What Is Property?
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
[1840]
The INTRODUCTION to What Is Property? An Inquiry into the
Principle and Right and of Government
Translated from the French by: Benj.
R. Tucker (The Dover edition, first published in 1970, is an
unabridged and unaltered republication of the English
translation originally published by Humboldt Publishing Company
c. 1890.)
What follows is an abridgement by Edward J. Dodson, Director of
the School of Cooperative Individualism.
|
PIERRE-JOSEPH PROUDHON: HIS LIFE AND HIS WORKS
Almost the whole of Proudhon's real biography is
included in his correspondence. Up to 1837, the date of the first
letter which we have been able to collect, his life, narrated by
Sainte Beuve, from whom we make numerous extracts, may be summed up in
a few pages.
Pierre Joseph Proudhon was born on the 15th of
January, 1809, in a suburb of Besançon, called Mouillère.
His father and mother were employed in the great brewery belonging to
M. Renaud. His father, though a cousin of the jurist Proudhon, the
celebrated professor in the faculty of Dijon, was a journeyman brewer.
His mother, a genuine peasant, was a common servant. She was an
orderly person of great good sense; and, as they who knew her say, a
superior woman of
heroic character, -- to use the expression of the venerable M.
Weiss, the librarian at Besançon. She it was especially that
Proudhon resembled: she and his grandfather Tournési, the
soldier peasant of whom his mother told him, and whose courageous
deeds he has described in his work on "Justice." Proudhon,
who always felt a great veneration for his mother Catharine, gave her
name to the elder of his daughters. In 1814, when Besançon was
blockaded, Mouillère, which stood in front of the walls of the
town, was destroyed in the defence of the place; and Proudhon's father
established a cooper's shop in a suburb of Battant, called Vignerons.
Very honest, but simple-minded and short-sighted, this cooper, the
father of five children, of whom Pierre Joseph was the eldest, passed
his life in poverty. At eight years of age, Proudhon either made
himself useful in the house, or tended the cattle out of doors. No one
should fail to read that beautiful and precious page of his work on "Justice,"
in which he describes the rural sports which he enjoyed when a
neatherd. At the age of twelve, he was a cellar-boy in an inn. This,
however, did not prevent him from studying. His mother was greatly
aided by M. Renaud, the former owner of the brewery, who had at that
time retired from business, and was engaged in the education of his
children.
Proudhon entered school as a day-scholar in the
sixth class. He was necessarily irregular in his attendance; domestic
cares and restraints sometimes kept him from his classes. He succeeded
nevertheless in his studies; he showed great perseverance. His family
were so poor that they could not afford to furnish him with books; he
was obliged to borrow them from his comrades, and copy the text of his
lessons. He has himself told us that he was obliged to leave his
wooden shoes outside the door, that he might not disturb the classes
with his noise; and that, having no hat, he went to school bareheaded.
One day, towards the close of his studies, on returning from the
distribution of the prizes, loaded with crowns, he found nothing to
eat in the house.
"In his eagerness for labor and his thirst for
knowledge, Proudhon," says Sainte Beuve, "was not content
with the instruction of his teachers. From his twelfth to his
fourteenth year, he was a constant frequenter of the town library. One
curiosity led to another, and he called for book after book, sometimes
eight or ten at one sitting. The learned librarian, the friend and
almost the brother of Charles Nodier, M. Weiss, approached him one
day, and said, smiling, `But, my little friend, what do you wish to do
with all these books?' The child raised his head, eyed his questioner,
and replied: `What's that to you?' And the good M. Weiss remembers it
to this day."
Forced to earn his living, Proudhon could not
continue his studies. He entered a printing-office in Besançon
as a proof-reader. Becoming, soon after, a compositor, he made a tour
of France in this capacity. At Toulon, where he found himself without
money and without work, he had a scene with the mayor, which he
describes in his work on "Justice."
Sainte Beuve says that, after his tour of France,
his service book being filled with good certificates, Proudhon was
promoted to the position of foreman. But he does not tell us, for the
reason that he had no knowledge of a letter written by Fallot, of
which we never heard until six months since, that the printer at that
time contemplated quitting his trade in order to become a teacher.
Towards 1829, Fallot, who was a little older than
Proudhon, and who, after having obtained the Suard pension in 1832,
died in his twenty-ninth year, while filling the position of assistant
librarian at the Institute, was charged, Protestant though he was,
with the revisal of a "Life of the Saints," which was
published at Besançon. The book was in Latin, and Fallot added
some notes which also were in Latin.
"But," says Sainte Beuve, "it
happened that some errors escaped his attention, which Proudhon, then
proof-reader in the printing office, did not fail to point out to him.
