Table of Contents Abstract 3 Declaration 4 Acknowledgements 5 Introduction – Liberalism, Republicanism, and the Idea of Political Neutrality 8 Part One – The Idea of Neutrality

43^ See: Alexander Hamilton, ‘Federalist No.9’, in The Federalist, pp.118-122; Madison, ‘Federalist No.18’.

44^ Adair, ‘That Politics Can be Reduced to a Science’, pp.343-360.

45^ Dennis Wood, Benjamin Constant: Benjamin Constant (London, 2002), pp.44-45.

46^ Though there is little documentary evidence regarding Constant’s formal studies, Kurt Kloocke holds that it is highly likely that he studied under both Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson while in Scotland’s capital. Irrespective, however, of whether or not he was indeed personally educated by Smith and Ferguson there can be little doubt that he was receptive to their writings; Kloocke, Une biographie intellecuelle, p.300.

47^ Biancamaria Fontana, Benjamin Constant and the Post-Revolutionary Mind (New Haven, Conn., 1991), p.30.

48^ Stephen Holmes, Benjamin Constant and the Making of Modern Liberalism (New Haven, CT., 1984), pp.182-183.

49^ Holmes, Benjamin Constant, pp.187-192.

50^ Holmes, Benjamin Constant, p.201.

51^ Fontana, Post-Revolutionary Mind, p.30

52^ F.E.L Priestley, ‘Platonism in William Godwin’s Political Justice’, Modern Language Quarterly, Vol.4, No.1 (March, 1943), pp.63-69 (p.65).

53^ Priestley, ‘Godwin’s Political Justice’, p.65.

54^ Etienne Hofmann, Les Principes de Politique de Benjamin Constant: La Genèse d’une Oeuvre Et L’évolution de la Pensée de leur auteur, Tome I, (Genève, 1980), p.342.

55^ In Des réactions, Constant wrote: ‘lorsqu’une revolution dépasse ce terme, c’est-à-dire lorsqu’elle établit des institutions qui sont par delà les idées régnantes, ou qu’elle en detruit qui leur sont conformes, elle produit inévitablement des réactions… La révolution de France, qui a été faite contre les privilèges, ayant de même dépassé son terme en attaquant la propriété, une reaction terrible se fait sentir’; Benjamin Constant, “Des réactions politique”, in Cours de politique constitutionnelle, ou collection des ouvrages publiés sur le gouvernement répresentatif par Benjamin Constant, Tome II, M. Édouard Laboulaye (ed.) (Paris, 1872), pp.71-128. (pp.71-72) (Hereafter referred to as Cours de politique).

56^ Etienne Hofmann, ‘The Theory of the Perfectibility of the Human Race’, in The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Constant, Helena Rosenblatt (ed.) (Cambridge, 2009), pp.248-272 (p.252).

57^ Hofmann, ‘Theory of Perfectibility’, p.252; Michael Sonenscher, ‘Sociability, Perfectibility, and the Intellectual Legacy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’, History of European Ideas, Vol.41, No.5 (Jan., 2015), pp.683-698 (pp.691-693).

58^ Intriguingly, one of the lecture courses we know Constant attended was that organised and delivered by Alexander Fraser Tytler. As his Plan and Outlines for a Course of Lectures suggests, Tytler introduced his students to a distinctly whiggish approach to the study of history, emphasising man’s gradual and natural march toward progress. As Bryan Garsten notes, Tytler’s lectures constituted the primary source of inspiration behind Constant’s major work on the history of polytheisms; Bryan Garsten, ‘Religion and the Case Against Ancient Liberty: Constant’s Other Lectures’, Political Theory, Vol.38, No.1 (2010), pp.4-33 (p.7).

59^ Constant’s pessimism regarding the capacity of the political class to sufficiently advance human progress was grounded in his belief that since the governors were merely a fraction of the enlightened class, their opinions and judgments could not be considered intellectually superior to that held by the remaining educated members of society not in possession of political authority. That the governors would naturally possess a level of knowledge in accordance with the most prevalent ideas of the age, led Constant to insist that while suitable for conservation and protection, the government was not equipped for intellectual and moral leadership; Constant, Principes, pp.71-72.

