Academic literature on the topic 'Thermidorian Convention'

Ever since Charles Beard published his seminal work, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, in 1913, a vigorous debate has ensued among historians over the purpose and design of the Constitutional Convention. Was it, as Beard claimed, a Thermidorean counterrevolution, a reaction to the leveling propensities unleashed by the Revolution, or was it a conclave of patriots dedicated to the preservation of the Union and intent on strengthening the federal government so as to overcome the centrifugal forces tearing the confederation apart? For about forty years after its appearance, Beard's interpretation reigned supreme. It became the accepted wisdom that the Founders had acted out of selfish class interests in fashioning a constitution that would serve to protect the forms of property with which they were particularly associated. Subsequently, however, during the 1950s, Beard's analysis was subjected to more exacting scrutiny and found wanting. Vigorous challenges against his methodology and conclusions were raised by such writers as Douglass Adair, Cecelia M. Kenyon, Robert E. Brown, and Forrest McDonald. In the wake of their analyses very little of Beard's thesis was left intact.

LABURPENA: Lan honetan, Konstituzioa defendatzeko organo bat osatzearen beharrari buruz Sieyès apaizak egindako hausnarketak azaldu dira. Sieyès botere eratzailearen eta botere eratuen arteko bereizketaren —hortaz, konstituzionalismo garaikidearen— sortzaile intelektuala izan zen. Konstituzioa aldatzeko prozedura berezia ezartzeko beharra defendatzeaz gain —alderdi hori nabarmendu zuten beste idazle batzuek—, Konstituzioa defendatzeko organoa ere diseinatu zuen. Frantziako Iraultzan, Frejúsko apaizak soilik eman zuen horren berri. Konstituzioa defendatzeko organoa bere eredu politikoaren giltzarria da, baita botere eratzailea kontzeptuaren ondorio logikoa ere, botere horrek sortutako estatu konstituzionalaren oinarria delako. Behar hori Thermidorren 2an esandako hitzaldi garrantzitsu batean azaldu zuen lehen aldiz. Handik bi astera, III. urteko Thermidorren 18an, ideia bera garatu zuen Konbentzio Nazionalean eman zuen beste hitzaldi batean. Sieyèsek Konstituzioa nahitaez bete beharreko arau juridiko loteslea izateko «Konstituzioaren zaindari» bat sortu behar zela planteatu zuen. Sieyès izan zen magistratura horren oinarrizko diseinua egiten lehena, zehaztasun tekniko eta xehetasun maila handiekin, bai osaerari bai funtzioei zegokienez. Eta egun Europako Zuzenbide Konstituzionalaren ondare diren ideia asko aurreratu zituen. Nabarmentzekoa da Justizia Konstituzionala sortu zuela, hainbat helbururekin: gutxiengoak babesteko instituzioa, politika integratzeko organoa, konstituzioarekin lotutako gatazkak ebazteko instantzia gorena eta askatasun jurisdikzioa izatea. RESUMEN: En este trabajo se exponen las reflexiones del abate Sieyès sobre la necesidad de configurar un órgano de defensa de la Constitución. Sieyès —creador intelectual de la distinción entre Poder Constituyente y poderes constituidos, y uno de los fundadores, por tanto, del constitucionalismo contemporáneo— no sólo defendió siempre la necesidad de establecer un procedimiento especial de reforma de la Constitución —aspecto este que fue destacado por otros autores— sino que llevó a cabo también el diseño de un órgano de defensa de la Constitución. En el contexto revolucionario francés, el abate de Frejús fue el único en advertirlo. El órgano de defensa de la Constitución se configura como la clave de bóveda de su modelo político y el corolario lógico del concepto de Poder Constituyente, como fundamento del Estado Constitucional, por él alumbrado. Esta necesidad la advirtió por vez primera en un importante discurso pronunciado el 2 de Termidor. Dos semanas después desarrolló su idea en otro discurso proferido en la Convención Nacional, concretamente el 18 de Thermidor del año III. En él, Sieyès se plantea la necesidad de crear un «guardián de la Constitución» para que esta pueda configurarse como una norma jurídica vinculante, y de obligatorio cumplimiento. Sieyès fue el primero en establecer con gran rigor técnico, y con un muy elevado nivel de detalle, el diseño básico de esa magistratura, tanto en lo que se refiere a su composición como a sus funciones. Y lo hizo anticipándose a muchas ideas que son hoy patrimonio común del Derecho Constitucional europeo. Entre ellas cabe destacar la configuración de la Justicia Constitucional como una institución protectora de las minorías, como un órgano de integración política, como la suprema instancia jurídico-política para la resolución de los conflictos constitucionales, y como una jurisdicción de la libertad. ABSTRACT: This work sets forth the critical thoughts of the Abate Sièyes regarding the need to set up a body for the protection of the Constitution. Sièyes —the intelectual author of the distinction between constituent power and constituted power, and one of the fathers of the contemporary constitutionalism—, did not only stand up for the need to establish a special procedure for the reform of the Constitution —a facet which was emphasyzed by another authors— but also he carried out the design of a body for the defense of the Constitution. In the framework of the revolutionary french context, the Abate from Frejús was the only one to notice it. The body for the defense of the Constitution was envisaged as the cornerstone of his political model and the logic corollary of the notion of constituent power, as the basis for the Constitutional state figured out by him. This necessity was notized for the first time in an important speech pronounced the 2 of Thermidor. Two weeks later, he developed his idea in another speech issued before the National Convention, specifically the 18 of Thermidor of the third year. Sièyes sets the need to establish a «guardian for the Constitution» in order to become a binding legal rule of compulsory observance. Sièyes is the firt one to establish with great technical rigour and with a high level of details, the basic design of that court both regarding its membership and its tasks. And he did it so foreseeing many ideas which are nowadays common ground for the European Constitutional law. Among them it can be emphasyzed the configuration of constitutional justice as a protective institution for minorities, as a body of political integration, as the supreme instance for the resolution of constitutional conflicts and as a jurisdicition for freedom.