Surprised at finding so good a Latin scholar in a workshop, he desired
to make his acquaintance; and soon there sprung up between them a most
earnest and intimate friendship: a friendship of the intellect and of
the heart."
It appears from this letter that if, at this period,
Proudhon had already exhibited to the eyes of a clairvoyant friend his
genius for research and investigation, it was in the direction of
philosophical, rather than of economical and social, questions.
Having become foreman in the house of Gauthier &
Co., who carried on a large printing establishment at Besançon,
he corrected the proofs of ecclesiastical writers, the Fathers of the
Church. As they were printing a Bible, a Vulgate, he was led to
compare the Latin with the original Hebrew.
"In this way," says Sainte Beuve, "he
learned Hebrew by himself, and, as everything was connected in his
mind, he was led to the study of comparative philology. As the house
of Gauthier published many works on Church history and theology, he
came also to acquire, through this desire of his to investigate
everything, an extensive knowledge of theology, which afterwards
caused misinformed persons to think that he had been in an
ecclesiastical seminary."
Towards 1836, Proudhon left the house of Gauthier,
and, in company with an associate, established a small printing-office
in Besançon. His contribution to the partnership consisted, not
so much in capital, as in his knowledge of the trade. His partner
committing suicide in 1838, Proudhon was obliged to wind up the
business, an operation which he did not accomplish as quickly and as
easily as he hoped. He was then urged by his friends to enter the
ranks of the competitors for the Suard pension. This pension consisted
of an income of fifteen hundred francs bequeathed to the Academy of
Besançon by Madame Suard, the widow of the academician, to be
given once in three years to the young man residing in the department
of Doubs, a bachelor of letters or of science, and not possessing a
fortune, whom the Academy of Besançon should deem best
fitted for a literary or scientific career, or for the study of law or
of medicine. The first to win the Suard pension was Gustave
Fallot. Mauvais, who was a distinguished astronomer in the Academy of
Sciences, was the second. Proudhon aspired to be the third. To qualify
himself, he had to be received as a bachelor of letters, and was
obliged to write a letter to the Academy of Besançon. In a
phrase of this letter, the terms of which he had to modify, though he
absolutely refused to change its spirit, Proudhon expressed his firm
resolve to labor for the amelioration of the condition of his
brothers, the working-men.
The only thing which he had then published was an "Essay
on General Grammar," which appeared without the author's
signature. While reprinting, at Besançon, the "Primitive
Elements of Languages, Discovered by the Comparison of Hebrew roots
with those of the Latin and French," by the Abbé Bergier,
Proudhon had enlarged the edition of his "Essay on General
Grammar."
The date of the edition, 1837, proves that he did
not at that time think of competing for the Suard pension. In this
work, which continued and completed that of the Abbé Bergier,
Proudhon adopted the same point of view, that of Moses and of Biblical
tradition. Two years later, in February, 1839, being already in
possession of the Suard pension, he addressed to the Institute, as a
competitor for the Volney prize, a memoir entitled: "Studies in
Grammatical Classification and the Derivation of some French words."
It was his first work, revised and presented in another form. Four
memoirs only were sent to the Institute, none of which gained the
prize. Two honorable mentions were granted, one of them to memoir No.
4; that is, to P. J. Proudhon, printer at Besançon. The judges
were MM. Améddé Jaubert, Reinaud, and Burnouf.
"The committee," said the report presented
at the annual meeting of the five academies on Thursday, May 2, 1839,
"has paid especial attention to manuscripts No. 1 and No. 4.
Still, it does not feel able to grant the prize to either of these
works, because they do not appear to be sufficiently elaborated. The
committee, which finds in No. 4 some ingenious analyses, particularly
in regard to the mechanism of the Hebrew language, regrets that the
author has resorted to hazardous conjectures, and has sometimes
forgotten the special recommendation of the committee to pursue the
experimental and comparative method."
Proudhon remembered this. He attended the lectures
of Eugène Burnouf, and, as soon as he became acquainted with
the labors and discoveries of Bopp and his successors, he definitively
abandoned an hypothesis which had been condemned by the Academy of
Inscriptions and Belles-lettres. He then sold, for the value of the
paper, the remaining copies of the "Essay" published by him
in 1837. In 1850, they were still lying in a grocer's back-shop. A
neighboring publisher then placed the edition on the market, with the
attractive name of Proudhon upon it. A lawsuit ensued, in which the
author was beaten. His enemies, and at that time there were many of
them, would have been glad to have proved him a renegade and a
recanter. Proudhon, in his work on "Justice," gives some
interesting details of this lawsuit.