60^ Constant, Principes, p.411.

61^ Hofmann, Les Principes de politique de Benjamin Constant, p.344.

62^ Constant, Principes, p.377. In a similar vein, he argued elsewhere in Principes that ‘Pour qu’un peuple fasse des progrès il suffit que le pouvoir ne les entrave pas…Enfin toute amélioration, toute innovation contraire aux habitudes d’une partie nombreuse du peuple doit être le plus possible ajournée quant à l’époque’; Constant, Principes, p.409, p.412.

63^ Daniel Walker Howe, ‘Why the Scottish Enlightenment was Useful to the Framers of the American Constitution’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol.31, No3 (July, 1989), pp.572-587 (pp.577-579).

64^ Edward J. Harpham, ‘Liberalism, Civic Humanism, and the Case of Adam Smith’, The American Political Science Review, Vol.78, No.3 (Sept., 1984), pp.764-774 (p.766).

65^ Harpham, ‘Liberalism, Civic Humanism, and Adam Smith’, p.766.

66^ Harpham, ‘Liberalism, Civic Humanism, and Adam Smith’, p.770.

67^ Harpham, ‘Liberalism, Civic Humanism, and Adam Smith’, p.770; Fleishacker, ‘Adam Smith’, p.908.

68^ Christopher J. Berry, ‘Adam Smith: Commerce, Liberty, and Modernity’, in Philosophers of the Enlightenment, Peter Gilmour (ed.) (Edinburgh, 1990), pp.113-132 (p.122). Smith was confident that the cohesiveness of the modern society was dependent not upon benevolence, but rather on the advancement of personal interest and the regulatory power of justice, and from this, he developed the highly modern view that under the guise of the ‘invisible hand’, the promotion of individual interests would necessarily further the realisation of the collective public good.

69^ Samuel Fleishacker, ‘Adam Smith’s Reception Among the American Founders, 1776-1790’, The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol.59, No.4 (Oct., 2002), pp.897-924 (p.908).

70^ Constant wrote: La nature de l’industrie’, he wrote, ’est de lutte contre l’industrie rivale, par une concurrence parfaitement libre et par des efforts pour atteindre une supériorité intrinsèque’; Constant, Principes, p.276.

71^ Constant in fact declared in Livre XII that even if there was a branch of industry that could not to be established in the absence of privileges, its inherent drawbacks would be such that its establishment would have a negative impact on the morals and freedom of society; Constant, Principes, p.278.

72^ In Ch.2 of Livre XII, Constant wrote: ‘La société n’ayant d’autres droits sur les individus que de les empêcher de se nuire mutuellement, elle n’a de juridiction sur l’industrie qu’en supposant celle-ci nuisible. Mais l’industrie d’un individu ne peut nuire à ses semblables, aussi longtemps que cet individu n’invoque pas en faveur de son industrie et contre la leur des secours. La nature de l’industrie est de lutter contre l’industrie rivale, par une concurrence parfaitement libre et par des efforts pour atteindre une supériorité intrinsèque. Tous les moyens d’espèce différent qu’elle tenterait d’employer ne seraient plus de l’industrie mais de l’oppression ou de la fraude. La société aurait le droit et même l’obligation de la réprimer. Mais de ce droit que la société possède, il résulte qu’elle ne possède point celui d’employer contre l’industrie de l’un, en faveur de celle de l’autre, les moyens qu’elle doit également interdire à tous’; Constant, Principes, p.276.

73^ Constant, Principes, p.276.

74^ Constant, Principes, p.280.

75^ Constant, Principes, p.280.

76^ Constant, Principes, p.355.

77^ This is particularly significant in that it suggests that Constant’s liberalism was fundamentally distinct from that espoused by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty. Though Constant was entirely committed to the preservation of individual rights, in Principes he came across as agnostic on the question of whether individual autonomy was a necessary precondition of a good, or worthwhile, existence. In this sense, Constant’s liberalism shares more in common with that advanced by John Rawls than with that expounded in On Liberty; Jonathan Quong, Liberalism Without Perfection (Oxford, 2001), pp.16-17.

