Benjamin Constant

Benjamin Constant on Modern Freedoms:
Political Liberty and the Role

of a Representative System
Valentino Lumowa
Centre for Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES 17, no. 3(2010): 389-414.
2010 by European Centre for Ethics, K.U.Leuven. All rights reserved. doi: 10.2143/EP.17.3.2053889
ABSTRACT. This essay concerns Constants classic text The Liberty of the Ancients
Compared with that of the Moderns. Although this is a frequently quoted text, what
makes reading it still something of an effort is that it contains a baffling shift
from the complete exaltation of modern liberty in its first part to the recognition
of the significance of political participation in safeguarding modern liberty in its
final part. The text is also replete with additional treasures, including Constants
famous distinction between the liberty of the ancients and that of the moderns
and his turn to the basic human capacity of self-development to support his
stubborn insistence on the irreducibility of political participation. With regard
to the aforementioned shift in the 1819 text, some have argued that in order to
reveal the richness of the text we must be aware that its two parts were written
under different historical circumstances. Accepting this claim, I argue that the
basic tone of the text is Constants attempt to combine modern liberty and
political participation and that deciphering the argumentative thrust inherent in
the text helps reveal its richness. I focus on the centrality of the representative
system, which, I argue, plays an important role in Constants endeavour to unify
the liberty of the moderns and political liberty throughout the text. To see how
he defends both the enjoyment of individual interests and the practice of polit-
ical liberty, it is necessary to recognize the nature of representative assemblies
in Constants constitutionalism and to characterize his appeal to self-develop-
ment as a justification of the practice of political liberty.
1

KEYWORDS. Benjamin Constant, ancient and modern liberty, representative
system, political liberty, self-development
I. INTRODUCTION
M
any authors have emphasized Benjamin Constants prominent role
in articulating the characteristic features of French liberalism and,
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ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES SEPTEMBER 2010
through his works, revealing the peculiarity of French liberalism as
occupying the middle ground between counterrevolutionaries and radical,
progressive republicans.
2
While the former firmly promoted the spirit of
the conservative Right, intent on renewing the glorification of the Ancien
Rgime, the latter unstintingly condemned the restoration of French mon-
archy and thus represented the force of the turbulent left-wing in French
politics. In their ambitious efforts to preside over the vacuum left by the
dethroned king, neither was successful in securing either political stability
or incorrupt popular sovereignty. Both, instead, were trapped in their own
atrophy: the revolutionary Left in violent anarchy and the classical French
monarchy in political despotism. Against these extremes, Constant con-
sistently focuses on the establishment of a government that can effec-
tively hinder the impudent violation of sovereignty and the ignorant
absorption of civil liberty. As he is faithful to his strategic goal to create
a substitute institution to replace the failed classical monarchy, Constant
carefully investigates various experiments of political structure throughout
his political odyssey (Kalyvas and Katznelson 2008, 146-147). In other
words, although his proposed solutions to late eighteenth and early nine-
teenth century French political turmoil changed several times, his over-
riding concern continued to be arbitration between individual political
liberty and the sovereignty of government.
3
The speech delivered in 1819 at the Athne Royal in Paris and
entitled The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Mod-
erns (1988b, 308-328) illustrates the complexities and richness of his
understanding of modern liberalism and its constitutive elements. Given
that this lecture was written after his 1815 Principles of Politics Applicable to
All Representative Governments, which contains the complex statements of
his political constitutionalism, the 1819 lecture eloquently expresses
Constants principled middle path, which rescues liberalism from the
inebriation of revolutionary movements and the illusionary exaltation of
classical authority (1988a, 169-305). Although this 1819 text is often
quoted, what makes reading the text still something of an effort is that
391
LUMOWA POLITICAL LIBERTY AND THE REPRESENTIVE SYSTEM
there is an abrupt shift in his elaboration of the fundamental distinction
between the freedom exercised by the ancients and that which is enjoyed
by the moderns. As indicated by Helena Rosenblatt, the text has attracted
different readings (2008, 163). Isaiah Berlin read Constants elaboration
of the two types of liberty as a clear expression of negative liberty (2003a;
2008, 209).
4
Others have focussed on Constants insistence on the impor-
tance of political participation and civic involvement to limit governmen-
tal sovereignty and to secure civil liberty and individual enjoyments
(Rosenblatt 2008, 163, n. 23; Holmes 1984). The goal of the present
paper is to combine the two readings by arguing that the central plank in
the 1819 text is Constants determined effort to balance his preference
for modern liberty and the irreducibility of political participation, and that
in order to reveal the richness of the text we must be aware that its two
parts were written under different historical circumstances, while at the
same time deciphering the argumentative drive inherent in the text. I will
start by contextualizing the two parts of the text following Stephen
Holmes reconstruction. After revealing the historical background against
which it was written, I will then go on to reveal the thrust of the texts
argumentation. At this juncture I hope to summarize the difference
between the liberty of the ancients and that of the moderns, and, follow-
ing Holmes, argue that Constants conscious decision to connect his
pessimism and optimism with regard to civic participation has to be seen
as a well-constructed argument. Against Holmes, however, who appears
to overlook the centrality of a representative system, I contend that such
a system plays an important role in Constants efforts to unify the liberty
of the moderns and political liberty throughout the text. I will endeavour
to explain how Constant justifies the indispensability of political liberty
in human life with his appeal to self development. I hope to make clear
in the process that the unity of the text is revealed when we read it against
the aforementioned historical backgrounds while at the same time follow-
ing closely the dynamics of Constants arguments with respect to the
representative system and self-development. Crucial in this endeavour is
392
to carefully trace the three different layers that constitute the body of the
text, namely the distinction between ancient and modern liberty, the role
of representative assemblies, and Constants appeal to self-development.
