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ABSTRACT
In Principes de Politique (1815), Benjamin Constant offers a blueprint for later liberal attempts to retain a commitment to popular sovereignty, while moderating its absolutist tendencies and associations with arbitrary political power. This paper examines some notable tensions, still relevant today, in Constant’s domesticated liberal concept of popular sovereignty. These tensions, I contend, all point to the conclusion that Constant’s project of limiting popular sovereignty by appeal to a sacrosanct domain of rights rests on a liberal interpretation of the general will, which is in fact constitutive for the enjoyment of individual liberties. Section 2 argues that Constant’s location of popular sovereignty in the legislative general will, as determined by elected representatives, does not overcome the problem of the potential arrogation of the popular will by a partisan minority. Section 3 then examines Constant’s views on rights and the implications of his acknowledgement that the enjoyment of liberties depends upon the institutional guarantee provided by constitutional enactment. Finally, in section 4, I demonstrate that Constant’s valorization of individual self-development is inseparable from an idea of political liberty which reflects the priorities of a liberal elite.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful for the very insightful and detailed feedback provided on this paper by two anonymous referees.
Notes
1 Dodge, Benjamin Constant’s Philosophy of Liberalism, 52–79 dedicates an entire chapter to the topic of popular sovereignty, but the treatment is primarily expository. See also the insightful, yet brief, discussions in Holmes, Benjamin Constant and the Making of Modern Liberalism, 97–99 and Gauchet, “Liberalism’s Lucid Illusion”, 24.
2 Citations from the 1815 version – the only edition of Principes published during Constant’s lifetime – follow Bianca Fontana’s 1988 translation. Citations from the 1806 version of Principes follow Dennis O’Keefe’s translation. French quotations are from Marcel Gauchet’s edition of Écrits Politiques. Although there is significant duplication between the 1806 and 1815 versions, the first chapter of the 1815 version deals directly with popular sovereignty, consistent with its focus on constitutional questions, whereas the 1806 version (often more ‘philosophical’ in its emphasis) approaches the popular will from the perspective of the grounds of political authority more generally.
3 On Constant’s influence on later liberal thought see the helpful surveys in Dodge, Benjamin Constant’s Philosophy of Liberalism, 143–149; Fontana, “Introduction”, 3–4 and Wood, “Benjamin Constant: Life and Work”, 18–19. Cf. the treatments of the concept of popular sovereignty in Mill, Considerations on Representative Government, 45–69, 131–161 and 219–222, Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 171–175 and Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 463–490.
4 Constant’s work during the Napoleonic period was hence animated by a perceived need to return to central Enlightenment ideals – particularly the identification of reason with freedom – in a post-revolutionary context. See Ghins, “Benjamin Constant and the Politics of Reason”, 226 and Baczko, Ending the Terror: The French Revolution After Robespierre. For the Enlightenment context see Rosanvallon, “Political Rationalism and Democracy in France in the 18th and 19th Centuries”, and Baker, “Political Languages of the French Revolution”.
5 Vinx, “The Incoherence of Strong Popular Sovereignty”, 102.
6 In Principes Constant tends to refer to individual rights (des droits individuels) and reserve la liberté for the general concept of liberty. As explained below, Constant’s account of individual rights nevertheless privileges ‘negative liberties’ of non-interference such as freedom from arbitrary power, religious freedom and freedom of opinion.
7 Constant, Political Writings, 177.
8 Constant, Political Writings, 229. See also Izenberg, “Individualism and Individuality in Constant”.
9 Constant, Political Writings, 175.
10 Constant, Political Writings, 175. The expression ‘arrogation’ better conforms with Constant’s own terminology than ‘usurpation’. In Chapter 1 of Principes. Constant uses the reflexive verb s’arroger to describe the appropriation of sovereignty and the claim to speak on behalf of the general will by an individual or group motivated by partial interests. In his 1814 De l'esprit de conquête, Constant uses usurpation in a narrower sense in contrast to despotism insofar as the former involves a greater control over people’s inner thoughts: See Constant, Political Writings, 96–97.
