Impressions and Reminiscences Author:George Sand General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1877 Original Publisher: Gill Subjects: History / General Literary Collections / General Literary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / European / French Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or m... more »issing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER VI. UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE. -- REPLY TO A LADY FRIEND. Nohant, October, 1871. T" KNOW that cultivated persons, men of letters -L and artists are, like you, dreading the social consequences of universal suffrage, which forms the engrossing topic of the day. In answer to your reproach, I will make a summary of the objections which appear to me on this subject, calling upon the public for judgment, because such questions interest every one, and ought not to be confined to the domain of privacy. All objections to universal suffrage such as is practised to-day bear upon the present tune; and no one takes the future into consideration. Still more, no one seems to realize the fact that the modification of this suffrage would certainly require a revolution, and that the establishment of it at the time when its establishment would become necessary would involve another revolution. It appears to me that this is not what youdesire. Nevertheless two possibilities of such grave import ought to demand some little attention. An attempt to revise the law of universal suffrage has given us the plebiscite after the coup (VHtat. Do you think that another attempt would, produce such a state of affairs that no claimants would arise to turn the thing to theirJown profit ? The right of suffrage being a weapon for the usurpation of power, I do not see how any one could think seriously of allowing it, if the desire is, as with you, to maintain the republic. The tho...« less