II. HISTORICAL CONTEXTUALIZATION OF THE 1819 LECTURE
Constants 1819 text is an endeavour to elaborate the intractable difference
between the liberty expressed by the ancients in the exercise of collective
political power and modern liberty expressed in individual privacy and
independence, the primacy of law, peace, and commercial prosperity. After
establishing the difference between the two perspectives, he dedicates a
considerable part of the text to championing modern liberty and empha-
sizing individual independence as the first requirement of modern liberty
and its true nature. As the text comes to a close, however, he also insists
on the importance of political participation as both the guarantee of indi-
vidual enjoyments and the expression of modern civil liberty.
Having read Constants fervent endorsement of modern individual con-
finement in the peaceful pursuit of personal prosperity, which constitutes
more than half of the work, the reader may be perplexed as he or she
encounters the altered course of the argument in the final part of the text.
As suggested by Holmes, however, this perplexity can be addressed by
properly situating the text in its historical context (1984, 33-34). Many
have argued that Constants political philosophy profoundly echoed his
own political experiences (Rosenblatt 2008, 124). Marcel Gauchet in
particular has contended that the Revolutions swerve preoccupied Con-
stants thought and this swerve was even complicated by the two faces of
tyranny: Napoleons despotism and the Jacobins dictatorship (2009, 24).
Instead of being written in a single period in history, the 1819 lecture
is a palimpsest that was written in response to exceptionally different
political events in France. The first part, in which Constant distinguishes
the liberty of the ancients from that of the moderns in order to underscore
393
individual liberty as the nature of modern liberty, was written in colla-
boration with Mme. Germaine de Stal around 1798 (Gauchet 2009, 34;
Vincent 2000, 619-620). During this period, the revolutionary govern-
ment was engaged in major conflicts with several European states as it
expanded its fevered campaign of revolutionary fervour against absolut-
ism. With the establishment of the Directory, particularly from 1795-
1799, the social and political constellation of France mainly consisted of
citizens who were weary of heated revolutionary wars. The numbers of
those who supported the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, the ultra-
Royalists, and those who believed that a radical republic was the most
appropriate form of government, the Jacobins, significantly decreased.
Although the threat of foreign interference was temporarily fended off
by the victorious campaign of Napoleon Bonapartes army against the
first coalition, French citizens were constantly menaced by internal wars
between conflicting parties, which were intentionally maintained by the
Directory. Consequently, active participation in French politics at the time
meant aligning oneself with one of the said parties and thereby fuelling
the hatred each side felt for the other. Given this political tumult, the
original version of the 1819 speech was intended to encourage the Direc-
tory to attract the mind of the war-weary nation by encouraging its self-
immersion in the domain of private affairs. As such, the manuscript was
not a diabolically manipulative scheme by which any despotic intentions
on the part of the Directory were upheld, but rather a scheme that sug-
gested individual liberty as the appropriate choice of political life (Holmes
1984, 34-35).
The final part of Constants speech, on the other hand, was written
around 1819 when France was under the Bourbon Restoration. During
this period, the French monarchy was restored and the ultra-Royalists
dominated the legislature. Opposed to Louis XVIIIs constitutional mon-
archy, which effectively limited the sovereignty of the king, the ultra-
Royalists persistently insisted on the reinstallation of the absolute power
of the sovereign. Although the turbulent activities of the Jacobins had
394
already disappeared, French politics was still exasperated by the ambitious
enthusiasm of the ultras. Wary of the emergence of such monarchical
enthusiasm, Constant employed his earlier understanding of ancient and
modern liberty both to deplore the absolute sovereignty of the king and
to demonstrate the dangers of individual emancipation from politics.
Having elaborated the problem and the historical context of the 1819
text, how do we understand the theoretical content of the 1819 lecture and
the argumentative drive Constant developed as he combined the two sec-
tions together? I would suggest that to reveal the logic and argumentation
of the text we should trace the three different layers that constitute its
body, namely the distinction between ancient and modern liberty, the role
of representative assemblies, and Constants appeal to self-development.
III. ANCIENT AND MODERN LIBERTY
Constant opens the 1819 lecture by making a distinction between the
nature of ancient liberty and modern liberty (2003d).
5
He speaks of the
former as being the kind of liberty the exercise of which was so dear to
the ancient peoples, and the latter as the kind of liberty the enjoyment of
which is especially precious to the modern nations (1988b, 309). Con-
stant then draws his audiences attention to the broad domain in which
both the exercise of the ancients and the enjoyment of the moderns were in
fact articulated. The authentic expression of the ancients participatory
exercises was in society collective power, whereas the locus of enjoy-
ment so precious to the moderns was associated with the private domain
(1988b, 316). It is evident from this differentiation that there is a hedo-
nistic slide from exercise to enjoy, a shift that will be clear as other
features that characterize the difference between ancient and modern lib-
erty are specified (Holmes 1984, 31).
The liberty of the ancients was an active and participatory freedom,
which was expressed in their efforts to collectively and directly take part
395
in political deliberation on war and peace, legal judgement, ratification,
and punishment. Constant thus associated the liberty of the ancients with
political liberty (Miller 1991, 7). This active and direct participation
accordingly required the subjugation of private life, particularly in relation
to individual liberty or private activities, to the realm of political citizen-
ship. Given such subjugation, the ancients needed ordinary subordinates
to take care of their domestic and productive affairs, leaving them an
enormous amount of freedom to dedicate their lives to politics and the
administration of the state (Constant 1988b, 313). Moreover, the inclina-
tion to war became inevitable because the ancient republics were in fact
confined to a narrow geographical region (Constant 1988b, 312). They
tended to attack their neighbours and consequently each nation had to
defend itself and safeguard its independence and security. In a way, war
also answered their need for ordinary subordinates because they treated
their fallen neighbours as subordinate household subjects. Moreover, the
ancients were limited demographically and were thereby able to gather in
public with ease and convenience in order to perform their political activ-
ities as free men (Constant 1988b, 314).
