Benjamin Constant · The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns (1819) · ~5 min read
What do we mean when we say we are free?
Paris, 1819. After revolution, terror and empire, Benjamin Constant told his audience that France had confused two very different kinds of liberty — and paid dearly for it.
Benjamin Constant, The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns (speech at the Athénée Royal, Paris, 1819). Quotations from the English translation by Biancamaria Fontana, Political Writings (Cambridge University Press).
In the text
p. 309 — The opening, where Constant introduces two kinds of liberty and the harm their confusion caused during the Revolution.
“…through their failure to perceive these differences, otherwise well-intentioned men caused infinite evils during our long and stormy revolution.”
p. 317
Four terms to hold.
Sovereignty
Supreme power over public affairs: laws, war, justice.
Political liberty
A share in exercising that power.
Individual liberty
Independence from power in your private life.
Representative system
Citizens delegate power to a few elected proxies. For Constant, a modern discovery the ancients barely knew.
In the text
pp. 309–10 — Representation as a modern discovery (Sparta’s ephors, the Gauls and Rome’s tribunes as at most faint traces).
“This system is a discovery of the moderns … The ancient peoples could neither feel the need for it, nor appreciate its advantages.”
p. 310
Liberty of the ancients
Ancient liberty meant sharing power — directly.
“exercising collectively, but directly, several parts of the complete sovereignty”
Constant
Direct assemblies
Citizens met in the public square to deliberate and vote the laws themselves.
War and peace
The assembly decided war and peace, and made alliances with foreign governments.
Sitting in judgement
The people judged cases and examined magistrates’ accounts and conduct — able to accuse, condemn or acquit them. Athens even had the commanders at Arginusae put to death.
In the text
p. 311 and p. 316 — The components of ancient liberty (p. 311); Athens and the Arginusae generals (p. 316).
“The people made the laws, examined the behaviour of the magistrates, called Pericles to account for his conduct…”
p. 316
The price: no private life of one’s own.
“the complete subjection of the individual to the authority of the community”
Constant
No independence of opinion, of work — above all, of religion. Every private act was watched.
Sparta: the magistrates took offence when the musician Terpandrus added a string to his lyre.
Sparta: a young husband could not freely visit his own bride.
Rome: censors scrutinised family life.
Master in the square, servant at home.
In the text
pp. 311–12 — The subjection of private life and the examples of Sparta and Rome.
“Thus among the ancients the individual, almost always sovereign in public affairs, was a slave in all his private relations.”
p. 311
Liberty of the moderns
Modern liberty means being left alone — under the law.
Ask what an Englishman, a Frenchman or an American means by “liberty” today.
Rule of law
“the right to be subjected only to the laws”
Constant
No one may be arrested, detained or mistreated at anyone’s arbitrary will.
Six freedoms
- Opinion
- Profession
- Movement
- Property
- Association
- Religion
No permission needed, no motives to explain.
Some influence
“the right to exercise some influence on the administration of the government”
Constant
Through elections, petitions and representatives — an indirect, limited share.
Free at home, but sovereign only in appearance: the modern citizen uses his sovereignty rarely, and mostly to hand it over.
Ancients
Power: collective, direct, total
Individual: nothing
Moderns
Individual: independent
Power: indirect, limited
In the text
p. 310 and p. 312 — The modern definition of liberty (p. 310); the modern individual, sovereign only in appearance (p. 312).
“Among the moderns, on the contrary, the individual, independent in his private life, is, even in the freest of states, sovereign only in appearance.”
p. 312
Why can’t we simply choose the ancient kind?
Because it stood on three conditions that no longer exist.
Pillar 1 · Small territory
Even the largest ancient republic was smaller than the smallest modern state. In a small city, every vote carried real weight.
“Lost in the multitude, the individual can almost never perceive the influence he exercises.”
Constant
In the text
p. 312, p. 314 and p. 316 — The narrow territory of ancient republics (p. 312); size decreases the individual’s political importance (p. 314); lost in the multitude (p. 316).
“Lost in the multitude, the individual can almost never perceive the influence he exercises.”
p. 316
Pillar 2 · War → commerce
War and commerce chase the same prize.
Small, crowded republics bought their security at the price of constant war.
“War and commerce are only two different means of achieving the same end”
Constant
Commerce wins. Ancient trade was hampered: without the compass, ships hugged the coast, and Athenian maritime ventures carried about 60% interest, against 12% in Constant’s day. Today even a successful war costs more than it is worth.
An age of commerce has replaced the age of war.
An early form of the commercial peace thesis.
In the text
pp. 312–14 — Bellicose ancient republics, war and commerce as two means to one end, obstacles to ancient commerce, and the cost of modern war.