78^ Constant, Principes, p.385.

79^ John Rawls, ‘The Priority of Right and Ideas of the Good’, Philosophy & Public Affairs, Vol.17, No.4 (Autumn, 1988), pp.251-276 (p.262).

80^ Rawls, ‘Priority of Right’, p.262.

81^ Smith argued that the public interest would be best served by a policy of absolute religious toleration on the grounds that competition between the various religious sects would result in the freeing of religious from ‘absurdity, imposture, or fanaticism’; Glenn R. Morrow, ‘Adam Smith: Moralist and Philosopher’, Journal of Political Economy, Vol.35, No.3 (June, 1927), pp.321-342 (p.334).

82^ Arthur McCalla, ‘The Free Market in Religion and the Metaphysical Invisible Hand: BenjaminConstant and the Construction of Religion as Private’, Religion, Vol.42, No.1 (Jan., 2012), pp.87-103 (p.98).

83^ McCalla, ‘Invisible Hand’, p.98.

84^ Fleishacker, ‘Adam Smith’, p.912.

85^ Daniel L. Dreisbach, ‘Thomas Jefferson and Bills Number 82-86 of the Revision of the Laws of Virginia, 1776-1786: New Light on the Jeffersonian Model of Church-State Relations’, North Carolina Law Review 69 (1990-1991), pp.159-212 (pp.164-165); Thomas E. Buckley, Church and State in Revolutionary Virginia, 1776-1787 (Charlottesville, 1977), pp.35-39.

86^ James Madison, ‘Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments’, in The Papers of James Madison, Robert Rutland et al. (eds.) (Chicago, 1973), VIII, pp.295-306. (Volume hereafter cited simply as PJM, VIII).

87^ Elias L. Khalil, ‘Beyond Self-Interest and Altruism: A Reconstruction of Adam Smith's Theory of Human Conduct’, Economics and Philosophy, Vol.6, No.2 (Oct., 1990), pp.255-273 (p.258-260). Fleishacker argues that especially within The Wealth of Nations we see ‘a hope that legislators will sometimes act out of an impartial concern…along with a general pessimism about how often that ideal is achieved’; Fleishacker, ‘Adam Smith’, pp.912-913.

88^ In Vices, Madison wrote: ‘Representative appointments are sought from three motives: 1. Ambition, 2. Personal interest, and 3. Public good. Unhappily the first two are proved by experience to be the most prevalent’; James Madison, ‘Vices of the Political System of the United States’, in The Papers of James Madison, William T. Hutchinson et al. (eds.) (Chicago, 1975), IX, pp.3-23 (Volume hereafter cited simply as PJM, IX). Similarly, we speaking of the effects of clashing ideological interests in Federalist No.10, Madison explained that ‘it is vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm: nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all, without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another, or the good of the whole’. James Madison, ‘Federalist No.10’, in The Federalist, pp.122-128.

89^ James Madison, ‘Speech in the Virginia Ratification Convention’, in The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution (eds.) John P. Kaminski, Gaspare J. Saladino, Richard Leffler, Charles H. Schoenlaber, Margaret A. Hogan (Charlottesville, 2009).

90^ In Vices, wrote: ‘Representative appointments are sought from three motives: 1. Ambition, 2. Personal interest, and 3. Public good. Unhappily the first two are proved by experience to be the most prevalent’; Madison, ‘Vices of the Political System’.

91^ Moore, ‘Hume’s Political Science’, p.839.

92^ For France see: Howard G. Brown ‘Echoes of the Terror’, Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques, Vol.29, No.3 (2009), pp.529-558; Jacques Godechot, Les Institutions de la France Sous le Révolution et l’Empire (Paris, 1951); Martyn Lyons, France under the Directory (Cambridge, 1975); Dennis Woronoff, The Thermidorean Regime and the Directory, 1794-1799 (Cambridge, 1984). For America (particularly Virginia and Pennsylvania) see: Isaac Kramnick, ‘Introduction’, in The Federalist Papers (ed.) Isaac Kramnick (London, 1987), pp.11-82; John Paul Selsam, The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776: A Study in Revolutionary Democracy (New York, 1950); CE Ambler, Sectionalism in Virginia from 1776-1861 (Chicago, 1910).

