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OF POLITICAL THEORIES, 351be generalassemblies of the people which must be convenedupon every occasion; and it is easy to see that, howeverreadily this might be accomplished in small towns and theiradjacent territory, it would be wholly out of the question inlarger states nay, Rousseau himself declares that these canonly be formed by federations of the smaller. If, therefore,that partyin France, which looked upon his writingsas theirstandard, had wished to act consistently, there can be nodoubt of what his fate would have been had he been thenalive.As an opponent of the representative system, whichthey established to its fall extent, and as a supporter of federative republics, which according to their principles wasa capital crime, he would have been doubly destined to theguillotine !Nevertheless, Rousseau's influence upon the revolutionwas incalculably great not in the sense;of his being theoriginator of it, for that would be a short-sighted view, butinasmuch as the direction which the revolution took was ina great measure determined by him. Some great name,some high authority was required ;several of his ideas were,therefore, taken up that of the sovereignty of the peopleof general freedom and equality and that of the greatestpossible separation of the legislative and executive powersand were made the foundations of the new system. Itwas no doubt Rousseau, who firstexpanded and perfectedthese notions, although he did not originally propose them;but even if he had desired the total overthrow of existingthings in order to establish his own system, (and there is noreason to accuse him of such a wish,) he would never havetolerated & partial application of it. This was to abuse, notto use, and it would be unjust therefore to make him answerable for itNevertheless, however willingwe may be to acquit Rousseau of any design of causing revolutions, ityet cannot bedenied that not only those which Europe has experiencedsince his time, but those which threaten it still, may betraced to the principal maxim upon which his system rests.This maxim is the sovereignty of the people. The danger with which it threatened the practice of politics did not,however, consist in the maxim itself, for the sovereigntymay doubtless be in the hands of the Itpeople. was rather