11 Constant, Political Writings, 175.
12 Constant, Political Writings, 175.
13 Constant, Political Writings, 176.
14 Constant, Political Writings, 176.
15 Constant, Political Writings, 176–177.
16 Constant, Political Writings, 175.
17 Constant, Political Writings, 175.
18 Constant, Political Writings, 175.
19 Constant, Political Writings, 175.
20 Constant, Political Writings, 176.
21 Tuck, The Sleeping Sovereign: The Invention of Modern Democracy, 63–120.
22 In the later Commentary on Filangeri’s Work (published during the Bourbon Restoration in 1822 as the ultras sought to reinstate legislatively aspects of the Ancien Régime) Constant rejects definitions of law in terms of the general will, characterising law as “the declaration of men’s relations with each other”. See Ghins, “Benjamin Constant and the Politics of Reason”, 237–238. This shift is perhaps revealing in itself, but not relevant to my analysis of Principes.
23 Constant, Political Writings, 175.
24 Barber, The Principles of Constitutionalism, 1–19.
25 Constant, Principles of Politics Applicable to all Governments, 54. In Commentary on Filangieri’s Work at 30, Constant states that society’s goal is ‘preservation and tranquillity’.
26 See Gauchet “Liberalism’s Lucid Illusion”, 24.
27 See Holmes, Benjamin Constant and the Making of Modern Liberalism, 85.
28 Constant, Political Writings, 175. On Constant’s Protestant assumptions regarding individual conscience, self-development and the limitation of political authority to internal order and external peace see Constant, De la religion, 49–50; Manent Les Libéraux, 114–127 Garsten, “Religion and the Case Against Ancient Liberty: Benjamin Constant’s Other Lectures”, 4–33; Jaume, Les origines philosophiques du libéralisme, 79–93 and Ghins, “Benjamin Constant and the Politics of Reason”, 231–232.
29 Constant, Political Writings, 177.
30 Constant, Political Writings, 177. Cf. The Social Contract II.4.
31 Constant, Political Writings, 178.
32 Constant, Political Writings, 179.
33 Constant, Political Writings, 180.
34 Holmes, Benjamin Constant and the Making of Modern Liberalism, 90–91.
35 Constant Political Writings, 205.
36 Constant, Political Writings, 205. See also Jaume, “Le problème de l’intérêt general dans la pensée de Benjamin Constant”, 161.
37 Constant, Political Writings, 206.
38 In Fragments d’un ouvrage abandonné sur la possibilité d’une constitution républicaine dans un grand pays (written in close proximity to Principes) Constant goes so far as to assert (at 259–260) that any idea arrived at collectively is always in error, and uses this as a premise in an argument for the necessity and desirability of limited government.
39 Ghins, “Benjamin Constant and the Politics of Reason”, 229.
40 Constant, Political Writings, 206.
41 See Ghins, “Benjamin Constant and Public Opinion in Post-Revolutionary France”, 488. On public opinion in Constant’s writings see also Fontana, Benjamin Constant and the Post-Revolutionary Mind, 81–97; Kelly, The Humane Comedy: Constant, Tocqueville and French Liberalism, 46–52 and Rosenblatt, “Rousseau, Constant, and the Emergence of the Modern Idea of Freedom of Speech”, 133–164.
42 Ghins, “Benjamin Constant and Public Opinion”, 493 and Constant, Political Writings, 183.
43 Constant, Principles of Politics 116. See also Ghins, “Benjamin Constant and Public Opinion”, 498.
44 Constant, Principles of Politics, 116. On pluralism see Vincent, Benjamin Constant and the Birth of French Liberalism, 163–196 and Craiutu, A Virtue for Courageous Minds: Moderation in French Political Thought 1748–1830, 235.
45 Constant, Political Writings, 209.
46 Urbinati, Representative Democracy: Principles and Genealogy, 51.
47 Constant, Principles, 328.
48 It is true that even the 1792 National Convention was ‘an assembly of lawyers (52 percent of members) elected by peasants’. See Manin, The Principles of Representative Government, 121 citing Guéniffey, Le Nombre et la Raison. La révolution française et les élections, 414. Although Holmes (Benjamin Constant and the Making of Modern Liberalism, 104) is correct to caution against anachronistic attempts to label Constant as anti-democratic, it is an overstatement to say that his ‘liberalism was fundamentally democratic in inspiration and intent’, given these views on the franchise. One can compare the views of Constant’s contemporary Sieyes, who argued for a much broader electorate, including ‘the working class’ (but not women and vagrants). See Tuck, The Sleeping Sovereign, 172–173.
