None has given more convincing evidence of the suppression
of intellectual liberty under the new Imperial rule. The reserves and
the omissions to which M. de Beaumont has been forced in the performance
of his work as editor display the oppressive nature of the censorship to
which the writings of the most honest and superior men are liable,
and the burdensome restraints by which such men are controlled and
disheartened. M. de Beaumont's notice of the life of Tocqueville, and
Tocqueville's own later correspondence, appear to a thoughtful reader as
accusations against Imperial despotism, as protests against the wrongs
from which freedom is now suffering in France. There is in them a
pervading tone of sadness, and, here and there, an expression of
bitterness of feeling, all the more effective for being conveyed in
restrained and unimpassioned words. There is no place for such men as
these in a system like that by which Louis Napoleon governs France.
The men of strong character, of incorruptible integrity, of thoughtful
moderation, and of fixed principles are more dangerous to the permanence
of despotic rule than the Victor Hugos, the Ledru Rollins, or the
Orsinis. It is the men with whom the love of liberty is founded upon
intellectual and moral convictions, not those with whom it is a hot and
reckless passion, that are the most to be feared by a ruler whose power
is based on the ignorance, the fears, the selfish ambitions, and the
material interests of the people whom he flatters and corrupts.
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