Lehrman American Studies Center

Course Description:

• Democracy and constitutional government have not always enjoyed an easy relationship. Democracy is based on the doctrine of popular sovereignty and rule of the people, while constitutions are forms or formalities designed to check the exercise of political power. This issue came to the fore in the 2000 election where a majority of voters would have elected Vice President Al Gore, although the constitution declared the winner to be Governor George W. Bush. Constitutional government is by definition limited government whether the power being limited is that of the one, the few, or the many.
• This course will examine the theory of constitutional government as articulated in the writings of two of its most astute modern analysts: Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) and Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859). In The Spirit of the Laws (1748) Montesquieu diagnosed the dangers of despotic power and considered a range of alternative institutions that could check the growth of royal absolutism. A moderate aristocrat, Montesquieu saw in the English constitution an alternative to both the participatory republics of antiquity and the rise of the centralized absolutist states of modern Europe. Almost a century later, Montesquieu's fellow countryman Tocqueville analyzed in very similar terms the dangers of unchecked democratic power in Democracy in America (1835, 1840) and the growth of the centralized state in The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). Here Tocqueville considered at length the various kinds of formal and informal checks to democratic power from religion, to his analysis of civil associations, to manners and morals.
• Tocqueville's Democracy is widely regarded as the most important work on democracy ever written. It is less often recognized that Montesquieu was one of the three authors that Tocqueville claimed to spend some time reading every day (the other two being Pascal and Rousseau). Montesquieu was also the author most frequently cited by the founding fathers at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Our ultimate purpose will be to assess the value of their writings for the theory and practice of constitutional government
• The course will proceed by means of a close reading of two of Montesquieu’s major works, the Persian Letters (=PL) and the Spirit of the Laws (=SL) and Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (=DA) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (=OR). The following editions are available at the Yale Bookstore:

1. Montesquieu, Persian Letters (Hackett)
2. Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws (Cambridge)
3. Tocqueville, Democracy in America (U. of Chicago)
4. Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the Revolution (U. of Chicago)
5. D. Carrithers, M. Mosher, P. Rahe, eds. Montesquieu’s Science of Politics

• Students capable of following these writings in the French original will find their experience of reading greatly enhanced.

Requirements:

• The class will be conducted as a seminar so attendance and participation are key. Every student will give an in-class presentation to lead off the discussion. Undergraduates will have a choice between writing two papers (10-12 pages each) or one long paper (20-25 pages) due at the end of term. Graduate students will write one research paper of approximately 25 pages.

Course Outline:

• Week One: Introduction

• Week Two: The Problem of Despotism
  • PL, #1-14, 24-38, 44-57, 60-61, 64-66, 69, 80, 87, 90, 94-95, 102-07, 117, 121-22, 131

• Week Three: “There are Three Kinds of Government”
  • SL, Author’s Preface, Books 1-4

• Week Four: Liberty and Corruption
  • SL, Books 5-8

• Week Five: Liberty and the English Constitution
  • SL, Books 9-13

• Week Six: “The Spirit of a Nation”
  • SL, Books, 14-19

• Week Seven: The World of Commerce
  • SL, Books, 20-23

• Week Eight: Religion and the Varieties of Law
  • SL, Books, 24-31

• Week Nine: Tocqueville’s Democratic Federalism
  • DA, Author’s Intro; Vol. 1, pt. 1, chs. 1-5; pt. 2, chs. 5-6

• Week Nine: The Problem of Majority Tyranny
  • DA, vol. 1, pt. 2, chs. 6-9; vol. 2, pt. 4

• Week Ten: Democracy and Race
  • DA, vol. 1, pt. 2, ch. 10

• Week Eleven: Democratic Sentiments
  • DA, vol. 2, pt. 1, chs. 1, 5-6, 8; pt, 2, chs. 1-5. 7-9, 13, 18; pt. 3, chs. 1-5, 8-12, 17-19, 21-26

• Week Twelve: Revolution and the Concentration of Power
  • OR, Author’s Preface, Bks. 1 and 2

• Week Thirteen: Intellectuals in Politics
  • OR, Bk. 3

Additional Readings:

• The literature on Montesquieu and Tocqueville, to say nothing of the theory of constitutionalism more broadly, is vast. Below are a few works that you will find of interest. I have only included books written in English or available in English translation and have made no effort to include the huge periodical literature on the subject:

Constitutional Government

1. H. C. Mansfield, America’s Constitutional Soul
2. C. H. McIlwain, Constitutionalism Ancient and Modern
3. James Muller, ed. The Revival of Constitutionalism
4. F. Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad

Montesquieu

1. L. Althusser, Politics and History: Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Marx
2. R. Aron, Main Currents of Sociological Thought, vol. one
3. I. Berlin, “Montesquieu,” in Against the Current
4. D. Carrithers, ed. Montesquieu and the Spirit of Modernity
5. A. Cohler, Montesquieu’s Comparative Politics and the Spirit of American Constitutionalism
6. C. Courtney, Montesquieu and Burke
7. A. Hirschmann, The Passions and the Interests
8. M. Hulliung, Montesquieu and the Old Regime
9. N. Keohanne, Philosophy and the State in France
10. S. Krause, Liberalism with Honor
11. P. Manent, The City of Man
12. T. Pangle, Montesquieu’s Philosophy of Liberalism
13. R. Shackleton, Montesquieu: A Critical Biography
14. J. Shklar, Montesquieu
15. P. Spurlin, Montesquieu in America

Tocqueville

1. R. Aron, Main Currents of Sociological Thought, vol. Two
2. R. Boesche, The Strange Liberalism of Alexis de Tocqueville
3. J. Ceaser, Liberal Democracy and Political Science
4. S. Drescher, Dilemmas of Democracy: Tocqueville and Modernization
5. F. Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution
6. D. Goldstein, Trial of Faith: Religion and Politics in Tocqueville’s Thought
7. A. Jardin, Alexis de Tocqueville, 1825-1859
8. A. Kahn, Aristocratic Liberalism: Burkhardt, Mill and Tocqueville
9. J-C Lamberti, Tocqueville’s Two Democracies
10. J. Lively, The Social and Political Thought of Alexis de Tocqueville
11. P. Manent, Tocqueville and the Nature of Democracy
12. K. Masugi, ed. Interpreting Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America”
13. G. Pierson, Tocqueville in America
14. L. Siedentop, Tocqueville
15. S. Wolin, Tocqueville: Between Two Worlds
16. M. Zetterbaum, Tocqueville and the Problem of Democracy