The moderns, by contrast, were focused on their private indepen-
dence, the legitimacy and rule of law, and the peaceful enjoyment of
commercial affluence. Unlike the ancients, direct participation and active
citizenship were impossible for the moderns because of the size of the
modern state, its inevitable involvement in commerce instead of war, and
the total abolition of slavery (Constant 1988b, 313-315). Experiencing
such participation as arduous and burdensome, the moderns resorted to
the use of representatives, charging them to engage in political affairs on
behalf of the nation. By doing so, modern individuals were thus able to
avoid compulsory commitment to such political involvement (Constant
1988b, 325).
Moreover, Constant rejected Napoleons campaign during the French
Revolutionary Wars as anachronistic and reversing the universal propen-
sity of modern nations. Instead of war, which was naturally unavoidable
396
in the case of the ancient republics, Constant argued that commerce had
taken the place of war in modern times in engaging the interests of other
modern states (1988b, 313). As engagement in virtuous and patriotic war
in ancient times increasingly became unfavourable and embarrassing to
modern states, they gradually turned to commerce to secure tranquillity
and agreeable comfort. According to Constant, this is what inspires in
men a vivid love of individual independence (1988b, 315).
As an inevitable result of the complete subordination of ancient indi-
viduals to political involvement, however, their private lives came under
total surveillance by the state. The moderns, on the other hand, did not
have enough power to influence the course of politics, even in democratic
states. The complication of these predicaments was that both the ancients
and the moderns were kept in their own dogmatic slumber: the former
sacrificed their individual affluence and freedom for the exaltation of polit-
ical liberty and the latters self-immersion in the enjoyment of private inde-
pendence and prosperity hindered their political participation.
Building upon his distinction between ancient and modern liberty,
Constant establishes his first claim, which considers modern liberty to be
the first need of the moderns and the true modern liberty (1988b,
321-323). Constants adherence to this liberty, which empowers individual
freedom and participation in economics, clearly exposes his keen aware-
ness of the complexity of the French political condition. At that time, the
state had witnessed seemingly endless revolutionary wars and republican
political tyranny. Having seen the catastrophes of the republican revolu-
tion for himself, Constant came to believe that civic involvement in pol-
itics would be pointless since it would only inflate the revolutionists
unbridled desire for war and the still open wound of hatred between the
Jacobins and the ultra-Royalists. While acknowledging the admiration
held by the republicans for the notion of ancient liberty, Constant rebuffs
the restoration thereof because it was historically anachronistic and tacitly
subverted the moderns private domain. With this argument, Constant
aims at wiping away the illusionary dream of the ancient republic adored
397
by Robespierre, the republican revolutionist, whose fascination with the
ancient spirit was partly shaped by Rousseau, a classical republican theo-
rist. Robespierre believed both that dedication to civic virtues would
invigorate republican fervour and that giving up individual rights to the
general will would maintain both the states authority and the individuals
freedom (Constant 1988b, 318-320). Against these classical republican
features, which are prone to political tyranny and arbitrary power, Con-
stant argues unremittingly in favour of individual liberty, the rule of law,
and sovereign government. Since we live in modern times, I want a
liberty suited to modern times, Constant proclaims (1988b, 323).
IV. LIMITED POLITICAL SOVEREIGNTY, MODERN FREEDOMS AND THE
ROLE OF THE REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM
The last part of Constants 1819 speech includes his call for popular
involvement in the course of a modern states politics. Given Constants
earlier insistence on individual liberty, this part appears to be a surprising
shift, although it is not as conflicting as it might seem at the first sight.
Holmes correctly argues that Constants conscious decision to connect
his pessimism and optimism with regard to civic participation has to be
seen as a well-constructed argument (1984, 43-46). Holmes explains Con-
stants pessimism concerning civic participation by referring to the social
and political constellation of France during the establishment of the
Directory. France was then a war-weary nation and active participation in
French politics would have meant supporting one of the conflicting
parties, particularly the ultra-Royalists and the Jacobins, and thereby
augmenting the unrelenting tension between the two opposing parties.
During the Bourbon Restoration, however, the resurgence of the French
monarchy unveiled the inherent danger within the citizens entrenchment
in private affairs. Constant then exposed the severe predicament modern
individuals would encounter if they overlooked the potential political
398
tyranny inherent in both the overemphasis on individual freedoms and
the blind endorsement of civil liberty. Instead of indulging themselves
completely in the fulfilment of individual needs, he insisted, citizens
should exercise political participation, which would prevent the ultra-
Royalists from reinstating the absolute power of the sovereign.
Holmes elaboration of Constants pessimism and optimism with
regard to political participation captures the spirit of Constants work.
Holmes is correct in suggesting, moreover, that Constant did not want to
follow the path taken by the revolutionists. Instead, he cautiously appro-
priates the republican element of proper political participation that
balances the modern demand for private enjoyment. However, Holmes
undermines the centrality of the role of the representative system, which
is mentioned earlier in the 1819 text, in upholding the balance between
political and civil liberty. Had Holmes taken this into his account, he
might have strengthened his argument for the unity of Constants text,
instead he is forced to abandon one of his declared projects, namely to
do justice to the theoretical content of the lecture (1984, 43). To clarify
this point, it is necessary to understand the nature of the
representative system in Constants constitutionalism.
From the beginning of the 1819 text, Constant declares that he wants
to explore the nature of the representative system in terms of the distinc-
tion between ancient and modern liberty. However, to understand the
nature of this system or procedure, one must bear in mind the basic
principles Constant eagerly championed in his Principles of Politics Appli-
cable to All Governments (1806-1810) and Principles of Politics Applicable to All
Representative Governments (1815). In both works, Constant articulated his
liberal convictions. In Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments (1806-
1810), he dismissed the idea of arbitrary or absolute power in his political
system in favour of individual freedoms, civil liberty, and legal safeguards.
