Kentucky Gazette

Further Extracts.

Address of the Council of State.

Sire—The members of your council of state, at the first moment of their re-union, have thought it their duty, solemnly to profess the principles which govern their opinion & conduct. They come to offer your Majesty the unanimous result of their deliberations—and to pray you to accept the assurance of their devotion, their gratitude, their respect, and their love for your sacred person

COUNCIL OF STATE.

Extract from the Register of deliberations.

(SITTING OF THE 25th MARCH, 1815.)

The council of state, on resuming their functions, deem it necessary to make known the principles which constitute the rule of their opinions and conduct.

Sovereignty resides in the people; they are the only legitimate source of power.

In 1789. the nation recovered these rights which had so long been usurped or despised.

The national assembly abolished feudal monarchy, established a constitutional monarchy and a representative government.

The resistance of the Bourbons to the wishes of the people brought on their fall, and their banishment from the French territory.

Twice have the people, consecrated by their votes, the new form of government abolished by their representatives.

In the year 8, Bonaparte, already crowned with victory, was raised to the government by the national sentiment; a constitution created the consular magistracy

The Senatus Consultum of the 16th Thermidor, year 10, named Bonaparte consul for life.

The Senatus Consultum of the 28th Floreal, year 12, conferred upon Napoleon the imperial dignity and made it hereditary in his family

These three solemn acts were submitted to the acceptance of the people, who sanctioned them by near four millions of votes.

Thus for twenty-two years the Bourbons had ceased to reign in France; they were forgotten by their contemporaries, were strangers to our laws, to our institutions, our manners, our glory ; the present generation knew them only by the recollection of the foreign war which they had excited against the country, and by the intestine dissensions which they had kindled