How will industry be able to resume, when it is accepted in principle that the scope of decrees is unlimited?

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 381 to 382 (in French)
April 12th, 1848

In this letter, Frédéric Bastiat expresses his surprise in not finding any news about the coming election of Horace Say at the Constitutive Assembly. In fact, the latter will not be elected. He also mention in post-scriptum that himself had just been elected the day before with great support (probably on April 12th, then).

Today’s quote appears in the context of the time and the implementation of the National Workshops. He adds that what worries him is that “each minute, a decree on wages, on working hours, on the price of things, etc., can upset all combinations” (which ressembles to a very high degree the action of Donald Trump on tariffs over the last two months!). What is important in this quote is that Frédéric Bastiat had understood that the objective of the constitution is not only to attribute powers (legislative, executive, judiciary) and responsibilities across various institutions but also to limit those powers to avoid falling into the trap of the dictatorship of the majority. Indeed, it is not sufficient that a majority of the citizens (if it were possible to measure it properly) be in favour of a specific legislation for that legislation to be legitimate.