Obliterating Rousseaus idea of absolute popular sovereignty, Constant
argues that [w]hen no limit to political authority is acknow-ledged, the
peoples leaders, in a popular government, are not defenders of freedom,
399
but aspiring tyrants, aiming not to break, but rather to assume the bound-
less power which presses on the citizens (2003b). Here, the core prin-
ciple of Constants liberalism is clear: political power has to be limited so
that the freedom of the people can be secured. Rosenblatt correctly
regards this principle as Constants two-pronged argument, which
echoes throughout the book: his refutation of absolute political sover-
eignty or arbitrary power and his defence of the liberty of modern people
(2008, 123-124). By limiting political power, this does not mean that
Constant refuses the notion of popular sovereignty, the principle of which
is the supremacy of the general will over any particular will. On the
contrary, he argues that all authority undoubtedly needs the will of the
people to be considered legitimate. This means that no individual or
group can assume sovereignty as long as the body of all citizens has not
yet vested any individual or group with the exercise of its sovereignty. For
Constant, however, it does not follow that such sovereignty can be used
by its holder to dispose of individual lives or freedoms. He clearly states
that the nature of sovereignty is by no means arbitrary; it must not
encroach upon individual affairs.
There is a part of human existence which necessarily remains indi-
vidual and independent, and by right beyond all political jurisdictions.
Sovereignty exists only in a limited and relative way. The jurisdiction
of this sovereignty stops where independent, individual existence
begins (2003c).
It is clear that, for Constant, political power regardless of its holder (an
individual or a group) is circumscribed by the limits of individual freedom
and civil liberty. The exercise of this principle itself, however, cannot guar-
antee that the holder of political sovereignty will not encroach upon the
private lives of its citizens. One might ask how the activities of such a
government can be confined in practical terms within its jurisdiction, or
how such governments can be prevented from transgressing the parameters
of human existence, which are necessarily independent and remain indi-
400
vidual? One might argue that political power can be limited by dividing it
into several balanced or opposite powers. Constant, however, immediately
foresees the weakness of this argument, namely that it does not guarantee
that the total sum of those powers is not unlimited. For him, the answer
cannot be found in the organization of government while leaving political
power unlimited, because he believes that determining the nature and
extension of political power comes prior to its organization (1988a, 182).
Thus, there has to be a system that can procedurally limit political sover-
eignty. Constant systematically developed such a system in Principles of Poli-
tics Applicable to All Representative Governments (1815), which is a shortened
version of his Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments (1806-1810).
The Principle of Politics of 1815, published during the Hundred Days, was
intended as a companion to the new constitution Constant prepared at the
request of Napoleon Bonaparte (Rosenblatt 2008, 156).
The leitmotif of both works is the same, namely the two-fold argu-
ment concerning the absence of arbitrary power and the promotion of
individual liberty, freedom of the press, and respect for the freedom of
all. In the Principles of Politics of 1815, and against the royalists who wanted
to rebuild the Ancien Rgime, Constant clearly articulates his position on
the issue by endorsing popular sovereignty. In order to distinguish his
position from that of the Jacobins who were infatuated with Rousseaus
idea of absolute sovereignty, however, Constant immediately states that
no authority exercises unlimited power over its people, and he draws its
boundaries using the principles of individual affairs and freedoms (Rosen-
blatt 2008, 156). He writes, [s]overeignty has only a limited and relative
existence. At the point where independence and individual existence
begin, the jurisdiction of sovereignty ends (1988a, 177).
In addition, Constant tries to elaborate a system that curtails the
extent of political sovereignty. In his system of constitutionalism, Con-
stant speaks of five different powers, namely royal power that lies in
the hands of the head of state, executive power in the hands of the min-
isters, representative power of long duration that resides in the hereditary
401
assembly, representative power of public opinion in the elective assembly,
and judicial power that is entrusted to the tribunals (1988a, 184-185). In
this system, the royal power assigned to the head of state is a neutral
power. By neutral power, Constant means a power that is above and
external to the other four powers, preserving the balance between them
and restoring their authorities to their own jurisdiction when these com-
petences cross and hinder one another (1988a, 184). The neutrality of the
head of state is expressed also in its inability to intervene within the affairs
of the other powers. Overstepping the boundaries drawn by the executive,
legislative, and judicial powers is an unconstitutional act and thus invali-
dates the neutrality of its power and ultimately disturbs the balance of
power. It is worth noting that this power division does not concern only
the organization of government but, first and foremost, the circumscrip-
tion of royal power. As a restorative power, however, royal power has the
authority that cannot condemn, imprison, despoil or proscribe, but limits
itself to depriving of their authority those members of the assemblies who
can no longer retain it without danger (Constant 1988a, 188).
In Constants constitutionalism, the powers of the ministers, the
hereditary assembly, the elective assembly, and the tribunals are also con-
stitutionally confined within their own jurisdiction. The ministers deal with
the general execution of the laws that are enacted and promulgated by the
two representative powers. The judicial assembly applies the laws in more
particular cases (Constant 1988a, 185). Whereas the royal power is regarded
as a neutral power that safeguards and restores the balance between all the
powers, the executive, legislative, and judicial authorities are considered to
be the active powers. They are active because they take care of all the
governmental, political affairs in cooperation with one another and within
their own domain. According to Constant, the difference between the
royal power as a neutral power and the active powers needs to be clarified
and perfectly maintained, since the result of failing to establish the neutral
power or vesting one of the active powers with the total sum of power
would be catastrophic. Whenever the representative assemblies hold such
402
absolute power, they are prone to create arbitrary laws that are extended
to everything, including individual affairs. Whenever this amount of power
is invested in the executive power, it inevitably turns itself into a despot
(Constant 1988a, 185-186).
