REPORT ON THE PRINCIPLES OF
POLITICAL MORALITY
Robespierre, on the instructions of the Committee of Public Safety, delivered the following speech in the Convention, which was an attack both on the Right and on the Left.
Some time ago we analyzed the principles of our external policy; to-day we shall take up the internal policy. …
Having for some time been led often enough by accidents, the representatives of the French people are now beginning to aspire to a political consistency permeated with a strong revolutionary character. Thus far we have been led rather by the storms of circumstances, by our love of the good, by our feeling for the needs of the fatherland, than by any precise theory.
What is the purpose, what is the goal for which we strive? We wish a peaceful enjoyment of freedom and equality, the rule of that eternal justice whose laws are graven not in marble or in stone, but in the hearts of all men. We wish a social order that shall hold in check all base and cruel passions, which shall awaken to life all benevolent and noble impulses, that shall make the noblest ambition that of
72