The defeat of Maximilien Robespierre on 9 Thermidor year II initiated a realignment of political forces within and beyond the National Convention, which is traditionally known as the Thermidorian Reaction (July 1794–October 1795). That moment did not, however, signal the fundamental rupture that the Thermidorians claimed. Although the National Convention repealed restrictive legislation and abandoned the promise of political and social democracy, it also sustained revolutionary government and the Montagnard commitment to strengthen the Convention by challenging extra-legislative competitors. Similarly, as legislators, activists, and journalists invented the notion of a ‘Terror’ that Thermidorians claimed to have defeated, they did so with denunciatory practices elaborated since 1789, revealing important continuities within revolutionary political culture that survived 9 Thermidor.

The Thermidorian National Convention, despite some efforts at ‘transitional justice’, failed to master the legacies of the Terror. Therefore, the fledgling regime needed to impose the new republican political order while also restoring basic law and order—two tightly entwined tasks. The Constitution of 1795 articulated a liberal democracy based on the rule of law, but political instability and endemic lawlessness led first to multiple violations of the constitution, especially in the wake of elections, and a steady shift from democratic republicanism toward ‘liberal authoritarianism’. This shift received added impetus during waves of repression intended to restore order on strictly republican terms. The result was the creation a new ‘security state’, one that combined coercive policing, administrative surveillance, exceptional justice, and militarized repression. The emergence of the new system helped to restore order, and thereby to legitimize the Consulate, but it also paved the road to personal dictatorship in 1802.

What happened after the actual Festival? How the expectations of a new dawn, the possible end of the Terror and the proclamation of the Republic of Virtue were dashed by the Law of 22 Prairial. How Robespierre’s enemies in the Convention and its Committees advanced their conspiracy, finally coming to a head with Robespierre’s last speech of 8 Thermidor and the events of 9 and 10 Thermidor. The chapter also discusses how the desire for the reform of national morality did not disappear after Thermidor but continued through the post-Thermidorean and Directory periods. Despite the attempts to re-energise some form of state religion with Theophilanthropy and other cults, the idea of a Supreme Being persisted until the Napoleonic Concordat of 1801.

In November 1793, the Convention acknowledged that goods passed through multiple hands en route to consumers, and it began to reform the Maximum to include both wholesale and retail prices. This chapter dissects how the Dames, their brokers, and market police compelled the deputies to economically affirm and politically legitimize merchants as useful citizens in their revisions. During the five months it took the state to plan tiered prices, retailers like the Dames remained unable to legally sell at a profit. To protect retailers and the food trade, the Dames and market police urged the deputies to hasten their recalculations. From a pragmatic perspective, they highlighted marketplace practices to illustrate why retailers’ services were necessary for supplying Parisians. From an ideological perspective, they argued that symbiotic trading relationships between merchants and consumers naturally underscored fraternal bonds among cooperative citizens. They also insisted that the municipal government balance commercial relationships by enforcing ceilings on workers’ wages. Due to police reports and merchants’ interventions, the national political economy of the Terror ultimately bent to local realities of les Halles. When the Thermidorians abolished the Maximum in December 1794, crippling inflation created shared interests between previously opposed retailers and wage workers, which encouraged class-based political alliances.