"[T]wo parties diametrically opposed by their system and their plan for the public administration... I am ready to believe that both desire the republic, but each wants a republic after its own fashion. One wants it to be bourgeois and aristocratic; the other believes that they have achieved it, and that it should remain wholly popular and democratic. One wants the republic of a million which was always the enemy, the dominator, the exactor, the oppressor, the bloodsucker of the twenty-four other millions, of the million which has disported itself in idleness for centuries at the expense of our sweat and labor; the other party wants a republic of those other twenty four millions, who laid down its foundations and cemented them with their blood, who are defending it and dying for its safety and glory."