Compulsion
is in fact requisite for the realization of a juridical
constitution, according to the proper idea of the state; and it will
lead at last to the realization of that idea, even according to the
letter. This is the only enduring political constitution, as in it the
law is itself sovereign, and is no longer attached to a particular
person. This is the ultimate end of all public right, and the state in
which every citizen can have what is his own peremptorily assigned
to him. But so long as the form of the state has to be represented,
according to the letter, by many different moral persons invested with
the supreme power, there can only be a provisory internal right, and
not an absolutely juridical state of civil society.
Every true republic is and can only be constituted by a
representative system of the people. Such a representative system is
instituted in name of the people, and is constituted by all the
citizens being united together, in order, by means of their
deputies, to protect and secure their rights. But as soon as a supreme
head of the state in person- be it as king, or nobility, or the
whole body of the people in a democratic union- becomes also
representative, the united people then does not merely represent the
sovereignty; but they are themselves sovereign.
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