“War is all impulse, commerce, calculation. Hence it follows that an age must come in which commerce replaces war.”
p. 313
Pillar 3 · Slavery
Ancient leisure rested on slave labour.
“…20,000 Athenians could never have spent every day at the public square in discussions.”
Constant
Without slavery, free people must do all the work. And commerce leaves no idle hours for endless assemblies.
The temple falls. On new foundations — a large state, commerce, free labour — stands the modern Home.
In the text
p. 313 and p. 314 — Slavery in the ancient states (p. 313); abolition and the 20,000 Athenians, and commerce leaving no intervals of inactivity (p. 314).
“Without the slave population of Athens, 20,000 Athenians could never have spent every day at the public square in discussions.”
p. 314
The trade no longer pays.
For the ancients, a share of sovereignty was real and a constant pleasure; it compensated for private subjection. For us, that compensation is gone.
They gave up little to gain much. We would give up much to gain little.
Ancient aim: sharing social power. Modern aim: security in private enjoyment, guaranteed by institutions.
Athens, the most commercial ancient city, gave the most private freedom — yet kept slaves and ostracism.
In the text
pp. 315–17 — Athens as a partial exception, the compensation the ancients enjoyed, and the changed aims of liberty.
“For the ancients when they sacrificed that independence to their political rights, sacrificed less to obtain more; while in making the same sacrifice, we would give more to obtain less.”
p. 317
The Revolution tried to rebuild the temple.
Steeped in Rousseau and Mably, well-meaning revolutionaries transplanted ancient collective sovereignty into modern France. Mably wanted the individual subjected so the nation could be sovereign. The result: pretexts for tyranny.
Constant’s verdict: an enslaved people could more easily be drilled into Spartans than free people turned into them.
Even later governments reached for ancient tools: an ostracism-like article in the 1802 law on special tribunals, calls to revive Roman censorship, state-shaped education.
In the text
pp. 317–20 and pp. 321–22 — Rousseau, Mably, Montesquieu and the revolutionaries (pp. 317–20); ostracism, censorship, education (pp. 321–22).
“It would be easier today to make Spartans of an enslaved people than to turn free men into Spartans.”
p. 319
But don’t throw political liberty away.
“Individual liberty, I repeat, is the true modern liberty.”
Constant
Political liberty is its guarantee — and so it is indispensable.
Caring only about your own floor while the foundations sink into sand.
Commerce helps too: property now circulates and credit makes governments depend on lenders, so arbitrary power is easier to escape.
In the text
p. 323, pp. 324–25 and p. 326 — Individual liberty and political liberty as its guarantee (p. 323); commerce, circulation and credit (pp. 324–25); the house built on sand (p. 326).
“Individual liberty, I repeat, is the true modern liberty. Political liberty is its guarantee, consequently political liberty is indispensable.”
p. 323
Representatives are stewards — so check the books.
A nation uses representatives as the rich use stewards to manage their estates. But prudent owners watch their stewards closely.
Citizens must keep active, constant watch over their representatives — and the right to dismiss them.
The eye that once watched the citizen now watches the government.
In the text
pp. 325–26 — The representative system as a proxy, and the need for constant surveillance of representatives.
“Poor men look after their own business; rich men hire stewards. This is the history of ancient and modern nations.”
pp. 325–26
Two dangers, one answer.
Ancient danger: valuing individual rights too little.
Modern danger: so absorbed in private life that we surrender our share of power too easily.
Rulers will gladly offer to take care of our happiness for us. Constant’s reply: let them be just; we will see to our own happiness.
And happiness is not the whole goal — self-development is, and political liberty is its most powerful means.
Institutions must respect citizens’ rights — and draw them into voting, oversight and public life.
Not one liberty or the other: learn to combine them.
In the text
pp. 326–28 — The two dangers, the rulers’ offer of happiness, self-development, and combining the two liberties.
“…far from renouncing either of the two sorts of freedom which I have described to you, it is necessary, as I have shown, to learn to combine the two together.”
p. 327
Discussion — beyond the text
Go further
- Commercial peace.
- Constant argues commerce has drawn nations together: rulers may be enemies while their peoples are effectively compatriots. This is an early link in the liberal line toward interdependence theory.
- Finance constrains states.
- Credit depends on opinion, and capital can hide or leave, so states depend on those who lend to them. Compare today’s debates on the structural power of markets.
- Isaiah Berlin.
- His “Two Concepts of Liberty” (1958) builds on Constant’s distinction, contrasting negative and positive liberty.
- Montesquieu.
- Constant credits him with noticing the differences, but says he misattributed their cause to republic versus monarchy instead of ancient versus modern conditions.
- A critical note.
- Constant’s picture of the ancients is selective, and Athens complicates it. He spoke when only a small, wealthy minority could vote in France.