Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/179

ciated with another contradictory to it, which destroys it. Thus, for example, it proclaims a monarchy, and at the same time a ministerial responsibility; and, as a consequence, the omnipotence of the minister, who is made responsible, which is the negation of the monarchy. It proclaims ministerial omnipotence, and at the same time a supreme right of intervention on the part of deliberative assemblies in the affairs of government, which is incompatible with the omnipotence of the ministry. It proclaims that political assemblies have the right of supreme intervention in affairs of state, and at the same time it accords to electoral colleges the right of deciding matters, which is in contradiction with the supreme intervention of political assemblies. It invests the electors with a supreme right of arbitration, and at the same time it recognizes, more or less explicitly, the supreme right of revolution, which is subversive of that pacific and supreme right of arbitration. It asserts the right of revolution as belonging to the people, by which it affirms their sovereign omnipotence; and at the same. time it asserts the law of the electoral census, which is virtually to ostracize the sovereignty of the people. And with all these principles, and their counter-principles, it has only one object in view, and that is to produce and maintain, by industry and artifice, an equilibrium which it never can attain, because this is opposed to the nature of society and the nature of man.

There is only one power against which the liberal school has not sought a counterpoise, and this is the power of corruption. Corruption is the god of this school, and like God, is everywhere at the same time. To such a degree is it the controlling element in the liberal school that, wherever this school prevails, all