In possession of the Suard pension, Proudhon took
part in the contest proposed by the Academy of Besançon on the
question of the utility of the celebration of Sunday. His memoir
obtained honorable mention, together with a medal which was awarded
him, in open session, on the 24th of August, 1839. The reporter of the
committee, the Abbé Doney, since made Bishop of Montauban,
called attention to the unquestionable superiority of his talent.
"But," says Sainte Beuve, "he
reproached him with having adopted dangerous theories, and with having
touched upon questions of practical politics and social organization,
where upright intentions and zeal for the public welfare cannot
justify rash solutions."
Was it policy, we mean prudence, which induced
Proudhon to screen his ideas of equality behind the Mosaic law? Sainte
Beuve, like many others, seems to think so. But we remember perfectly
well that, having asked Proudhon, in August, 1848, if he did not
consider himself indebted in some respects to his fellow-countryman,
Charles Fourier, we received from him the following reply: "I
have certainly read Fourier, and have spoken of him more than once in
my works; but, upon the whole, I do not think that I owe anything to
him. My real masters, those who have caused fertile ideas to spring up
in my mind, are three in number: first, the Bible; next, Adam Smith;
and last, Hegel.
Freely confessed in the "Celebration of Sunday,"
the influence of the Bible on Proudhon is no less manifest in his
first memoir on property. Proudhon undoubtedly brought to this work
many ideas of his own; but is not the very foundation of ancient
Jewish law to be found in its condemnation of usurious interest and
its denial of the right of personal appropriation of land?
The first memoir on property appeared in 1840, under
the title, "What is Property? or an Inquiry into the Principle of
Right and of Government." Proudhon dedicated it, in a letter
which served as the preface, to the Academy of Besançon. The
latter, finding itself brought to trial by its pensioner, took the
affair to heart, and evoked it, says Sainte Beuve, with all possible
haste. The pension narrowly escaped being immediately withdrawn from
the bold defender of the principle of equality of conditions. M.
Vivien, then Minister of Justice, who was earnestly solicited to
prosecute the author, wished first to obtain the opinion of the
economist, Blanqui, a member of the Academy of Moral and Political
Sciences. Proudhon having presented to this academy a copy of his
book, M. Blanqui was appointed to review it. This review, though it
opposed Proudhon's views, shielded him. Treated as a savant by
M. Blanqui, the author was not prosecuted. He was always grateful to
MM. Blanqui and Vivien for their handsome conduct in the matter.
M. Blanqui's review, which was partially reproduced
by "Le Moniteur," on the 7th of September, 1840, naturally
led Proudhon to address to him, in the form of a letter, his second
memoir on property, which appeared in April, 1841. Proudhon had
endeavored, in his first memoir, to demonstrate that the pursuit of
equality of conditions is the true principle of right and of
government. In the "Letter to M. Blanqui," he passes in
review the numerous and varied methods by which this principle
gradually becomes realized in all societies, especially in modern
society.
In 1842, a third memoir appeared, entitled, "A
Notice to Proprietors, or a Letter to M. Victor Considérant,
Editor of `La Phalange,' in Reply to a Defence of Property." Here
the influence of Adam Smith manifested itself, and was frankly
admitted. Did not Adam Smith find, in the principle of equality, the
first of all the laws which govern wages? There are other laws,
undoubtedly; but Proudhon considers them all as springing from the
principle of property, as he defined it in his first memoir. Thus, in
humanity, there are two principles, -- one which leads us to equality,
another which separates us from it. By the former, we treat each other
as associates; by the latter, as strangers, not to say enemies. This
distinction, which is constantly met with throughout the three
memoirs, contained already, in germ, the idea which gave birth to the
"System of Economical Contradictions," which appeared in
1846, the idea of antinomy or contre-loi.
The "Notice to Proprietors" was seized by
the magistrates of Besançon; and Proudhon was summoned to
appear before the assizes of Doubs within a week. He read his written
defence to the jurors in person, and was acquitted. The jury, like M.
Blanqui, viewed him only as a philosopher, an inquirer, a savant.
In 1843, Proudhon published the "Creation of
Order in Humanity," a large volume, which does not deal
exclusively with questions of social economy. Religion, philosophy,
method, certainty, logic, and dialectics are treated at considerable
length.
Released from his printing-office on the 1st of
March of the same year, Proudhon had to look for a chance to earn his
living. Messrs. Gauthier Bros., carriers by water between Mulhouse and
Lyons, the eldest of whom was Proudhon's companion in childhood,
conceived the happy thought of employing him, of utilizing his ability
in their business, and in settling the numerous points of difficulty
which daily arose. Besides the large number of accounts which his new
duties required him to make out, and which retarded the publication of
the "System of Economical Contradictions," until October,
1846, we ought to mention a work, which, before it appeared in
pamphlet form, was published in the "Revue des Economistes,"
-- "Competition between Railroads and Navigable Ways."
