chapter iii.: of the president of the republic.

Art. 2. The government of the French Republic is confided for ten years to Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the actual president of the republic.

Art. 3. The president of the republic governs by means of ministers, of the council of state, of the senate, and of the legislative body.

Art. 4. The legislative power is exercised collectively by the president of the republic, the senate, and the legislative body.

Art. 5. The president of the republic is responsible to the French people, to whom he has always the right to make an appeal.

Art. 6. The president of the republic is the chief of the state; he commands the land and sea forces, declares war, makes treaties of peace, alliance, and commerce, appoints to all employs, and makes the regulations and decrees necessary for the execution of the laws.

Art. 7. Justice is rendered in his name.

Art. 8. He alone has the initiative of laws.

Art. 9. He has the right of granting pardon.

Art. 10. He sanctions and promulgates the laws and the senatus consultum.

Art. 11. He presents every year to the senate, and to the legislative body, by a message, the state of the affairs of the republic.

Art. 12. He has the right to declare the state of siege in one or several departments, on condition of referring it to the senate within the shortest possible delay. The consequences of the state of siege are regulated by law.

Art. 13. The ministers depend only on the chief of the state—they are only responsible for the acts of the government as far as they are individually concerned in them; there is no joint responsibility among them, and they can only be impeached by the senate.

Art. 14. The ministers, the members of the senate, of the legislative body, and of the council of state, the officers of the land and sea forces, the magistrates and public functionaries, take the following oath: I swear obedience to the constitution and fidelity to the president.

Art. 15. A senatus-consultum fixes the sum allowed annually to the president of the republic during the whole continuance of his functions.

Art. 16. If the president of the republic dies before the expiration of his term of office, the senate is to convoke the nation, in order to proceed to a fresh election.

Art. 17. The chief of the state has the right, by a secret act deposited in the archives of the senate, to point out to the people the names of the citizens whom he recommends to the interest of France to the confidence of the people and to their suffrages.

Art. 18. Until the election of the new president of the republic, the president of the senate governs with the co-operation of the ministers in functions, who form themselves into a council of government, and deliberate by a majority of votes.