Things would work marvellously if everybody would think as I do. This can be summed up as follows: if we agreed, we would have an agreement.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 361 to 368 (in French)
Mai 1850?

This draft published on June 3rd, 1860 in the Economiste Belge is undated. Some clues in the text make me think that it was written in May 1850 (there is a reference to May 1852 and the unique presidential mandate that was supposed to end two years later, in 1852).

Further to an introduction in which Frédéric Bastiat exposes the constructivists to whom he attributes today’s quote, he writes a speech that he would like pronounced by Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, then president of the second republic. As soon as summer 1849, some political manoeuvres took place in France that aimed at abrogating the limit of the presidency to a unique mandate as per the constitution of 1848. These manoeuvres would fail legislatively in 1851 and lead to the coup of December 2nd, 1851, after Frédéric Bastiat passed away. The three “advices” that Frédéric Bastiat wished he had heard from the president of the republic were:

• Confirmation of the unique mandate provided for by the constitution
• Description of the role of the executive power
• Description of what the separation of powers should look like

He has not been heard but this plea for a truly liberal constitution that would allow to use “all the rights of the individuals – provided that these very rights are respected for others” is still valid and constitute an ideal to which I am subscribing.