Great Republics don't fall. They're just given away.

Consider France. In 1799, facing a crisis of internal corruption and external military threat, the democratic leaders of France modified their constitution to create stronger leadership, and then elected military hero Napoleon Bonaparte as their First Consul. Napoleon did not disappoint. He dazzled the French people by being - in the modern parlance - a "war president," immediately attacking and defeating Austria.

And the people cheered.

Then, while his popularity soared, Napoleon worked to erode - slowly and almost imperceptibly - the constitutional restrictions on his power. The people and politicians of France being afraid of democracy's uncertainties, and being afraid of vague foreign military threats, readily agreed to some restrictions on their liberty, on their fraternity, and on their equality. And they readily agreed to vest greater authority in their First Consul. And, soon, the people grew comfortable with Napoleon's paternal protection.

Of course, Napoleon did have his detractors. Some accused him of invading nations for military glory and gain, but he claimed he brought these nations freedom from tyranny. Some accused him of being a brutal dictator, but he claimed he was a humble liberator. "I closed the gulf of anarchy and brought order out of chaos," Napoleon once said of his efforts. "I purified the Revolution."

And the people cheered.

So when, in January of 1804, a feeble terrorist threat emerged against Napoleon by minions of the former Bourbon Kings, Napoleon told the people he needed greater authority to protect them and to protect France from harm.

And the people agreed.

In March of that year, the French Senate - the democratic representatives of the French people - simply gave away the French Republic by offering Napoleon the title of Emperor. There was no dramatic fall, no grand laments, no spilled blood. Just nineteen words affirmed by the French Senate - "The government of the Republic is vested in an Emperor, who takes the title of Emperor of the French" - and the great French Republic just faded away to formal Empire.

And the people? They cheered.

Some two hundred years later, watching the slow erosion of American democratic rights, and watching the slow consolidation of American presidential power, it is difficult not to recall the ease with which the French Republic became the French Empire.

Consider: President Bush has already made clear his paternalism. "I'm the Decider," he has said, "and I decide what is best."

Consider: slowly and almost imperceptibly, citizens' rights and restrictions on presidential power have been eroded from the U.S. Constitution. Of the twenty-seven present Constitutional amendments, President Bush has already ignored, without consequence, at least eight of them: Amendment I, the freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly; Amendment IV, the freedom against illegal search and seizure; Amendment V, the right to due process of the law; Amendment VI, the right to counsel and the right to face one's accuser; Amendment IX, the right not to have the Constitution used to deny or disparage rights retained by the people; Amendment XII, the right of the people to elect the President; Amendment XV, the right not to be denied rights on account of race; and Amendment XXIV, the right of all U.S. citizens to vote for the President.

Consider: when citizens have dared to ask about this steady erosion, rather than being cheered as defenders of the American Republic and of the U.S. Constitution, these citizens are dismissed by the president's minions as un-American. Even the president himself seems unconcerned by any challenge to his increasingly imperial actions and comments, saying, "I'm the commander, see? I do not need to explain why I say things."

Back in December of 1804, on the day of Napoleon's coronation, a huge, unmanned hot air balloon was launched in celebration from the front of Notre Dame Cathedral. On it were affixed some 3,000 burning lights in the shape of a crown. First traveling high above Paris, it then drifted slowly across the French countryside, dazzling the people as a potent symbol of Empire. But it didn't last. Apocryphally, and perhaps prophetically, some forty-six hours later, the balloon fell back to Earth outside of Rome, crashing roughly into a long ignored statue - a statue of Roman Emperor Nero.

As with all Empires, the French Empire ultimately destroyed itself on absolute power. But what remained in the ashes of Empire was not a rising phoenix of the new Republic. No, for a generation after the fall of Napoleon, France was mired in the despotism of second-rate Kings. Only time and the spilling of patriot blood brought the rediscovery of the French Republic.

As we watch the dark changes taking place in our country and in our Constitution, we must seriously ask ourselves: will we crown an American Emperor - our "Napoleon in rags"? Or will we grasp the hand of our fast eroding Republic, before it slips away, and recommit ourselves to the democratic principles outlined in the Constitution of the United States?

The choice - for the moment - is still ours.

Steven Laffoley (stevenlaffoley@yahoo.ca) is an American writer living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is the author of "Mr. Bush, Angus and Me: Notes of An American-Canadian in the Age of Unreason."

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