Just because maintaining the rule of law is a French issue does not mean it is not relevant to the United States. Quite the opposite. France’s top cop, the current Minister of the Interior, recently declared (see Nicolas Bastouk and Samuel Dufay):L’État de droit est-il sacre?” or “Is the rule of law sacred?” le pointOctober 10, 2024):
The rule of law is neither untouchable nor sacred. Its source is the sovereign people.
L’État de droit, ça n’est pas intangible sacred. (Sa) Source, c’est le peuple souverain.
The classical liberal definition of the rule of law can be borrowed from: friedrich hayek. in him law, legislation, and freedomhe identified it as
Rules that regulate a person’s conduct toward others. It includes prohibitions that apply to an unknown number of future cases and delimit each person’s protected area.
As the standard formula goes, the rule of law is a “government of laws” rather than a “government of men.” The so-called “sovereign people” themselves are nothing more than a group of humans. Hayek believed that in the long run, these general rules and laws necessarily come from the opinion of “the people,” as opposed to the political mob. This creates uncertainty in the distinction between the rule of law and popular sovereignty. However, like all classical liberals, Hayek still maintained that the people should not be considered sovereign, that is, they should not hold supreme or unlimited power.
The idea that the rule of law is incompatible with popular sovereignty was forcefully expressed by the French literary critic and historian of political thought Emile Faguet in his 1903 book. le liberalism (liberalism):
(My translation:) If the people are sovereign by rights, as the framers of the Declarations (Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 1789, and Declaration of 1793) state, then the people, as sovereign, are sovereign over all rights. We have the right to abolish individuals. right. That’s the kind of conflict. Putting national rights and human rights, such as popular sovereignty and freedom, on the same level and in the same declaration is like putting water and fire on the same level and asking them to resolve their differences. …
The drafters of the Declaration, even the first, less flawed Declaration, were democrats and liberals. They believed in both individual freedom and popular sovereignty. This led them to impose a fundamental contradiction on their work.
(French original:) To ensure people’s safety and conduct safe investigations, declarationle peuple a le droit, en sa souveraineté, de supprimer tous les droits de l’individu. Now for the collision. Declare people’s rights and individual rights, model people’s rights and freedoms, obtain the girl title, and protect people’s rights and rights. arranger ensemble. (…)
Les haute des declarationPremier, Kwakemoan, Equality of Democracy and Freedom, Protection of Individual and People’s Rights. Ils devaient metre dans leur œuvre une antinomie Fondamentale.
The American Founders, heirs to the same Enlightenment ideas as the French Constitution-makers, made the same mistake, even if they were more skeptical of popular sovereignty. Their descendants became less suspicious over time. This issue remains highly relevant in America today.
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La Liberté guidant le peuple (Liberty to Lead the People), by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830 that overthrew Charles X.