93^ There exist striking similarities between this understanding of the efficacy of republican concepts and the ‘instrumental republicanism’ as identified by Alan Patten; see Alan Patten, ‘The Republican Critique of Liberalism’, British Journal of Political Science, Vol.26, No.1 (Jan., 1996), pp.25-44 (p.35).

94^ John Pocock, ‘Virtues, Rights, and Manners: A Model for Historians of Political Thought’, Political Theory, Vol.9, No.3 (Aug., 1981), pp.353-368.

95^ Charles Lamore, ‘Liberal and Republican Conceptions of Freedom’, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 6:1, pp.96-119 (pp.99-102).

96^ Quentin Skinner, ‘The Paradoxes of Liberty’, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values (Cambridge, MA., 1984), pp.233

97^ Lamore, ‘Liberal and Republican’, p.101; Skinner, ‘Paradoxes’, p.233.

98^ Pocock, ‘Virtue’, p.375.

99^ Lamore, ‘Liberal and Republican’, p.100. Pocock informs us that before his execution, Charles I was heard to declare that the people’s liberty under the law had nothing to do with their having a voice in government; Pocock, ‘Virtues’, pp.356-357.

100^ Skinner, ‘Paradoxes’, p.228

101^ Skinner, ‘Paradoxes’, pp.244-245; Lamore, ‘Liberal and Republican’, p.99.

102^ Lamore, ‘Liberal and Republican’, p.97.

103^ Philip Petit, ‘Keeping Republican Liberty Simple: One a Difference with Quentin Skinner’, Political Theory, Vol.30, No.3 (Jun., 2002), pp.339-356 (p.340.); see also: Quentin Skinner, Liberty Before Liberalism (Cambridge, 1998).

104^ Lamore, ‘Liberal and Republican’, pp.97-99; Petit, ‘Republican Liberty’, p.341.

105^ Petit, ‘Republican Liberty’, pp.340-341.

106^ Andreas Kalyvas and Ira Katznelson, ‘The Republic of the Moderns: Paine’s and Madison’s Novel Liberalism’, Polity Vol.30, No.4 (Oct., 2006), pp.447-477 (p.453).

107^ In contrast to both Jefferson’s appeal for absolute freedom of religion and the Episcopalian demand for a church-state tie, the idea of a General Assessment emerged in 1779. This proposal was a scheme which called for the taxing of citizens in order to support a variety of Christian denominations; Dreisbach, ‘Thomas Jefferson and Bills Number 82-86’, pp.164-165; Buckley, Church and State, pp.35-39.

108^ There are a number of striking textual similarities between Madison’s Memorial and Locke’s Letter; see: Robert Rutland’s and William Rachal’s Editorial Note in Madison, ‘Memorial’, pp.295-298.

109^ Ketcham, James Madison, p.72; Robert S. Alley, James Madison on Religious Liberty (Amherst, New York., 1985), p.148: Alley importantly notes that in the context of eighteenth-century America, the term toleration essentially meant an acceptance of Protestant dogma.

110^ In a letter to William Bradford, Madison announced that he had requested from ‘Mr. Smith’ a copy of Furneaux’s essay; James Madison, ‘From James Madison to William Bradford (28 July, 1775)’, in The Papers of James Madison, William T. Hutchinson et al. (eds.) (Chicago, 1962), I, pp.159-162; Ketcham, James Madison, p.66; Charles Mullet, ‘Some Essays on Toleration in Late Eighteenth-Century England’, Church History, Vol.7, No.1 (March, 1938), pp.24-44; Philip Furneaux, Essay on Toleration (London, 1773).

111^ In an effort to protect protestant dissenters, Davies famously campaigned for the English parliament’s Toleration Act (1689) to be recognised in Virginian law.