Thus, the dominant and recurring ideas in Constants political con-
siderations are his deep concern to promote and secure individual liberty
and the enjoyment of private affairs, and his obstinate insistence on the
absence of absolute power assigned to an individual or a group. His strat-
egy is to prevent the sovereignty of the people, regardless of its holder,
from becoming unlimited. Aware that such a principle can never stand
alone, Constant then establishes a system that constitutionally structures
political authority into two different powers, neutral power and active
power, and confines each of them to its own domain. By this systematic
strategy, Constant supports his basic claim of limited sovereignty with the
organization of governmental institutions. For Constant, the neutrality of
power and the organisation of government served to guarantee modern
interests in individual enjoyments and civil liberty. Thus, by the time he
wrote the 1819 text, Constant already had a complex system that estab-
lished the limited power of government over its citizens for the sake of
their private freedoms.
In the 1819 text, Constant argues that the enjoyment of individual
liberty requires modern citizens to exercise their political liberty, although
in a markedly different manner than the ancients (1988b, 323). Here,
Constant insists that the modern exercise of political liberty involves
modern citizens delegating their political tasks to their representatives in
a representative system, with the representative system being an organi-
zation by means of which a nation charges a few individuals to do what
it cannot or does not wish to do herself (1988b, 325). It is a proxy
given to a certain number of men by the mass of the people who wish
their interests to be defended and who nevertheless do not have time to
defend them themselves (1988b, 326). It is clear from these statements
that Constant sets out to combine the modern demand of individual
enjoyments with the practices of political liberty, which guarantee the
403
fulfilment of this demand by securing individual lives from arbitrary
power. He refuses, however, to succumb to Rousseaus demand of abso-
lute political participation. Instead, Constant endorses a new way of exer-
cising political liberty, namely by entrusting it to a representative system.
The importance of this representative system consists in the fact that it
exercises the tasks of politics on behalf of the citizens, thus giving them
more time to enjoy their civil liberty and pursue happiness (Constant
1988b, 325).
As we have seen in Constants constitutionalism, besides the royal
power that is neutral, there are four active powers that deal with the gov-
ernmental affairs. One might ask, however, why Constant did not assign
the authority to act on behalf of the peoples political liberty to the other
two active powers, the executive (the ministries) and the judicial (the
tribunals). One possible reason for this is that the representative institu-
tion is responsible for enacting legislation, which means that such an
institution has direct access to preventing the promulgation of any laws
that overstep the boundaries of individual affairs. According to Constant,
the legislative institution can be expected to proliferate the number of the
laws to such an extent that they will ultimately encroach upon the private
lives of the citizens. Realizing this danger, Constant invokes the royal
power to prevent such imprudent proliferation with its authority to veto
or dissolve the institution (1988a, 194-195). Another reason for the
appointment of the representative institution to act on behalf of the
citizens is that its source is a popular election and thus its members are
supposed to represent the opinions of the citizens in a more or less
faithful way (Constant 1988a, 201). Citizens, moreover, have the right
to petition, by which they can address their formal request to their
representatives.
6
It is worth noting, nevertheless, that there are two
representative assemblies in Constants constitutionalism, namely the
hereditary and the elective assemblies. Although only the latter is elected,
both assemblies share the same basic legislative tasks and as a legislative
institution, their dissolution prevents them from exercising the imprudent
multiplication of the laws.
404
Constant immediately realizes the disadvantages of surrendering all
the aspects of political liberty into the hands of the representative assem-
blies. He foresees the possible encroachment of individual freedoms and
enjoyments in the tendency of the legislative assemblies to irresponsibly
proliferate the laws. But, as we have seen, he answers the problem by
invoking the dissolution of the said assemblies. There is, however, another
more serious danger. As such, this system could silently entice modern
individuals into locking themselves into their own private domains, while
at the same time gradually promoting the tyranny of the peoples elected
representatives.
7
According to Constant, modern individuals are prone
to falling into this potential pitfall because they are embedded in com-
merce and the pursuit of private welfare. They need this system of
representation to guarantee their right to pursue such individual happi-
ness and to protect them from the abuse of a despotic government. How-
ever, by rendering this system as an instrumental authority, it has the
potential to grow wildly into another despotic regime that would certainly
jeopardize modern individuals interests if its power is not restrained or
confined within its own jurisdiction.
8

To combat these latent dangers, Constant adeptly demands that indi-
viduals keep a keen eye on the representative system. Understanding the
modern preference for economic affairs, he strategically endeavours to
capture the modern readers attention by referring to a financial example.
A rich man may employ a manager to take care of his finance in order to
save time for himself to do other things in life. But he will not let his
manager work unsupervised unless he is careless and stupid. Similarly, as
they have recourse to the representative system, modern individuals have
to constantly supervise this system so as to determine if the representa-
tives are executing the proxies bestowed on them by the people honestly
and justly. Moreover, Constant suggests that they have to reserve for
themselves, at times which should not be separated by too lengthy
intervals, the right to discard them [the representatives] if they betray their
trust, and to revoke the powers which they might have abused (1988b,
405
326). Thus, while arguing in favour of the representative system in place
of ancient absolutism and republican arbitrariness, Constant consistently
appeals to civic participation to exercise constant surveillance over the
system. According to him, the regular exercise of civic participation keeps
alive a vivid sense of political life among the citizens, while at the same
time keeping them away from being absorbed into the realm of political
apathy (1988a, 239).
Constants arguments can be summed up as follows: first, he endorses
modern liberty and to protect this liberty from arbitrary power, the latter
should be constitutionally limited. Second, he wants to unify the demand
for modern enjoyments and political liberty because he believes that the
private domain of modern individuals is secured by their exercise of polit-
ical liberty within the political domains. Third, modern individuals need
to delegate their political tasks to a representative institution to give them
more time to enjoy of their private interests. Fourth, given the potential
vices of the legislative assemblies, Constant insists on an active and inces-
sant control.
