Editing Benjamin Constant (section)

==Political philosophy==
{{Liberalism in France}}
[[image:Isabelle de Charrière - Jens Juel.gif|thumb|[[Isabelle de Charrière]], a Dutch-Swiss intellectual with whom Constant conducted an extensive correspondence]]
{{main|The Liberty of Ancients Compared with that of Moderns}}

===Ancient and modern freedom===
One of the first thinkers to go by the name of "liberal", Constant looked to England rather than to [[ancient Rome]] for a practical model of freedom in a large mercantile society. He drew a distinction between the "Liberty of the Ancients" and the "Liberty of the Moderns".<ref name="AncientModern">{{cite web |url=http://www.uark.edu/depts/comminfo/cambridge/ancients.html |title=Constant, Benjamin, 1988, 'The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns' (1819), in The Political Writings of Benjamin Constant, ed. Biancamaria Fontana, Cambridge, pp. 309–328 |publisher=Uark.edu |access-date=17 September 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120805184450/http://www.uark.edu/depts/comminfo/cambridge/ancients.html |archive-date=5 August 2012 }}</ref> The Liberty of the Ancients was a participatory [[republicanism|republican]] liberty, which gave the citizens the right to influence politics directly through debates and votes in the public assembly.<ref name="AncientModern"/> To support this degree of participation, citizenship was a burdensome moral obligation requiring a considerable investment of time and energy. Generally, this required a sub-society of slaves to do much of the productive work, leaving the citizens free to deliberate on public affairs. Ancient Liberty was also limited to relatively small and homogenous male societies, in which they could be conveniently gathered together in one place to transact public affairs.<ref name="AncientModern"/>

The Liberty of the Moderns, in contrast, was based on the possession of [[civil liberties]], the rule of law, and freedom from excessive state interference. Direct participation would be limited: a necessary consequence of the size of modern states, and also the inevitable result of having created a mercantile society in which there were no slaves but almost everybody had to earn a living through work. Instead, the voters would elect [[Legislator|representatives]], who would deliberate in Parliament on behalf of the people and would save citizens from daily political involvement.<ref name="AncientModern"/>

===Critique of the French Revolution===
Constant criticised several aspects of the [[French Revolution]], and the failures of the social and political upheaval. He stated how the French attempted to apply ancient republican liberties to a modern state. Constant realized that freedom meant drawing a line between a person's private life and that of state interference.<ref name="Rosenblatt 2004">Rosenblatt 2004</ref> He praised the noble spirit of regenerating the state; however, he stated that it was naïve for writers to believe that two thousand years had not brought some changes in the customs and needs of the people. The dynamics of the state had changed. Ancient populations paled in comparison to the size of modern countries. He even argued that with a large population, man had no role in government regardless of its form or type. Constant emphasised how citizens in ancient states found more satisfaction in the public sphere and less in their private lives whereas modern people favoured their private life.

Constant's repeated denunciation of [[despotism]] pervaded his critique of French political philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and [[Abbé de Mably]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bertholet|first=Auguste|date=2021|title=Constant, Sismondi et la Pologne|url=https://www.slatkine.com/fr/editions-slatkine/75250-book-05077807-3600120175625.html|journal=Annales Benjamin Constant|volume=46|pages=65–85}}</ref> These writers, influential in the French Revolution, according to Constant, mistook authority for liberty and approved any means of extending the action of the state. Alleged reformers used the model of public force of the [[Ancien Régime]], and organised the most absolute despotism in the name of the Republic. He continually condemned despotism, citing the contradiction of a liberty derived from despotism, and the vacuous nature of this ideology.

Furthermore, Constant pointed to the detrimental nature of the [[Reign of Terror]] as an inexplicable delirium. In [[François Furet]]'s words, Constant's "entire political thought" revolved around this question, namely the problem of how to justify the Terror.<ref>Furet 1981, p. 27</ref> Constant understood the revolutionaries' disastrous over-investment in the political sphere.<ref name="Rosenblatt 2004" /> The French revolutionaries such as the [[Sans-culottes]] were the primary force in the streets. They promoted constant vigilance in public. Constant pointed out how despite the most obscure life, the quietest existence, the most unknown name, it offered no protection during the Reign of Terror. The pervasive [[mob mentality]] deterred many right thinking people and helped to usher in despots such as Napoleon.

===Commerce preferable to war===
Constant believed that, in the modern world, commerce was superior to war. He attacked [[Napoleon]]'s belligerence, on the grounds that it was illiberal and no longer suited to modern commercial social organization. Ancient Liberty tended to rely on war, whereas a state organized on the principles of Modern Liberty would tend to be at peace with all other peaceful nations.

