Benjamin Constant

This article concerns the European writer and politician; for others see Benjamin Constant (disambiguation).

Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque (October 25, 1767 РDecember 8, 1830) was a Swiss-born thinker, writer and French politician. Image File history File links Benjamin_constant. ... Image File history File links Benjamin_constant. ... Benjamin Constant can refer to several people: Benjamin Constant (Brazil), politician & soldier Benjamin Constant Botelho de Magalḥes Benjamin Jean Joseph Benjamin Constant, (1845-1902) French painter Benjamin Constant, (1767-1830) cosmopolitan European politician & author Henri Benjamin Constant de Rebecque Category: ... October 25 is the 298th day of the year (299th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 67 days remaining. ... 1767 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... December 8 is the 342nd day (343rd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Liberty Leading the People by Eug̬ne Delacroix commemorates the July Revolution 1830 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... The term writer can apply to anyone who creates a written work, but the word more usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. ... A politician is an individual who is a formally recognized and active member of a government, or a person who influences the way a society is governed through an understanding of political power and group dynamics. ...

Constant was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, to descendants of Huguenots. He was educated by private tutors and at the University of Erlangen, Bavaria, and the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. In the course of his life, he spent many years in France, Switzerland, Germany, and Great Britain. Lausanne is a city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, situated on the shores of Lake Geneva (French: Lac Léman), and facing Évian-les-Bains (France) and with the Jura hills to its north. ... In the 16th and 17th centuries, the name of Huguenots came to apply to members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France, or historically as the French Calvinists. ... Erlangen is a German city in Middle Franconia. ... The Free State of Bavaria  (German: Freistaat Bayern), with an area of 70,553 km² (27,241 square miles) and 12. ... The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a renowned centre for teaching and research in Edinburgh, Scotland. ... Motto: (Latin for No one provokes me with impunity)1 Anthem: Multiple unofficial anthems Capital Edinburgh Largest city Glasgow Official language(s) English, Gaelic, Scots2 Government Constitutional monarchy  - Queen Queen Elizabeth II  - Prime Minister Tony Blair MP  - First Minister Jack McConnell MSP Unification    - by Kenneth I 843  Area    - Total 78...

He was intimate with Anne Louise Germaine de Staël and their intellectual collaboration made them one of the most important intellectual pairs of their time. He was active in French politics as a publicist and politician during the latter half of the French Revolution and between 1815 and 1830. During part of this latter period, he sat in the French National Assembly. He was one of its most eloquent orators and a leader of the left-liberal opposition known as the Indepentants. Madame de Staël Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (April 22, 1766 – July 14, 1817) was a French-speaking Swiss author living in Paris and abroad who determined literary tastes of Europe at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Liberty Leading the People, a painting by Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830 but which has come to be generally accepted as symbolic of French popular uprisings against the monarchy in general. ... The Palais Bourbon, front The French National Assembly (French: Assemblée nationale) is one of the two houses of the bicameral Parliament of France under the Fifth Republic. ... Orator is a Latin word for speaker (from the Latin verb oro, meaning I speak or I pray). In ancient Rome, the art of speaking in public (Ars Oratoria) was a professional competence especially cultivated by politicians and lawyers. ...

A liberal author, more in the Anglo-Saxon than the Francophone tradition, he looked to England rather than to Ancient Rome for a practical model of freedom in a large, commercial society. He drew a distinction between the "Liberty of the Ancients" and the "Liberty of the Moderns". The Liberty of the Ancients was a participatory, republican liberty, which gave the citizens the right to directly influence politics through debates and votes in the public assembly. In order 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 societies, in which the people could be conveniently gathered together in one place to transact public affairs. Liberalism is an ideology, philosophical view, and political tradition which holds that liberty is the primary political value. ...

The Liberty of the Moderns, in contrast, was based on the possession of civil liberties, the rule of law, and freedom from too much 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 commercial society in which there are no slaves but almost everybody must earn a living through work. Instead, the voters would elect representatives, who would deliberate in Parliament on behalf of the people and would save citizens from the necessity of daily political involvement.

Moreover, Constant believed that in the modern world Commerce was superior to War. He attacked Napoleon's martial appetite on the grounds that it was illiberal and no longer suited to modern commercial social organization. Ancient Liberty tended to be warlike, whereas a State organised on the principles of Modern Liberty would be at peace with all peaceful nations.

