VIII
THE CONSTITUTIONAL DEBATES
When the Assembly passed the Rights of Man, they acted in harmony for the last time. Agreement on first principles did not involve agreement in policy, and in applying them to the Constitution, a week later, the division of parties appeared.
From the tennis court to the great constitutional debate, the Moderates, who may be called the Liberals, were predominant. Mounier was their tactician, Clermont Tonnerre and Lally Tollendal were their orators, Malouet was their discreet adviser. They hoped, by the division of powers and the multiplication of checks, to make their country as free as England or America. They desired to control the Representatives in three ways: by a Second Chamber, the royal veto, and the right of dissolution. Their success depended on the support of Ministers and of reconciled Conservatives. Whilst the Constitution for them was a means of regulating and restraining the national will, it was an instrument for accomplishing the popular will for their rivals rising to power on the crest of the wave.
The Democrats refused to resist the people, legitimately governing itself, either by the English or the American division of power. There was little concentration yet of the working class in towns, for the industrial age had hardly dawned, and it was hard to understand that the Third Estate contained divergent interests and the material of a coming conflict. The managers of the democratic party were Duport, Lameth, and Barnave, aided sometimes by
109
