Benjamin Constant

Henri-Benjamin fixed de Rebecque French: ; 25 October 1767 – 8 December 1830, or simply Benjamin Constant, was the Swiss-French political thinker, activist as well as writer on political theory as well as religion.

A dedicated republican from 1795, he backed a coup d'état of 18 Fructidor 4 September 1797 and the following one on 18 brumaire 9 November 1799. During the Consulat, in 1800 he became the leader of the Liberal Opposition. Having upset Napoleon and left France to go to Switzerland then to the Kingdom of Saxony, fixed nonetheless sided with him during the Hundred Days and became politically active again during the French Restoration. He was elected Député in 1818 and remained in post until his death in 1830. Head of the Liberal opposition, call as Indépendants, he was one of the most notable orators of the Chamber of Deputies of France, as a proponent of the parliamentary system. During the July Revolution, he was a supporter of Louis Philippe I ascending the throne.

Besides his many essays on political and religious themes, Constant also wrote on romantic love. His autobiographical Le Cahier rouge 1807 allowed an account of his love for Madame de Staël, whose protégé and collaborator he became, particularly in the Coppet circle, and a successful novella, Adolphe 1816, are utility examples of his develope on this topic.

He was a fervent ]

Political philosophy

One of the first thinkers to go by the defecate of "liberal", Constant looked to Britain rather than to ancient Rome for a practical expediency example of freedom in a large mercantile 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 reported the citizens the correct to influence politics directly through debates and votes in the public assembly. To guide 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.

The Liberty of the Moderns, in contrast, was based on the possession of civil liberties, the domination of law, and freedom from excessive state interference. Direct participation would be limited: a essential consequence of the size of contemporary states, and also the inevitable a thing that is said of having created a mercantile society in which there were no slaves but most everybody had to earn a well through work. Instead, the voters would elect representatives, who would deliberate in Parliament on behalf of the people and would save citizens from daily political involvement.

He 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 sophisticated state. Constant realized that freedom meant drawing a breed between a person's private life and that of state interference. 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 non brought some reshape 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. These writers, influential in the French Revolution, according to Constant, mistook direction for liberty and approved all 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 breed of this ideology.

Furthermore, he noted out 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. Constant understood the revolutionaries' disastrous over-investment in the political sphere. The French revolutionaries such as the Sans-culottes were the primary force in the streets. They promoted constant vigilance in public. Constant included out how despite the most obscure life, the quietest existence, the most unknown name, it exposed no security measure during the Reign of Terror. The pervasive mob mentality deterred many right thinking people and helped to usher in despots such as Napoleon.

Moreover, 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.

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 toModern 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. This was only to last for "One Hundred Days" previously 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 execution 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 to direct or instituting to direct or establishment 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.

Secondly, Constant developed a new idea of constitutional monarchy, in which royal power to direct or determine was intended to be a neutral power, protecting, balancing and restraining the excesses of the other active powers the executive, legislature, and ] 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 devloping 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 obvious 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 developing 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 peers, and to dismiss ministers – but he would not be experienced to govern, make policy, or direct the administration, since that would be the task of the responsible ministers. This idea was literally applied in Portugal 1822 and Brazil 1824, where the King/Emperor was explicitly assumption "Moderating Powers" rather than executive power. Elsewhere for example, the 1848 "Statuto albertino" 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 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 five powers instead of three. They were:

Thus the Moderating Power was a monarch, a type of judge, who was not element 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 exercise Powers were a separation of the Monstesquieu's Legislative power, with the exemplification Power of Opinion being an elected body to survive the opinion of the citizenry and the interpreter Power of Tradition was a hereditary combine of Peers and the judiciary was similar to the Montesquieu's Judicial Power.

Constant's other concerns included a "new type of federalism": a serious effort 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 franchise were created.

Constant was an opponent of imperialism and conquest, denouncing french colonial policy in the West Indies and elsewhere as racist, unjust, and a violation of basic principles of human equality. He supported an mention of civil and political rights to non-white colonial subjects. He supported the Haitian revolution, and argued that the institutions complete by Haitians were evidence that non-Europeans could found institutions equivalent to those of Europeans. He was a staunch proponent of Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire.