The Constitution of the Year VIII (French: Constitution de l'an VIII) was a national constitution of France, adopted December 24, 1799 (during the Year VIII of the French Revolutionary Calendar), which established the form of government known as the Consulate. The coup of 18 Brumaire (November 9, 1799) effectively gave all power to Napoleon Bonaparte, and in the eyes of some, ended the French Revolution.
After the coup, Napoleon and his allies legitimized his position by creating the "short and obscure Constitution of the Year VIII" (as Malcolm Crook has called it). The constitution tailor-made the position of First Consul to give Napoleon most of the powers of a dictator. It was the first constitution since the Revolution without a Declaration of Rights.
The executive power was vested in three Consuls, but all actual power was held by the First Consul, Bonaparte. This was no longer Robespierre's Republic, which was more radical, or the oligarchic liberal Republic of the Directory, but the autocratic Roman Republic of Caesar Augustus, a Conservative Republic, which reminded the French of stability, order, and peace. To emphasize this, Napoleon used classical Roman terms in the Constitution: Consul, Senator, Tribune.
The Constitution of Year VIII established a legislature of three houses, which was composed of: a Conservative Senate of 80 men over the age of 40, a Tribunate of 100 men, and a Legislative Body (Corps législatif) of 300 men.
The Constitution also used the term “notables.” The term “notables” was a common usage under the monarchy; every Frenchman understood it, and it was comforting. It referred to prominent, "distinguished" men: landholders, merchants, scholars, professionals, clergymen, officials. The people in each district chose a slate of "notables" by popular vote. The First Consul, Tribunate, and Corps Législatif each nominated one Senatorial candidate to the rest of the Senate, which chose one candidate from among the three. Once all of its members were picked, it would then appoint the Tribunate, the Corps Législatif, the judges of cassation, and the commissioners of accounts from the slate of notables.
Napoleon held a plebiscite on the Constitution in December. The vote was not binding, but it allowed Napoleon to maintain a veneer of democracy. The vote was 3,000,000 in favor, and 1,500 against.
This Constitution was amended, first, by the Constitution of the Year X, which made Napoleon First Consul for Life, more extensively altered by the Constitution of the Year XII which established the Bonaparte dynasty with Napoleon as a hereditary Emperor, abolished by the first, brief Bourbon Restoration of 1814, revived and at once virtually replaced by the so-called "Additional Act" of April 1815 promulgated on Napoleon's brief return; and definitively abolished by the return of Louis XVIII later in 1815 (following the Hundred Days). The Napoleonic constitutions were then completely replaced by the Charter of 1814.
Read more about Constitution Of The Year VIII: Sources
Famous quotes containing the words constitution of the, constitution of, constitution, year and/or viii:
“I never did ask more, nor ever was willing to accept less, than for all the States, and the people thereof, to take and hold their places, and their rights, in the Union, under the Constitution of the United States. For this alone have I felt authorized to struggle; and I seek neither more nor less now.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“What we learn for the sake of knowing, we hold; what we learn for the sake of accomplishing some ulterior end, we forget as soon as that end has been gained. This, too, is automatic action in the constitution of the mind itself, and it is fortunate and merciful that it is so, for otherwise our minds would be soon only rubbish-rooms.”
—Anna C. Brackett (1836–1911)
“The Constitution and the laws are supreme and the Union indissoluble.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“The first year was critical to my assessment of myself as a person. It forced me to realize that, like being married, having children is not an end in itself. You don’t at last arrive at being a parent and suddenly feel satisfied and joyful. It is a constantly reopening adventure.”
—Anonymous Mother. From the Boston Women’s Health Book Collection. Quoted in The Joys of Having a Child, by Bill and Gloria Adler (1993)
“I see and hear daily that you of the Clergy preach one against another, teach one contrary to another, inveigh one against another without charity or discretion. Some be too stiff in their old mumpsimus, others be too busy and curious in their new sumpsimus. Thus all men almost be in variety and discord.”
—Henry VIII (1491–1547)