Going through these arguments, it is obvious that Constant is con-
sistent in his demand for the absence of absolute power, individual enjoy-
ments, and civil liberty. He is also clear in arguing for the indispensability
of political liberty practiced both by the members of the representative
assemblies and through civic participation to ensure the careful surveil-
lance of the said members. For Constant, the combination of the liberty
of the moderns and political liberty is essential because [i]ndividual
liberty is [] the true modern liberty. Political liberty is its guarantee,
consequently political liberty is indispensable (1988b, 323). The role of
the representative assemblies is central in this combination, because their
members exercise most of the practices of political liberty, particularly
making laws and balancing the active powers of the executive and the
judicial authorities.
In his 1819 lecture, Constant proclaims at the outset that his investiga-
tion into the distinction between the liberty of the ancients and that of the
406
moderns leads him to an interesting discovery, namely that this form of
representative system escaped the attention of the ancients.
9
Throughout
the lecture, he maintains his admiration for individual liberty and the
absence of arbitrariness, declaring the guarantee of such liberty to be polit-
ical liberty. But his understanding of political liberty differs from that of
the ancients. For the ancients, freedom consists in the practice of political
liberty. The more time and energy man dedicated to the exercise of his
political rights, the freer he thought himself (Constant 1988b, 325). On
the contrary, Constant insists on the delegation of political affairs to a
representative institution so that the citizens are able to enjoy their privacy.
This does not mean that they are deprived of their political tasks. Instead,
Constant exhorts them to participate in political affairs by placing the
representative institution under constant surveillance.
The fact that Constant has claimed the centrality of this representa-
tive institution from the outset in his elaboration suggests that, for him,
the argument for balancing political and individual liberty is the spirit that
invigorates the unity of the text. Accordingly, the justification of the two
seemingly contradictory parts of the text as constitutive of the overriding
argument of the text does not exclusively depend upon the historical
approach. It is true, as argued by Holmes, that the historical approach
enlightens Constants motivation in championing modern individual
liberty in the first part of the text and Constants awareness of the danger
of individual emancipation from politics in its final part. But the unity of
the text is even more exposed to us if we see it as clarifying Constants
proposal to balance the demands of political and individual liberty through
the system of representation.
V. BEYOND MODERN FREEDOMS AND SELF-INTEREST
Reflecting upon the rise of Napoleon as the First Consul, his becoming
the first French emperor in 1804, and on the ultra-Royalists influence in
407
the legislature during the reign of Louis XVIII, Constant correctly suspects
that these absolute monarchies tended to absolutize their power and extend
their prerogatives to private domains (Vincent 2000, 608). The people of
France readily surrendered their own freedom for an unguaranteed stabil-
ity and a despotic hand at the reins of government, because they had
grown weary of internal political turmoil and revolutionary war. Both the
military and the people fell into the hands of Napoleon as the latter gained
absolute power after his 1799 coup. By suppressing his critics, such as
Benjamin Constant and Madame de Stal, Napoleon established an empire
that was animated for the most part by the spirit of the Ancien Rgime.
Invoking the same spirit, the ultra-Royalists then gained majority power
during the reign of Louis XVIII and unstintingly disagreed with his con-
stitutionally mitigated monarchy. These monarchies ultimately abrogated
both political liberty and individual freedoms as they all focused on the
expansion of their absolute power and the relegation of their critics and
political oppositions to the margins. While abhorring these governmental
abuses against the people of France, Constant never allowed himself the
chaotic and violent path left by the excesses of the Terror.
Constant argued for modern self-interest against Rousseau and
Robespierre, who claimed that in the name of the good of society and
the general will people had to forfeit their personal gains and particular
will for a citizenship inspired by civic virtues. Realizing, however, that the
inertia of self-interest would invite egocentrism and, as a consequence,
absolute monarchy, Constant called for civic enthusiasm in political
affairs. Aware that this enthusiasm would be fragile and could be withered
away either by passivism conditioned by absolutism, or by the excess of
self-interest
10
, Constant justifies his call for civic participation in political
affairs by appealing to another human basic characteristic beyond self-
interest, namely self-development.
Before elaborating on this sentiment, it is helpful to note that Con-
stants argument for political participation in government has two levels.
11

Constant first claims that civic participation and the political liberty of the
408
people would guarantee individual freedom, private welfare, and personal
security from absorption into a despotic realm. In this way, political
involvement is seen simply as a means to an end, namely the secure estab-
lishment of individual enjoyments and civil liberty. Constant writes,
Individual liberty, I repeat, is the true modern liberty. Political liberty
is its guarantee, consequently political liberty is indispensable As you
see, Gentlemen, my observations do not in the least tend to diminish
the value of political liberty It is not security which we must weaken;
it is enjoyment which we must extend. It is not political liberty which
I wish to renounce; it is civil liberty which I claim, along with other
forms of political liberty (1988b, 323-324).
In what follows, Constant was aware that the pull to the liberty of the
moderns at that time was much stronger than the pull of the idea of exer-
cising collective freedom in politics. This was due to the progress of civi-
lization, the achievements of modern industry, significant changes in the
nature of commerce, the circulation of commodities and money. These
dramatic changes in the life of the moderns overturned the political pow-
ers that were at the centre of the ancients spirit, thus leaving wealth as a
power which is more readily available in all circumstances, more readily
applicable to all interests, and consequently more real and better obeyed
(Constant 1988b, 325). Referring to the absolutism of Napoleon and the
Bourbon Restoration, however, Constant identifies the critical risk inher-
ent in the modern fascination for personal freedom and individual welfare.
As the moderns let themselves be captivated by such a fascination, a per-
son or a group would insistently encourage the modern fascination for
personal wealth and liberty and would thereby slowly gain the political
power needed to serve their despotic desire (Constant 1988b, 326). This
despotic regime would in turn endanger individual freedom and wealth.
To consolidate its power, a despot has to lure modern individuals into the
trap of self-interest because an individual captured in the pursuit of private
enjoyment will be more attracted to the immediate commercial gains than
409
the ideal of politics. As a result, from the perspective of such an individual,
political involvement or participation becomes unimportant and dispens-
able. In order to circumvent the rise of a dictatorship, therefore, Constant
insists on civic participation in political affairs as a guarantee for securing
private happiness and enjoyment.
