instituted solely "to guarantee to them their natural, imprescriptible
rights." [8] Never has a mandate been more strictly limited: "The
right of expressing one's thoughts and opinions, either through the
press or in any other way; the right of peaceful assembly, the free
exercise of worship, cannot be interdicted." Never have citizens been
more carefully guarded against the encroachments and excesses of
public authority: "The law should protect public and private liberties
against the oppression of those who govern . . . offenses committed
by the people's mandatories and agents must never go unpunished. Let
free men instantly put to death every individual usurping sovereignty.
. . Every act against a man outside of the cases and forms which the
law determines is arbitrary and tyrannical; whosoever is subjected to
violence in the execution of this act has the right to repel it by
force. . . When the government violates the people's rights
insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people,
the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties."

To civil rights the generous legislator has added political rights,
and multiplied every precaution for maintaining the dependence of
rulers on the people. -- In the first place, rulers are appointed by
the people and through direct choice or nearly direct choice: in
primary meetings the people elect deputies, city officers, justices of
the peace, and electors of the second degree; the latter, in their
turn, elect in the secondary meetings, district and department
administrators, civil arbitrators, criminal judges, judges of appeal
and the eighty candidates from amongst which the legislative body is
to select its executive council. -- In the second place, all powers
of whatever kind are never conferred except for a very limited term:
one year for deputies, for electors of the second degree, for civil
arbitrators, and for judges of every kind and class. As to