its foes—but the Constitution is the régime of victorious and peaceful freedom.
The Revolutionary Government will need to put forth extraordinary activity, because it is at war. It is subject to no constant laws, since the circumstances under which it prevails are those of a storm, and change with every moment. This government is obliged unceasingly to disclose new sources of energy to oppose the rapidly changing face of danger.
Under constitutional rule, it is sufficient to protect individuals against the encroachments of the state power. Under a revolutionary régime, the state power itself must protect itself against all that attack it.
The revolutionary government owes a national protection to good citizens; to its foes it owes only death. …
Is the revolutionary government, by reason of the greater rapidity of its course and the greater freedom of its movements than are characteristic of an ordinary government, therefore less just and less legitimate? No, it is based on the most sacred of all laws, on the general weal and on the ironclad law of necessity!
This government has nothing in common with anarchy or with disorder; on the contrary, its goal requires the destruction of anarchy and disorder in order to realize a dominion of law. It has nothing in