49 Constant, Political Writings. 214.
50 Constant, Political Writings, 214.
51 Constant, Political Writings, 216.
52 Constant, Political Writings, 215.
53 Constant, Political Writings, 216. Constant was later to change his view on the status of industrial property as real property in his 1818 Ouvrages complètes formant une espèce de cours de politique constitutionelle.
54 Constant, Political Writings, 220.
55 Constant, Political Writings, 221.
56 Constant, Political Writings, 221.
57 Constant, Political Writings, 175–176. For Constant’s Anglophilia see 45, 146, 231, 258 and 273.
58 Craiutu, “The Battle for Legitimacy: Guizot and Constant on Sovereignty”, 484.
59 Guizot, Du gouvernement de la France depuis la Restauration, 201.
60 See, for example, Garsten, “Representative Government and Popular Sovereignty”, 98, who notes succinctly in discussing Constant’s denial of absolute sovereignty that he ‘was not clear about the grounding of these rights’.
61 Constant, Political Writings, 179.
62 Constant, Principles, 31.
63 Constant, Political Writings, 180: One “may divide powers as much as you like: if the total of those powers is unlimited, those divided powers need only form a coalition, and there will be no remedy for despotism”.
64 Constant, Political Writings, 179.
65 Constant, Political Writings, 261.
66 Constant, Political Writings, 263.
67 Constant, Political Writings, 289–291.
68 Constant, Principles, 40.
69 Constant, Principles, 41.
70 Constant, Principles, 39.
71 Constant, Principles, 39.
72 Holmes, Benjamin Constant and the Making of Modern Liberalism, 53–54.
73 Holmes, Benjamin Constant and the Making of Modern Liberalism, 53–54.
74 Constant, Political Writings, 317.
75 Constant, Political Writings, 317.
76 Constant, Political Writings, 317.
77 See Feldman, “Le constitutionnalisme selon Benjamin Constant”.
78 Constant, Principles, 33.
79 Constant, Political Writings, 179. One can certainly argue that the liberal tenor of Constant’s rights is a contingent fact, not an element internal to his theory. Even if one accepts this point, however, it remains the case that Constant’s project of framing rights as limits on popular sovereignty is compromised insofar as rights are the outcome of a process of constitutional self-determination. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer on this point.
80 Constant, Political Writings, 323.
81 See Holmes, Benjamin Constant and the Making of Modern Liberalism, 178.
82 Constant, Political Writings, 319.
83 Constant, Political Writings, 319.
84 Constant, Political Writings, 319.
85 Constant, Political Writings, 323.
86 Constant, Political Writings, 324.
87 Constant, Political Writings, 326.
88 Constant, Political Writings, 327.
89 Constant, Political Writings, 323. Constant’s wording here might seem to suggest that ‘political liberty [is] … primarily a tool for individual fulfilment’. See Ghins, “Benjamin Constant and the Politics of Reason”, 236. Even on a less straightforwardly instrumental view of political liberty, however, Constant is clear that the promotion of individual liberty and its fruits is the ultimate end of legitimate political power under modern circumstances.
90 Constant, Political Writings, 327. See also Holmes, Benjamin Constant and the Making of Modern Liberalism, 78.
91 Constant, Political Writings, 327.
92 Constant, Political Writings, 325.
93 Constant, Political Writings, 325.
94 Constant, Political Writings, 325.
95 Constant, Principles, 54.
96 Constant, Principles, 54.
97 Constant, Political Writings, 326.
98 Constant, Political Writings, 181.
99 Constant, Political Writings, 326.
100 Constant, Political Writings, 328.
101 Constant, Political Writings, 328.
102 Constant, Political Writings, 328.
103 Constant, Political Writings, 328.
104 Constant, Political Writings, 328.