Editing Benjamin Constant (section)

===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"/>