"Le Miserere, or the Repentance of a King,"
which he published in March, 1845, in the "Revue Indépendante,"
during that Lenten season when Lacordaire was preaching in Lyons,
proves that, though devoting himself with ardor to the study of
economical problems, Proudhon had not lost his interest in questions
of religious history. Among his writings on these questions, which he
was unfortunately obliged to leave unfinished, we may mention a nearly
completed history of the early Christian heresies, and of the struggle
of Christianity against Cæsarism.
We have said that, in 1848, Proudhon recognized
three masters. Having no knowledge of the German language, he could
not have read the works of Hegel, which at that time had not been
translated into French. It was Charles Grün, a German, who had
come to France to study the various philosophical and socialistic
systems, who gave him the substance of the Hegelian ideas. During the
winter of 1844-45, Charles Grün had some long conversations with
Proudhon, which determined, very decisively, not the ideas, which
belonged exclusively to the bisontin thinker, but the form of
the important work on which he labored after 1843, and which was
published in 1846 by Guillaumin.
Hegel's great idea, which Proudhon appropriated, and
which he demonstrates with wonderful ability in the "System of
Economical Contradictions," is as follows: Antinomy, that is, the
existence of two laws or tendencies which are opposed to each other,
is possible, not only with two different things, but with one and the
same thing. Considered in their thesis, that is, in the law or
tendency which created them, all the economical categories are
rational, -- competition, monopoly, the balance of trade, and
property, as well as the division of labor, machinery, taxation, and
credit. But, like communism and population, all these categories are
antinomical; all are opposed, not only to each other, but to
themselves. All is opposition, and disorder is born of this system of
opposition. Hence, the sub-title of the work, -- "Philosophy of
Misery." No category can be suppressed; the opposition, antinomy,
or contre-tendance, which exists in each of them, cannot be
suppressed.
Where, then, lies the solution of the social
problem? Influenced by the Hegelian ideas, Proudhon began to look for
it in a superior synthesis, which should reconcile the thesis and
antithesis. Afterwards, while at work upon his book on "Justice,"
he saw that the antinomical terms do not cancel each other, any more
than the opposite poles of an electric pile destroy each other; that
they are the procreative cause of motion, life, and progress; that the
problem is to discover, not their fusion, which would be death, but
their equilibrium, -- an equilibrium for ever unstable, varying with
the development of society.
On the cover of the "System of Economical
Contradictions," Proudhon announced, as soon to appear, his "Solution
of the Social Problem." This work, upon which he was engaged when
the Revolution of 1848 broke out, had to be cut up into pamphlets and
newspaper articles. The two pamphlets, which he published in March,
1848, before he became editor of "Le Représentant du
Peuple," bear the same title, -- "Solution of the Social
Problem." The first, which is mainly a criticism of the early
acts of the provisional government, is notable from the fact that in
it Proudhon, in advance of all others, energetically opposed the
establishment of national workshops. The second, "Organization of
Credit and Circulation," sums up in a few pages his idea of
economical progress: a gradual reduction of interest, profit, rent,
taxes, and wages. All progress hitherto has been made in this manner;
in this manner it must continue to be made. Those workingmen who favor
a nominal increase of wages are, unconsciously. following a
back-track, opposed to all their interests.
After having published in "Le Représentant
du Peuple," the statutes of the Bank of Exchange, -- a bank which
was to make no profits, since it was to have no stockholders, and
which, consequently, was to discount commercial paper with out
interest, charging only a commission sufficient to defray its running
expenses, -- Proudhon endeavored, in a number of articles, to explain
its mechanism and necessity. These articles have been collected in one
volume, under the double title, "Résumé of the
Social Question; Bank of Exchange." His other articles, those
which up to December, 1848, were inspired by the progress of events,
have been collected in another volume, -- "Revolutionary Ideas."
Almost unknown in March, 1848, and struck off in
April from the list of candidates for the Constituent Assembly by the
delegation of workingmen which sat at the Luxembourg, Proudhon had but
a very small number of votes at the general elections of April. At the
complementary elections, which were held in the early days of June, he
was elected in Paris by seventy-seven thousand votes.