112^ George William Pilcher, ‘Samuel Davies and Religious Toleration in Virginia’, The Historian, Vol.28, No.1 (Nov., 1985), pp.48-71.

113^ Alley, Religious Liberty, p.142; Pilcher, ‘Samuel Davies and Religious Toleration’. Davies interpretation of the Toleration Act (1689) insisted that under such a provision: the state would possess the right tolerate religious groups and would thus, by that same right, possess the authority to restrict expressions of faith which it found to be unacceptable; dissenting protestant religious groups would thus be free to express their respective faiths provided that they adhered to legal stipulations.

114^ Alley, Religious Liberty, p.147.

115^ Robert Martin, ‘James Madison and Popular Government: The Neglected Case of the ‘Memorial’’, Polity Vol.42, No.2 (April, 2010), pp.185-209 (p.187).

116^ Madison, ‘Memorial’, p.299.

117^ E.S. Corwin, ‘Debt of American Constitutional Law to Natural Law Concepts’, Notre Dame Law Review, 258 (1949-1950), pp.258-284 (p.262).

118^ John V. Jezierski, ‘Parliament or People: James Wilson and Blackstone on the Nature and Location of Sovereignty’, Vol.32, No.1 (Jan.-Mar., 1971), pp.95-106.

119^ See: James Madison, ‘Notes on Ancient and Modern Confederacies’, in PJM, IX, pp.3-23. The study of classical political philosophy was a central component of the education Madison received at New Jersey College (Princeton University); Ketchman, James Madison, p.24-33.

120^ Corwin, ‘The Higher Law’, p.157; Elizabeth Amis, ‘Cicero on the Natural Laws and the Laws of the State’, Classical Antiquity, Vol.27, No1 (April, 2008), pp.1-33 (pp.7-8); Cicero, De legibus, 1-18.

121^ In Federalist No.49, Madison argued that: ‘the people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived’; Madison, ‘Federalist No.49’, in The Federalist, pp.312-316 (p.313).

122^ Corwin, ‘The Higher Law’, p.152; Helen K. Michael, ‘The Role of Natural Law in Early American Constitutionalism: Did the Founders Contemplate Judicial Enforcement of ‘Unwritten’ Rights?’, North Carolina Law Review, 421 (1990-91), pp.421-490 (p.457).

123^ Michael, ‘The Role of Natural Law’, p.457; Suzanna Sherry, ‘The Founders’ Unwritten Constitution’, University of Chicago Law Review, Vol.54, No.4 (Autumn, 1987), pp.1127-1177 (pp.1152-54).

124^ Corwin, ‘The Higher Law’, p.180; Donald L. Doernberg, ‘‘We the People’: John Locke, Collective Constitutional Rights, and Standing to Challenge Government Action’, California Law Review, Vol.73, No.1 (Jan., 1985), pp.52-118.

125^ Thomas C. Grey, ‘Origins of the Unwritten Constitution: Fundamental Law in American Revolutionary Thought’, Stanford Law Review, Vol.30, No.5 (May, 1978), pp.843-893 (p.860); Wood, Creation, p.292.

126^ Madison declared in Article One of Memorial that the right to freedom of opinion was ‘in its nature an unalienable right’; Madison, ‘Memorial’, p.299.

127^ Helen Michael argues that Madison and others recognised that a constitution could create positive fundamental law precisely because it had achieved the consent of the people; Michael, ‘The Role of Natural Law in Early American Constitutionalism’, p.457.

128^ James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, ‘Act for Establishing Religious Freedom’, in PJM, 8, pp.399-402 (p.401).

129^ Madison, ‘Memorial’, p.304

130^ Indeed, it could be argued that Madison’s reluctance to include a declaration of rights in the Philadelphia Constitution was indicative of this line of reasoning. The limitations of the state were defined positively, presumably in response to the multifarious natural limits that existed as part of the higher law.

131^ Madison, ‘Federalist No.49’, p.313.

132^ James Madison, ‘Vices of the Political System of the United States’, in

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