[[File:Mme de Staël avec sa fille Albertine.png|thumb|right|Painting by Marguerite Gérard, ''[[Germaine de Staël|Mme de Staël]] et sa fille'' (around 1805); de Staël was Constant's partner and intellectual collaborator]]
[[File:Johann Heinrich Schröder zugeschrieben, Portrait der Gräfin Charlotte von Hardenberg.jpg|thumb|right|Charlotte von Hardenberg, Constant's second, "secret" wife]]
[[File:Madame Recamier (1777–1849) by Alexandre-Evariste Fragonard.jpg|thumb|right| [[Juliette Récamier|Madame Récamier]] (1777–1849) by [[Alexandre-Evariste Fragonard]] Juliette Récamier was a friend and intellectual correspondent of Constant]]
Constant believed that if liberty were to be salvaged from the aftermath of the Revolution, then the chimera of Ancient Liberty had to be reconciled with the practical to achieve Modern Liberty. England, since the [[Glorious Revolution of 1688]], and the United Kingdom after 1707, had demonstrated the practicality of Modern Liberty and Britain was a [[constitutional monarchy]]. Constant concluded that constitutional monarchy was better suited than republicanism to maintaining Modern Liberty. He was instrumental in drafting the "Acte Additional" of 1815, which transformed Napoleon's restored rule into a modern constitutional monarchy.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.napoleon-series.org/research/government/legislation/c_additional.html|title=The Act Additional 1815|website=www.napoleon-series.org}}</ref> This was only to last for "One Hundred Days" before Napoleon was defeated, but Constant's work nevertheless provided a means of reconciling monarchy with liberty. Indeed, the French Constitution (or Charter) of 1830 could be seen as a practical implementation of many of Constant's ideas: a hereditary monarchy existing alongside an elected Chamber of Deputies and a senatorial Chamber of Peers, with the executive power vested in responsible ministers. Thus, although often ignored in France, because of his Anglo-Saxon sympathies, Constant succeeded in contributing in a profound (albeit indirect) way to French constitutional traditions.

===Constitutional monarchy===
Constant developed a new theory of constitutional monarchy, in which royal power was intended to be a neutral power, protecting, balancing and restraining the excesses of the other active powers (the executive, legislature, and [[judiciary]]). This was an advance on the prevailing theory in the English-speaking world, which, following the opinion of [[William Blackstone]], the 18th-century English [[jurist]], had regarded the King as head of the executive branch.{{citation needed|date=February 2020}}

In Constant's scheme, the executive power would be entrusted to a Council of Ministers (or Cabinet) who, although appointed by the King, were ultimately accountable to Parliament. In making this clear theoretical distinction between the powers of the King (as [[head of state]]) and the ministers (as Executive), Constant was responding to the political reality which had become apparent in Britain for more than a century: that is, the ministers, and not the King, are responsible actors, and the King "reigns but does not rule". This was important for the development of parliamentary government in France and elsewhere. The King was not to be a powerless cipher in Constant's scheme. He would have many powers, including the power to make judicial appointments, to dissolve the Chamber and call new elections, to appoint the [[peerage|peers]], and to dismiss ministers – but he would not be able to govern, make policy, or direct the administration, since that would be the task of the responsible ministers. This theory was literally applied in Brazil (1824) and Portugal (1826), where the King/Emperor was explicitly given "[[Moderating power (Empire of Brazil)|Moderating Powers]]" in addition to the executive power. Elsewhere (for example, the 1848 "Statuto albertino" of the [[Kingdom of Sardinia]], which later became the basis of the [[History of Italy|Italian]] constitution from 1861) the executive power was notionally vested in the King, but was exercised only by the responsible ministers. He advocated the [[separation of powers]] as a basis for a liberal State, but unlike [[Montesquieu]] and most of the liberal thinkers, he advocated four powers instead of three. They were:

# the Neutral Power of the Monarch,
# the Executive,
# the Legislative,
# the [[Judicial power|Judiciary]].
Thus the Moderating Power was a monarch, a type of judge, who was not part of government, but served as a neutral power to the government, the Executive Power was vested in the ministers that the monarch appointed and they were, collectively, the [[head of government]], the Representative Powers were a separation of the Monstesquieu's [[Legislative power]], with the Representative Power of Opinion being an elected body to represent the opinion of the citizenry and the Representative Power of Tradition was a hereditary House of Peers and the judiciary was similar to the Montesquieu's Judicial Power.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Culver|first1=John W.|last2=de Oliveira Torres|first2=Joao Camillo|date=May 1968|title=A democracia coroada. Teoria politica de Imperio do Brasil.|journal=The Hispanic American Historical Review|volume=48|issue=2|pages=338|doi=10.2307/2510809|issn=0018-2168|jstor=2510809}}</ref> Constant's other concerns included a "new type of [[federalism]]": a serious attempt to decentralize French government through the devolution of powers to elected municipal councils. This proposal reached fruition in 1831, when elected municipal councils (albeit on a narrow [[suffrage|franchise]]) were created.

=== Imperialism and conquest ===
Constant was an opponent of imperialism and conquest, denouncing [[French colonial empire|French colonial policy]] in the [[West Indies]] and elsewhere as racist, unjust, and a violation of basic principles of human equality. He supported an extension of civil and political rights to non-white colonial subjects. He supported the [[Haitian Revolution|Haitian revolution]], and argued that the institutions set up by Haitians were evidence that non-Europeans could found institutions equivalent to those of Europeans. He was a staunch proponent of [[Greek War of Independence|Greek independence]] from the [[Ottoman Empire]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pitts |first=Jennifer |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=szeU8olEDewC |title=A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France |date=2005 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1400826636 |pages=173–183 |language=en}}</ref>