After the fatal days of June, he published an
article on le terme, which caused the first suspension of "Le
Représentant du Peuple." It was at that time that he
introduced a bill into the Assembly, which, being referred to the
Committee on the Finances, drew forth, first, the report of M. Thiers,
and then the speech which Proudhon delivered, on the 31st of July, in
reply to this report. "Le Représentant du Peuple,"
reappearing a few days later, he wrote, à propos of the
law requiring journals to give bonds, his famous article on "The
Malthusians" (August 10, 1848). Ten days afterwards, "Le
Représentant du Peuple," again suspended, definitively
ceased to appear. "Le Peuple," of which he was the
editor-in-chief, and the first number of which was issued in the early
part of September, appeared weekly at first, for want of sufficient
bonds; it afterwards appeared daily, with a double number once a week.
Before "Le Peuple" had obtained its first bond, Proudhon
published a remarkable pamphlet on the "Right to Labor," --
a right which he denied in the form in which it was then affirmed. It
was during the same period that he proposed, at the Poissonniere
banquet, his Toast to the Revolution.
Proudhon, who had been asked to preside at the
banquet, refused, ... He then attacked the Mountain by telling its
delegates that it sought only a pretext, and that really, in spite of
its professions of Socialism in private conversation, whether with him
or with the organizers of the banquet, it had not the courage to
publicly declare itself Socialist.
On the 25th of January, 1849, Proudhon, rising from
a sick bed, saw that the existence of the Constituent Assembly was
endangered by the coalition of the monarchical parties with Louis
Bonaparte, who was already planning his coup d'Etat. He did
not hesitate to openly attack the man who had just received five
millions of votes. He wanted to break the idol; he succeeded only in
getting prosecuted and condemned himself. The prosecution demanded
against him was authorized by a majority of the Constituent Assembly,
in spite of the speech which he delivered on that occasion. Declared
guilty by the jury, he was sentenced, in March, 1849, to three years'
imprisonment and the payment of a fine of ten thousand francs.
Proudhon had not abandoned for a single moment his
project of a Bank of Exchange, which was to operate without capital
with a sufficient number of merchants and manufacturers for adherents.
This bank, which he then called the Bank of the People, and
around which he wished to gather the numerous working-people's
associations which had been formed since the 24th of February, 1848,
had already obtained a certain number of subscribers and adherents,
the latter to the number of thirty-seven thousand. It was about to
commence operations, when Proudhon's sentence forced him to choose
between imprisonment and exile. He did not hesitate to abandon his
project and return the money to the subscribers. He explained the
motives which led him to this decision in an article in "Le
Peuple."
Having fled to Belgium, he remained there but a few
days, going thence to Paris, under an assumed name, to conceal himself
in a house in the Rue de Chabrol. From his hiding-place he sent
articles almost every day, signed and unsigned, to "Le Peuple."
In the evening, dressed in a blouse, he went to some secluded spot to
take the air. Soon, emboldened by habit, he risked an evening
promenade upon the Boulevards, and afterwards carried his imprudence
so far as to take a stroll by daylight in the neighborhood of the Gare
du Nord. It was not long before he was recognized by the police, who
arrested him on the 6th of June, 1849, in the Rue du
Faubourg-Poissonniere.
Taken to the office of the prefect of police, then
to Sainte -- Pélagie, he was in the Conciergerie on the day of
the 13th of June, 1849, which ended with the violent suppression of "Le
Peuple." He then began to write the "Confessions of a
Revolutionist," published towards the end of the year. He had
been again transferred to Sainte-Pélagie, when he married, in
December, 1849, Mlle. Euphrasie Piégard, a young working girl
whose hand he had requested in 1847. Madame Proudhon bore him four
daughters, of whom but two, Catherine and Stéphanie, survived
their father. Stéphanie died in 1873.
In October, 1849, "Le Peuple" was replaced
by a new journal, "La Voix du Peuple," which Proudhon edited
from his prison cell. In it were published his discussions with Pierre
Leroux and Bastiat. The political articles which he sent to "La
Voix du Peuple" so displeased the government finally, that it
transferred him to Doullens, where he was secretly confined for some
time. Afterwards taken back to Paris, to appear before the assizes of
the Seine in reference to an article in "La Voix du Peuple,"
he was defended by M. Cremieux and acquitted. From the Conciergerie he
went again to Sainte-Pélagie, where he ended his three years in
prison on the 6th of June, 1852.
"La Voix du Peuple," suppressed before the
promulgation of the law of the 31st of May, had been replaced by a
weekly sheet, "Le Peuple" of 1850. Established by the aid of
the principal members of the Mountain, this journal soon met with the
fate of its predecessors.
In 1851, several months before the coup d'Etat,
Proudhon published the "General Idea of the Revolution of the
Nineteenth Century," in which, after having shown the logical
series of unitary governments, -- from monarchy, which is the first
term, to the direct government of the people, which is the last, -- he
opposes the ideal of an-archy or self-government to the communistic or
governmental ideal.