However, Constant immediately realizes the weakness of his instru-
mental argument for civic activism, namely that it cannot singlehandedly
awaken modern individuals from their civic slumber, overwhelmed as
they were by their fascination for modern economics. He then resorts to
questioning the purpose of human life. Indeed, he admits that people
need and enjoy prosperity, but this alone cannot articulate the whole
definition of being human. If people do not look beyond private enjoy-
ment, they run the risk of undermining morality, renouncing civic activi-
ties, and setting noble desires aside.
I bear witness to the better part of our nature, that noble disquiet
which pursues and torments us, that desire to broaden our knowledge
and develop our faculties. It is not to happiness alone, it is to self-
development that our destiny calls us; and political liberty is the most
powerful, the most effective means of self-development that heaven
has given us.
Political liberty, by submitting to all the citizens, without exception,
the care and assessment of their most sacred interests, enlarges their
spirit, ennobles their thoughts, and establishes among them a kind of
intellectual equality which forms the glory and power of a people
(Constant 1988b, 327).
Appealing to self-development as the elevated aim of human life, Con-
stant then combines his first instrumental argument of political liberty
with his more constitutive argument of its nature. In the latter, political
liberty is not only a political means to protect private wealth. Constant
seems to suggest that political liberty is part of our being human. Holmes
sees this as Constants appropriation of the Aristotelian idea of individuals
being political animals (1984, 42). Although Constant does not elaborate
410
further on the issue in the 1819 text, it is interesting to see how he tries
to formulate a more solid argument for justifying the significance of polit-
ical liberty. By constituting political liberty as part of being human,
Constant makes clear his intention to balance the demand of individual
freedoms and that of political participation. For him, both are constitutive
of the lives of individuals. Exercising political liberty and enjoying indi-
vidual freedoms properly lead citizens to the establishment of their own
dignity. This constitutive argument for political involvement justifies its
indispensability in the course of human life. In this way, Constant appro-
priates this particular element of the ancients liberty, not as an instrumen-
tal supplement to the liberty of the moderns, but as a constitutive part of
being human as well as citizens.
From the discussion above, Constant seems to suggest that both
individual freedoms and political liberty are essentially related to two fun-
damental characteristics of individuals, namely self-interest and self-devel-
opment. For Constant, individual freedoms and enjoyments are the
expressions of the individual need for self-interest. Acknowledging their
significance for individuals self-preservation, Constant immediately sees
that they can be abused by arbitrary power. To prevent this abuse,
Constant appeals to the exercise of political liberty and finds his justifica-
tion for it in another human basic character or sentiment, namely self-
development. K. Steven Vincent regards Constants appeal to self-devel-
opment in the final part of the 1819 text as his turn to the romantic
sentiment, which had already preoccupied Constant in his early writings
(2000, 625-637). Some have suggested that Constants idea of self-devel-
opment has its root in his works on religion.
12
More specifically, Tzvetan
Todorov demonstrates that, according to Constant, religious sentiment is
one of the expressions of the human capacity to transcend oneself. With
this self-transcendence, humans are able to go beyond their pursuit of
self-interest, to develop themselves in search of meaningfulness (2009,
280, 283-284). Bryan Garsten further claims that Constants work on
ancient religion indicates the insufficiency of self-interest to articulate the
411
nature of human goodness and thus insists on individuals self-develop-
ment, which inspires them to defend their liberty (2009, 289-290). Garsten
mentions three ways in which religious sentiment, which is related to the
human quest for self-development, suits modern liberal politics: it defies
the hierarchical status of priests; it censures intolerance; and, it ensures
the weakness of the obstinate pursuit of self-interest (2009, 302). In these
three ways, Garsten sums up what Constant tries to emphasize, namely,
the security of individuals private sphere and the insufficiency of self-
preservation. Given the centrality of self-development in Constants
works on religion and politics, it is obvious that while defending the
practice of civil liberty and the enjoyment of individual wealth, he never
surrenders the exercise of political liberty and civic participation, the
justification of which he finds in the very nature of human sentiment, that
is, self-development.
VI. CONCLUSION
This paper has argued that understanding the 1819 text from a historical
perspective is useful but cannot explain the complexity of Constants
arguments. The elaboration of the historical backgrounds against which
the two parts of the text were written demonstrates in fact that Constants
1819 text emerges from his concern for and reflection on French political
conditions as he experienced them. Although such an elaboration testifies
to Constants acute perceptiveness in relation to the political context in
which he lived, it does not uncover the thrust of his argumentation in
defending modern freedoms, while keeping individuals away from the
dangers of political apathy. Constants adamant insistence on the balance
between the liberty of the ancients and that of the moderns, between the
enjoyment of individual freedoms and political liberty, is the leitmotif that
characterizes the unity of the two seemingly contradictory parts of the
text. To see how he defends both the enjoyment of individual interests
412
and the practice of political liberty, it is necessary to recognize the nature
of the representative assemblies in Constants constitutionalism and to
characterize his appeal to self-development as the justification of the
practice of political liberty.
WORKS CITED
Acte additionnel aux constitutions de lEmpire de 1815. http://www.dr-belair.com/
dic/Politics/Republique/Constitution/1815-Acte%20additionnel.htm [accessed
March 28, 2010].
Berlin, Isaiah. 2003. Freedom and Its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty. Edited by
Henry Hardy. London: Pimlico.
Berlin, Isaiah. 2008a. Introduction. In Isaiah Berlin: Liberty. Edited by Henry Hardy,
3-54. New York: Oxford University Press.
Berlin, Isaiah. 2008b. Two Concepts of Liberty. In Isaiah Berlin: Liberty. Edited by
Henry Hardy, 166-217. New York: Oxford University Press.
