited powers ; it required 
no less that the members of this 
convention should be elected in each 
department in a uniform manner, 
and according to a regular mode ; 
but the National Assembly could 
not restrain the powers of the sove- 
reign people, from whom alone the 
members of that assembly hold all 
the powers they possess. They 
were bound to confine themselves 
to conjuring the people, in the name 
of their country, to follow the sim- 
ple regulations traced out for them. 
In these, the forms instituted for 
elections were respected, because 
the establishment of new forms, 
even supposing them to have been 
better, would have been a source 
ofdelay, perhaps of division. They 
preserved in them none of the con- 
ditions of eligibility, none of the 
limitations of the right of electing 
or being elected, established by the 
former laws, because these laws, 
1792. 
which are so many restrictions on 
the exercise of the right of sove- 
reignty, are not applicable to na- 
tional convention, in which this 
right ought to be exercised with 
complete independence. ‘The dis- 
tinction of active citizens appears 
not in these regulations, because it 
is also a restriction of the law. The 
only conditions required are those 
which naturehasprescribed; suchas 
the necessity of being connected, by 
a fixed residence, with the territory 
fer which ‘the right of citizenship 
is exercised; of having attained the 
age at which men are held by the 
laws of the nation of which they 
make a part, to be in a condition to 
exercise their personal rights: final- 
ly, of having preserved absolute in- 
dependence of will. 
But to assemble new representa- 
tives of the people required time; 
and although the National Assembly 
have made as short as possible the 
periods of the operations whieh the 
convention’ made necessary; al- 
though they accelerated the period 
at which they must cease’ to bear 
the burden of the public weal, in 
such a manner as to avoid the least 
suspicion of ambitious views ; the 
term of forty days would still have 
exposed the country to great mis- 
fortunes, and the people to danger- 
ous commotions, if to the King had 
been left the exercise of the powers 
conferred upon him by the consti- 
tution ; and the suspension of these 
powers appeared to the representa- 
tives of the people the only means 
of saving France and liberty. 
In pronouncing this necessary 
suspension, the Assembly have not 
exceeded their powers. The con- 
stitution authorises them to pro- 
nounce it in the case of the absence 
of the King,when the term at which 
this 