At this period, the Socialist party, discouraged by
the elections of 1849, which resulted in a greater conservative
triumph than those of 1848, and justly angry with the national
representative body which had just passed the law of the 31st of May,
1850, demanded direct legislation and direct government. Proudhon, who
did not want, at any price, the plebiscitary system which he had good
reason to regard as destructive of liberty, did not hesitate to point
out, to those of his friends who expected every thing from direct
legislation, one of the antinomies of universal suffrage. In so far as
it is an institution intended to achieve, for the benefit of the
greatest number, the social reforms to which landed suffrage is
opposed, universal suffrage is powerless; especially if it pretends to
legislate or govern directly. For, until the social reforms are
accomplished, the greatest number is of necessity the least
enlightened, and consequently the least capable of understanding and
effecting reforms. In regard to the antinomy, pointed out by him, of
liberty and government, -- whether the latter be monarchic,
aristocratic, or democratic in form, -- Proudhon, whose chief desire
was to preserve liberty, naturally sought the solution in the free
contract. But though the free contract may be a practical solution of
purely economical questions, it cannot be made use of in politics.
Proudhon recognized this ten years later, when his beautiful study on
"War and Peace" led him to find in the federative
principle the exact equilibrium of liberty and government.
"The Social Revolution Demonstrated by the Coup
d' Etat" appeared in 1852, a few months after his release from
prison. At that time, terror prevailed to such an extent that no one
was willing to publish his book without express permission from the
government. He succeeded in obtaining this permission by writing to
Louis Bonaparte a letter which he published at the same time with the
work. The latter being offered for sale, Proudhon was warned that he
would not be allowed to publish any more books of the same character.
At that time he entertained the idea of writing a universal history
entitled "Chronos." This project was never fulfilled.
Already the father of two children, and about to be
presented with a third, Proudhon was obliged to devise some immediate
means of gaining a living; he resumed his labors, and published, at
first anonymously, the "Manual of a Speculator in the
Stock-Exchange." Later, in 1857, after having completed the work,
he did not hesitate to sign it, acknowledging in the preface his
indebtedness to his collaborator, G. Duchêne.
Meantime, he vainly sought permission to establish a
journal, or review. This permission was steadily refused him. The
imperial government always suspected him after the publication of the
"Social Revolution Demonstrated by the Coup d'Etat."
Towards the end of 1853, Proudhon issued in Belgium
a pamphlet entitled "The Philosophy of Progress." Entirely
inoffensive as it was, this pamphlet, which he endeavored to send into
France, was seized on the frontier. Proudhon's complaints were of no
avail.
The empire gave grants after grants to large
companies. A financial society, having asked for the grant of a
railroad in the east of France, employed Proudhon to write several
memoirs in support of this demand. The grant was given to another
company. The author was offered an indemnity as compensation, to be
paid (as was customary in such cases) by the company which received
the grant. It is needless to say that Proudhon would accept nothing.
Then, wishing to explain to the public, as well as to the government,
the end which he had in view, he published the work entitled "Reforms
to be Effected in the Management of Railroads."
Towards the end of 1854, Proudhon had already begun
his book on "Justice," when he had a violent attack of
cholera, from which he recovered with great difficulty. Ever
afterwards his health was delicate.
At last, on the 22d of April, 1858, he published, in
three large volumes, the important work upon which he had labored
since 1854. This work had two titles: the first, "Justice in the
Revolution and in the Church;" the second, "New Principles
of Practical Philosophy, addressed to His Highness Monseigneur
Mathieu, Cardinal-Archbishop of Besançon." On the 27th of
April, when there had scarcely been time to read the work, an order
was issued by the magistrate for its seizure; on the 28th the seizure
was effected. To this first act of the magistracy, the author of the
incriminated book replied on the 11th of May in a strongly-motived
petition, demanding a revision of the concordat of 1802; or, in other
words, a new adjustment of the relations between Church and State. At
bottom, this petition was but the logical consequence of the work
itself. An edition of a thousand copies being published on the 17th of
May, the "Petition to the Senate" was regarded by the public
prosecutor as an aggravation of the offence or offences discovered in
the body of the work to which it was an appendix, and was seized in
its turn on the 23d. On the first of June, the author appealed to the
Senate in a second "Petition," which was deposited with the
first in the office of the Secretary of the Assembly, the guardian and
guarantee, according to the constitution of 1852, of the principles of
'89. On the 2d of June, the two processes being united, Proudhon
appeared at the bar with his publisher, the printer of the book, and
the printer of the petition, to receive the sentence of the police
magistrate, which condemned him to three years' imprisonment, a fine
of four thousand francs, and the suppression of his work. It is
needless to say that the publisher and printers were also condemned by
the sixth chamber.