Constant, Benjamin. 1988a. Principles of Politics Applicable to All Representative
Governments. In Political Writings. Translated and edited by Biancamaria Fontana,
170-305. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Constant, Benjamin. 1988b. The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the
Moderns. In Political Writings. Translated and edited by Biancamaria Fontana, 308-
328. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Constant, Benjamin. 1988c. The Spirits of Conquest and Usurpation and Their Relation
to European Civilization. In Political Writings. Translated and edited by Biancama-
ria Fontana, 44-167. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Constant, Benjamin. 2003a. Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments. Translated by
Dennis OKeeffe. Edited by Etienne Hofmann. Introduction by Nicholas Capaldi.
Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. Introduction. http://oll.libertyfund.org/
title/861/108851 [accessed March 16, 2010].
Constant, Benjamin. 2003b. Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments. Translated
by Dennis OKeeffe. Edited by Etienne Hofmann. Introduction by Nicholas
Capaldi. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. On Received Ideas About the Scope of Polit-
ical Authority. http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/861/108853 [accessed March 25,
2010].
Constant, Benjamin. 2003c. Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments. Translated by
Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. On the Principles to Replace Received Ideas on the
Extent of Political Authority. http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/861/108873
[accessed March 25, 2010].
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Constant, Benjamin. 2003d. Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments. Translated by
Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. On Political Authority in the Ancient World. http://
oll.libertyfund.org/title/861/109107 [accessed March 10, 2010].
Galles, Gary M. 2005. Review of Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments by
Benjamin Constant. Journal of Libertarian Studies 19: 97-104.
Garsten, Bryan. 2009. Constant on the Religious Spirit of Liberalism. In The Cambridge
Companion to Constant. Edited by Helena Rosenblatt, 286-312. New York: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Garsten, Bryan. 2010. Religion and the Case Against Ancient Liberty: Benjamin
Constants Others Lectures. Political Theory 38: 4-33.
Gauchet, Marcel. 2009. Liberalisms Lucid Illusion. In The Cambridge Companion to
Constant. Edited by Helena Rosenblatt, 23-46. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Holmes, Stephen. 1984. Benjamin Constant and the Making of Modern Liberalism. New Haven:
Yale University Press.
Kalyvas, Andreas and Ira Katznelson. 2008. Liberal Beginnings: Making a Republic for the
Moderns. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Miller, David. 1991. Introduction. In Liberty. Edited by David Miller, 1-20. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Rosenblatt, Helena. 2008. Liberal Values: Benjamin Constant and the Politics of Religion. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Todorov, Tzvetan. 2009. Religion According to Constant. In The Cambridge Companion
to Constant. Edited by Helena Rosenblatt, 275-285. New York: Cambridge Univer-
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NOTES
1. I would like to express my gratitude to the three reviewers of this text for reading and
offering their critical comments and suggestions. I am also grateful for input from the participants
in the International Colloquium In Search of a Lost Liberalism, at the Institute of Philosophy,
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.
2. For example, Kalyvas and Katznelson 2008, 146; Vincent 2000, 636-637; and Berlin
2003, 51.
3. More specifically, Helena Rosenblatt argues that Constant did not change his political
beliefs after 1795. She writes: Constant denounced arbitrary government and defended the main
accomplishments of the early phase of the Revolution: civil, equality, representative government,
and legal safeguards protecting the rights of the individual (2008, 122).
414
4. However, Berlins reading of Constant, which considers him as the one who prized
negative liberty beyond any modern writer, is mainly based on Constants Principles of Politics
Applicable to All Governments, in which he championed the limited government ideal while repeat-
edly endorsing civil liberty, individual freedoms and enjoyment in the text (Berlin 2008a, 38;
Berlin 2008b, 209-211; Galles 2005, 104). In his review, Galles seems to be in agreement with
Nicholas Capaldi that the centre of Constants elaboration in Principles of Politics is articulating and
securing liberty (Galles 2005, 103; Constant 2003a, Introduction).
5. In his Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments (1806-1810), Constant had already
begun his elaboration of the difference between the liberty of the ancients and that of the moderns
(Constant 2003d, On Political Authority in the Ancient World). He makes further allusion to this
differentiation in a shortened version in The Spirits of Conquest and Usurpation and Their Relation to
European Civilization (1814), particularly from chapter 6 to chapter 9 (Constant 1988c, 43-167).
Holmes indicates this in his n. 1 (Holmes 1984, 270).
6. Cf. Acte additionnel aux constitutions de lEmpire de 1815, Art. 65.
7. These are Constants own words quoted in Kalyvas and Katznelson 2008, 154.
8. In his Principles of Politics of 1815, Constant lists the vices of assemblies when they are not
kept within the limits they cannot transgress (Constant 1988a, 195-196).
9. Constant observes that there are writers who, according to him, wrongly claim that the
Lacedaemonian government and the regime of the Gauls had already practiced a system of
representation. In the former, the ephors, who were elected by the people and supposed to defend
their interests, turned out to be an insufferable tyranny. By the same token, the regime of the
Gauls privileged the priests, the military class, and aristocracy over the people, leaving them
completely vulnerable to exploitation and malicious oppression. Constant admits, however, that
there were feeble traces of a representative system in Rome with the establishment of the
tribunes of the plebs, which granted the people the opportunity to exercise most of their political
tasks directly (Constant 1988b, 309-310).
10. Constant wrote, [c]haracters are still too small for the spirits, they are worn down, as
the body, by the habit of inaction or by the excess of pleasure. Quoted in Vincent 2000, 627.
11. This point is suggested by Holmes and I am simply following his reconstruction. See
Holmes 1984, 40-43.
12. For example, Garsten 2009, 286-312; Garsten 2010, 4-33; and Todorov 2009, 275-285.
However, it needs to be mentioned that Helena Rosenblatts Liberal Values: Benjamin Constant and
the Politics of Religion gives Constants works on religion their deserved attention.

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