magistrates, take them by the collar and set them on their benches in spite of themselves.  By fair means or foul they are the working subjects (corvéables) of the State, in a lower condition than a valet or a mechanic, since the mechanic does his work according to acceptable conditions, and the discharged valet can claim his eight days’ notice to quit.  As soon as the government throws off this humble attitude it usurps, while constitutions are to proclaim that, in such an event, insurrection is not only the most sacred right but the most imperative duty. — The new theory is now put into practice, and the dogma of the sovereignty of the people, interpreted by the crowd, is to result in a complete anarchy, up to the moment when, interpreted by its leaders, it produces perfect despotism.

IV.  Birth of socialist theory, its two sides.

The second result. — The new theory leads to despotism. — Precedents for this theory. — Administrative centralization. — The Utopia of the Economists. — Invalidity of preceding rights. — Collateral associations not tolerated. — Complete alienation of the individual from the community. — Rights of the State in relation to property, education and religion. — The State a Spartan convent.

For this theory has two aspects; whereas one side leads towards the perpetual demolition of government, the other results in the unlimited dictatorship of the State.  The new social contract is not a historic pact, like the English Declaration of Rights in 1688, or the Dutch federation in 1579, entered into by actual and living individuals, admitting acquired situations, groups already formed, established positions, and drawn up to recognize, define, guarantee and complete anterior rights.  Antecedent to the social contract no veritable right exist; for veritable rights are born solely out of the social contract, the only valid one, since it is the only one agreed upon between beings perfectly equal and perfectly free, so many abstract creatures, so many species of mathematical units, all of the same value, all playing the same part and whose inequality or constraint never disturbs the common understanding.  Hence at the moment of its completion, all other facts are nullified.  Property, family, church, no ancient institution may invoke any right against the new State.  The area on which it is built up must be considered vacant; if old structures are partly allowed to remain it is only in its name and for its benefit, to be enclosed within its barriers and appropriated to its use; the entire soil of humanity is its property.  On the other hand it is not, according to the American doctrine, an association for mutual protection, a society like other societies, circumscribed in its purpose, restricted to its office, limited in its powers, and by which individuals reserving to themselves the better portion of their property and persons, assess each other for the maintenance of an army,