Proudhon lodged an appeal; he wrote a memoir which
the law of 1819, in the absence of which he would have been liable to
a new prosecution, gave him the power to publish previous to the
hearing. Having decided to make use of the means which the law
permitted, he urged in vain the printers who were prosecuted with him
to lend him their aid. He then demanded of Attorney-General Chaix
d'Est Ange a statement to the effect that the twenty-third article of
the law of the 17th of May, 1819, allows a written defence, and that a
printer runs no risk in printing it. The attorney-general flatly
refused. Proudhon then started for Belgium, where he printed his
defence, which could not, of course, cross the French frontier. This
memoir is entitled to rank with the best of Beaumarchais's; it is
entitled: "Justice prosecuted by the Church; An Appeal from the
Sentence passed upon P. J. Proudhon by the Police Magistrate of the
Seine, on the 2d of June, 1858." A very close discussion of the
grounds of the judgment of the sixth chamber, it was at the same time
an excellent résumé of his great work.
Once in Belgium, Proudhon did not fail to remain
there. In 1859, after the general amnesty which followed the Italian
war, he at first thought himself included in it. But the imperial
government, consulted by his friends, notified him that, in its
opinion, and in spite of the contrary advice of M. Faustin Hélie,
his condemnation was not of a political character. Proudhon, thus
classed by the government with the authors of immoral works, thought
it beneath his dignity to protest, and waited patiently for the advent
of 1863 to allow him to return to France.
In Belgium, where he was not slow in forming new
friendships, he published in 1859-60, in separate parts, a new edition
of his great work on "Justice." Each number contained, in
addition to the original text carefully reviewed and corrected,
numerous explanatory notes and some "Tidings of the Revolution."
In these tidings, which form a sort of review of the progress of ideas
in Europe, Proudhon sorrowfully asserts that, after having for a long
time marched at the head of the progressive nations, France has
become, without appearing to suspect it, the most retrogressive of
nations; and he considers her more than once as seriously threatened
with moral death.
The Italian war led him to write a new work, which
he published in 1861, entitled "War and Peace." This work,
in which, running counter to a multitude of ideas accepted until then
without examination, he pronounced for the first time against the
restoration of an aristocratic and priestly Poland, and against the
establishment of a unitary government in Italy, created for him a
multitude of enemies. Most of his friends, disconcerted by his
categorical affirmation of a right of force, notified him that they
decidedly disapproved of his new publication. "You see,"
triumphantly cried those whom he had always combated, "this man
is only a sophist."
Led by his previous studies to test every thing by
the question of right, Proudhon asks, in his "War and Peace,"
whether there is a real right of which war is the vindication, and
victory the demonstration. This right, which he roughly calls the
right of the strongest or the right of force, and which is, after all,
only the right of the most worthy to the preference in certain
definite cases, exists, says Proudhon, independently of war. It cannot
be legitimately vindicated except where necessity clearly demands the
subordination of one will to another, and within the limits in which
it exists; that is, without ever involving the enslavement of one by
the other. Among nations, the right of the majority, which is only a
corollary of the right of force, is as unacceptable as universal
monarchy. Hence, until equilibrium is established and recognized
between States or national forces, there must be war. War, says
Proudhon, is not always necessary to determine which side is the
strongest; and he has no trouble in proving this by examples drawn
from the family, the workshop, and elsewhere. Passing then to the
study of war, he proves that it by no means corresponds in practice to
that which it ought to be according to his theory of the right of
force. The systematic horrors of war naturally lead him to seek a
cause for it other than the vindication of this right; and then only
does the economist take it upon himself to denounce this cause to
those who, like himself, want peace. The necessity of finding abroad a
compensation for the misery resulting in every nation from the absence
of economical equilibrium, is, according to Proudhon, the ever real,
though ever concealed, cause of war. The pages devoted to this
demonstration and to his theory of poverty, which he clearly
distinguishes from misery and pauperism, shed entirely new light upon
the philosophy of history. As for the author's conclusion, it is a
very simple one. Since the treaty of Westphalia, and especially since
the treaties of 1815, equilibrium has been the international law of
Europe. It remains now, not to destroy it, but, while maintaining it,
to labor peacefully, in every nation protected by it, for the
equilibrium of economical forces. The last line of the book, evidently
written to check imperial ambition, is: "Humanity wants no more
war." In 1861, after Garibaldi's expedition and
the battle of Castelfidardo, Proudhon immediately saw that the
establishment of Italian unity would be a severe blow to European
equilibrium. It was chiefly in order to maintain this equilibrium that
he pronounced so energetically in favor of Italian federation, even
though it should be at first only a federation of monarchs. In vain
was it objected that, in being established by France, Italian unity
would break European equilibrium in our favor. Proudhon, appealing to
history, showed that every State which breaks the equilibrium in its
own favor only causes the other States to combine against it, and
thereby diminishes its influence and power. He added that, nations
being essentially selfish, Italy would not fail, when opportunity
offered, to place her interest above her gratitude.
