Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2014
In March and April of 1848, members of the U.S. Congress engaged in an intense debate over a resolution congratulating France on its recent revolution. Punctuated by heated arguments about slavery, the debate was colored by the same “preoccupation with permanence and stability” that Hannah Arendt finds “running like a red thread through the [U.S.] constitutional debates.” For example, Representative Henry W. Hilliard of Alabama worried that the revolution would not result in any “permanent good” for France. Hilliard’s argument for deferring congratulations stressed the difficulty of determining the final outcome of a revolutionary event: “The convulsion which exhibits a form so attractive to-day, may yet upturn the foundations of society, and result in the wildest anarchy.” While Representative John D. Cummins of Ohio urged against delaying congratulations, he asserted that if France should deviate from the model of the United States by consolidating all legislative power in a central body, it would thereby form “a government whose construction was incompatible with permanency – a government which could not exist.” For Cummins, the very existence of a government depended on the possibility of its enduring permanently. A real democracy, Cummins suggested, has to be constituted in a way that precludes the possibility of further revolutionary upheavals. Cummins implied that Hilliard’s uncertainty concerning the final results of revolutions could be resolved by founding the right form of government: a government that terminates the force of a revolutionary event.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.