France, ever feverish since the Revolution of February 1848, has
reached the crisis of her disorder ; and the symptoms are fully more favourable than could have been expected. M. de Tocque- ville's report on the revision of the Constitution has been presented to the Assembly, and the discussion on it is fixed to take place next week. The report is comprehensive in its review of the state of affairs, calmly bold in its tone, sternly legal in its recommen- dations. The election of the National Representatives by tickets and the President by direct vote, and the simultaneous elections of the National Assembly and President, are declared to be the great practical defects of the Constitution. The danger to which the nation is exposed by these defects, is declared to be sufficiently great and urgent to warrant the revision of the Constitution, although the fall extent of the hazards attendant on such an experi- ment is recognized and pointed out. The great principle that a right entirely to change institutions is inalienable by a nation, or any constituent assembly to which it may delegate such a task, is as- serted. On these grounds, the report proposes that the Assembly shall decide to revise the Constitution " in totality "; insisting, however, that the revision shall not take place unless voted by the majority required by law. The great merits of this report consist in its lofty superiority to the miserable personal and party aims which are urged under the pretext of constitutional revision its recognition of a nation's inalienable right to adapt its institutions to the social wants when occasion requires a change ; and its en- forcement of the expediency or rather necessity of setting about such changes with a due respect for established law. These are precisely the views the diffusion of which can give stability, peace, and prosperity to France. The report was received in the As- sembly without applause and without a murmur. This unwonted silence and abstinence from all expression of emotion would seem to indicate, that the Assembly felt the gravity of "the situation," and the importance of preserving a judgment undimmed by pas- sion. The report of the Sub-Committee appointed to examine the petitions in favour of revision states, that of 1,123,161 peti- tioners only 45,000 proposed to attain their end by overriding the forms of the Constitution ; and of that number half was supplied by a single department. The tone of public discussion in Paris in- dicates a general concurrence in the respect for legality, and the cau- tion, amounting to anxiety, withwhioh the Members of the Assembly appear to set about their task. There seems to be little danger of the French people acting on this important occasion upon headlong, unreflecting impulse. If the Constitution be revised, the revision promises to be undertaken in a practical antilartient spirit; if the proposal to revise shall fail to obtain the le majority in the As- sembly, there is every reason to hope that the nation will acquiesce in the prolongation of what it feels to be an imperfect constitu- tion, resolute to make the best of it in the mean time, and wait till it can be reformed by orderly and legal movements.
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