To maintain European equilibrium by diminishing
great States and multiplying small ones; to unite the latter in
organized federations, not for attack, but for defence; and with these
federations, which, if they were not republican already, would quickly
become so, to hold in check the great military monarchies, -- such, in
the beginning of 1861, was the political programme of Proudhon.
The object of the federations, he said, will be to
guarantee, as far as possible, the beneficent reign of peace; and they
will have the further effect of securing in every nation the triumph
of liberty over despotism. Where the largest unitary State is, there
liberty is in the greatest danger; further, if this State be
democratic, despotism without the counterpoise of majorities is to be
feared. With the federation, it is not so. The universal suffrage of
the federal State is checked by the universal suffrage of the
federated States; and the latter is offset in its turn by property,
the stronghold of liberty, which it tends, not to destroy, but to
balance with the institutions of mutualism.
All these ideas, and many others which were only
hinted at in his work on "War and Peace," were developed by
Proudhon in his subsequent publications, one of which has for its
motto, "Reforms always, Utopias never." The thinker had
evidently finished his evolution.
The Council of State of the canton of Vaud having
offered prizes for essays on the question of taxation, previously
discussed at a congress held at Lausanne, Proudhon entered the ranks
and carried off the first prize. His memoir was published in 1861
under the title of "The Theory of Taxation."
About the same time, he wrote at Brussels, in "L'Office
de Publicité," some remarkable articles on the question of
literary property, which was discussed at a congress held in Belgium,
These articles must not be confounded with "Literary Majorats,"
a more complete work on the same subject, which was published in 1863,
soon after his return to France. Arbitrarily
excepted from the amnesty in 1859, Proudhon was pardoned two years
later by a special act. He did not wish to take advantage of this
favor, and seemed resolved to remain in Belgium until the 2d of June,
1863, the time when he was to acquire the privilege of prescription,
when an absurd and ridiculous riot, excited in Brussels by an article
published by him on federation and unity in Italy, induced him to
hasten his return to France. Stones were thrown against the house in
which he lived, in the Faubourg d'Ixelles. After having placed his
wife and daughters in safety among his friends at Brussels, he arrived
in Paris in September, 1862, and published there, "Federation and
Italian Unity," a pamphlet which naturally commences with the
article which served as a pretext for the rioters in Brussels.
Among the works begun by Proudhon while in Belgium,
which death did not allow him to finish, we ought to mention a "History
of Poland," which will be published later; and, "The Theory
of Property," which appeared in 1865, before "The Gospels
Annotated," and after the volume entitled "The Principle of
Art and its Social Destiny."
The publications of Proudhon, in 1863, were: 1. "Literary
Majorats: An Examination of a Bill having for its object the Creation
of a Perpetual Monopoly for the Benefit of Authors, Inventors, and
Artists;" 2. "The Federative Principle and the Necessity of
Re-establishing the Revolutionary party;" 3. "The Sworn
Democrats and the Refractories;" 4. "Whether the Treaties of
1815 have ceased to exist? Acts of the Future Congress."
The disease which was destined to kill him grew
worse and worse; but Proudhon labored constantly! . . . A series of
articles, published in 1864 in "Le Messager de Paris," have
been collected in a pamphlet under the title of "New Observations
on Italian Unity." He hoped to publish during the same year his
work on "The Political Capacity of the Working Classes," but
was unable to write the last chapter. . . . He grew weaker
continually. His doctor prescribed rest. In the month of August he
went to Franche-Comté, where he spent a month. Having returned
to Paris, he resumed his labor with difficulty. . . . From the month
of December onwards, the heart disease made rapid progress; the
oppression became insupportable, his legs were swollen, and he could
not sleep. . . .
On the 19th of January, 1865, he died, towards two
o'clock in the morning, in the arms of his wife, his sister-in-law,
and the friend who writes these lines. . . .
The publication of his correspondence, to which his
daughter Catherine is faithfully devoted, will tend, no doubt, to
increase his reputation as a thinker, as a writer, and as an honest
man.
J. A. LANGLOIS.
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