The distinction between Ancient Liberty and Modern Liberty is significant in a number of ways. Firstly, France had tried to replicate Ancient Liberty during the Revolution, basing its institutions (such as the Consulate and the Tribunate) on Roman Republican models. This had badly backfired, resulting in the personal rule of Napoleon. Constant believed that if liberty was to be salvaged from the aftermath of the Revolution, then chimerical Ancient Liberty had to be abdanoned in favour of practical and achievable Modern Liberty. England, since the Glorious Revolution of 1688, had demonstrated the practicality of Modern Liberty and England 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. 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 sentorial Chamber of Peers, with the executive power vested in responsible Ministers. Thus, although often ignored in France because of his Anglo-Saxon sympathies, Constant made a profound (albeit indirect) contribution to French constitutional traditions.

Secondly, Constant developed a new theory of constitutional monarchy, in which the 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 - flowing the conventional wisdom of William Blackstone, the 18th century English jurist, had reckoned the King to be head of the Executive branch. In Constant's scheme, the Executive power was entrusted to a Council of Ministers (or Cabinet) who, although appointed by the King, were ultimately responsible 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 been apparent in Britain for more than a century: that the Ministers, and not the King, are responsible - and therefore that the King "reigns but does not rule". This was important for the development of Parliamentary government in France and elsewhere. It should be noted, however, that 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 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.

As an aside, this theory was literally applied in Portugal (1822) and Brazil (1824), where the King/Emperor was explicitly given "Moderating Powers" rather than executive power. Elsewhere (for example, the 1848 "Statuto" of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which later became the basis of the Italian constitution from 1861) the executive power was notionally vested in the King, but was exercisable only by the responsible Ministers.

Constant's other concerns included a "new type of federalism" - a serious attempt to decentralise 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 franchise) were created.

The importance of Constant's writings on the liberty of the ancients has dominated understanding of his work. Constant was, however, no proponent of radical libertarianism. His wider literary and cultural writings (most importantly the novella Adolphe and his extensive histories of religion) emphasised the importance of self-sacrifice and warmth of the human emotions as a basis for social living. Thus, while he pleaded for individual liberty as vital for individual moral development and appropriate for modernity, he felt that egoism and self-interest were insufficient as part of a true definition of individual liberty. Emotional authenticity and fellow-feeling were critical. In this, his moral and religious thought was strongly influenced by the moral writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and German thinkers, such as Immanuel Kant, whom he read in preparing his religious history. Libertarianism is a political philosophy[1] advocating that individuals should be free to do whatever they wish with their person or property, as long as they do not infringe on the same liberty of others. ... Adolphe is a classic French novel by Benjamin Constant, first published in 1815. ... ......... Jean-Jacques Rousseau (June 28, 1712 – July 2, 1778) was a Geneva-born philosopher of the Enlightenment whose political ideas influenced the French Revolution, the development of socialist theory, and the growth of nationalism. ... Immanuel Kant (22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804), was a German philosopher from Königsberg in East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). ...

Bibliography

• De l'esprit de conquête et l'usurpation (On the spirit of conquest and on usurpation) (1815), an important pamphlet against Napoleon
• the novel Adolphe,
• De la religion (1824-1831), a five-volume history of ancient religion.
• A.Pitt "The Religion of the Moderns: Freedom and Authenticity in Constant's De la Religion", History of Political Thought, xxi, 1, 2000, 67-87
• "Principles of Politics Applicable to all Representative Governments", Constant: Political Writings (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought) - Biancamaria Fontana (Trans & Ed.) Cambridge, 1988

See also

• Liberalism
• Contributions to liberal theory

Liberalism is an ideology, philosophical view, and political tradition which holds that liberty is the primary political value. ... This is an (partial) overview of individuals that contributed to the development of liberal theory on a worldwide scale and therefore are strongly associated with the liberal tradition and instrumental in the exposition of political liberalism as a philosophy. ...

External links

• Find-A-Grave profile for Benjamin Constant
• Institut Benjamin Constant homepage
• Rebecq liberal
• Works by Benjamin Constant at Project Gutenberg
• Intellectual portrait of B. C. by Emile Faguet (in French)