It would have been better to stick to the principles, to grant every possible repressive power but not to prohibit freedom.
Category: Legislation
LETTERS TO MR. HORACE SAY – 3
How will industry be able to resume, when it is accepted in principle that the scope of decrees is unlimited?
LETTER TO A CLERIC
I am not trying, and shall never try, to impose my systems. I expound them, I explain them, and for their implementation, I wait until public opinion tell their mind.
REPORT TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE LANDES IN 1849 PERTAINING TO THE QUESTION OF COLLECTIVE PROPERTY
It is dangerous to believe that this right should be removed in the face of the legislator’s wishes.
UNDER THE REPUBLIC – XIV – SCHOOLING FREEDOM
The tide is carrying us towards the unlimited development of government action, towards an unlimited compression of true freedoms.
TO M. TANNEGUY DUCHATEL, INTERIOR MINISTER
The nation should pay taxes only in order to face up to public services.
POSTAL REFORM
The act is not illicit in itself. Nature does not make it so, legislation and legislation only makes it so.
SECOND ARTICLE
A great cause has never failed by the want of a great man.
REFLEXIONS UPON THE ISSUE OF DUELS
Nobody may be punished for a fact that the governing power has not submitted to a penalty.
COBDEN AND THE LEAGUE
The fact that we are not in a state of desolation does not mean we should be grateful to the law.
COBDEN AND THE LEAGUE
Any substantial social progress can only follow the material improvement in the people’s condition.
COBDEN AND THE LEAGUE
Assuming that the mission of the legislator is to ensure that people have work, or failing that, have bread, I ask “Why start by taxing the bread itself?”
SPEECH AT THE CIRCLE OF BOOKSTORES
It is not the law that created property, but on the contrary, property which required to write the law.
SEVENTH SPEECH
Free-trade is the cause, or at least one of the aspects of the great cause of the people, the masses, democracy.
LAZINESS AND RESTRICTION
It may well work. However, is this part of the mission of governments?
ABOUT THE CEREALS’ EXPORTS PROHIBITION
Public opinion is what creates the law; public opinion needs to be enlightened.
A QUESTION ASKED TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
Admitting iron freely when it is meant for construction is a measure that is positive on only one aspect, which is that it is the most offensive satire that can be made against the prohibitive regime.
ABOUT THE INFLUENCE OF FRENCH AND ENGLISH TARIFFS
Protection is plunder indeed because it is the privilege to operate scarcity through legislation, creating dearth in order to abuse the buyer.
LETTERS TO RICHARD COBDEN
Begone the laws that precede the progress of opinion!
RESPONSIBILITY
Advise me, but do not force your opinion on me.
PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SERVICES
How can individuals delegate rights that they do not possess?
SPEECH ON THE REPRESSION OF INDUSTRIAL UNIONS
How do you expect a law that is unintelligent and unintelligible to be respected? That is impossible.
SPEECH ON THE TAX ON WINES AND SPIRITS
It is the law that causes people to dig up vines on the hill slopes and plant them in the flat fields to avoid the vexations of indirect taxation.
BACCALAUREATE AND SOCIALISM
Certainly not; he would not fail to repeat that he was not requiring the law to ban but just not to impose.
THE LAW
Thus, there is no suffering in the nation for which the government has not voluntarily made itself responsible.
THE LAW
What is the law, then? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective organization of the individual right of legitimate defense.
JUSTICE AND FRATERNITY
The law says: Do not unto others as you would not have them do unto you.
And I say to you: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
PROPERTY AND LAW
I will draw to your attention here that when you analyze the notion of property, it is irrational and dangerous to make this word a synonym of opulence and in particular of ill-gotten opulence.