On the Obsolescence of the General Will: Rousseau, Madison, and the Evolution of Republican Political Thought

• Author: James Conniff
• DOI: 10.1177/106591297502800103
• Published date: 01 March 1975
• Date: 01 March 1975
• Subject Matter: Articles

ON THE OBSOLESCENCE OF THE GENERAL WILL:
ROUSSEAU, MADISON, AND THE EVOLUTION OF
REPUBLICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT
JAMES CONNIFF
San Diego State University
N
A LETTER to the people of Maryland, Luther Martin, recent member
t
of the Constitutional Convention and now opponent of the proposed Con-
-*-.
stitution, explained his position in these words, &dquo;And if the framing and
approving the Constitution now offered to our acceptance, is a proof of knowl-
edge in the science of government, I not only admit, but I glory in my ignor-
ance.&dquo; He then proceeded to explain that nothing in his extensive studies, read-
ings, or practical political experience warrants or justifies the new system. He
was absolutely right; virtually everything taught by a study of traditional
political thought, especially traditional republican or democratic thought, mili-
tated against the product of the convention. As aptly suggested by Gordon
Wood, among others, the creation of the American political system constituted
such a violation of accepted canons of political wisdom that it can only be
described as a transformation of classical political science.’ In this paper, I shall
be concerned with some of the features of that transformation. First, I will
discuss the nature of what may be called &dquo;classical republican theory,&dquo; citing
as a particularly good example the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau-its last
and perhaps greatest exponent.’ I shall further argue that most of the central
concerns of American theorists of the constitutional period are derived from
an attempt to apply the classical model to their particular situation. Finally, I
will suggest that the essential features of the transformation of classical republi-
canism to modern republicanism are revealed in the development of the thought
of James Madison prior to the writing of Federalist # 10.
1
Luther Martin, "A Letter to the Citizens of Maryland," in Cecilia M. Kenyon, The Anti-
Federalists (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966), p. 171.
2
Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787 (Chapel Hill: Uni-
versity of North Carolina Press, 1969), pp. 596 ff. The same thesis may be found in
Wood’s Representation in the American Revolution (Charlottesville: University Press
of Virginia, 1969). There have been numerous attempts to describe the nature of
this transformation with Bernard Bailyn’s The Origins of American Politics (New York:
Random House, 1967), and The Idealogical Origins of the American Revolution
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967) among the most influential. That some
of the changes in America paralleled similar ones in England may be seen in J. R. Pole,
Political Representation in England and the Origins of the American Republic (New
York: Macmillan, 1966) ; J. A. W. Gunn, Politics and the Public Interest (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1969) ; J.W. Gough, Fundamental Law in English Con-
stitutional History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1955) ; Donald W. Hanson,
From Kingdom to Commonwealth (Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 1970); and
J. H. Plumb, The Origins of Political Stability, England 1675-1725 (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1967). W. H. Greenleaf maintains, properly I believe, that the change in poli-
tical thought was concomitant with one in philosophy. See his Order, Empiricism and
Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964.
3
I
have borrowed the label, though not the details of definition, from Zera S. Fink, The
Classical Republicans (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1945).
32

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33
-
I
During the Renaissance, interest in republican theory revived. For the first
time in centuries writers on political topics began to take seriously the possibility
that a state could be organized along republican lines. At first, thinkers tended
to pattern their thought on the models provided by ancient sources; thus,
Machiavelli was deeply indebted to Polybius and Thomas More to Plato and
Epicurus.’ Gradually, based on these models, something like a generally
accepted body of theory emerged which can be called &dquo;classical republicanism.&dquo;
As to what constituted classical republicanism and who was a classical republi-
can, Zera Fink offers this suggestion: &dquo;... a person who advocated or admired a
republic and who took his ideas for such a government in whole or in part from
the ancient masterpieces of political organization, their supposed modem
counterparts, or their ancient and modem expositors.&dquo; 5 Thus., while these writers
did not share a coherent, detailed body of thought, they employed similar ap-
proaches, advocated some of the same ideas, and-most important for us-
recognized certain concerns and problems as primary. Specific treatments of
the problems might vary but what always remained were the problems, them-
selves, some of the methods and techniques for handling them, and some unity
of belief in what constituted a solution. This pattern of thought remained
standard among republican thinkers down to the time of the American Re-
volution and provides the background to the writers of that period. Let us, then,
enquire into some of the features of classical republicanism.
It should first be noted that the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth
centuries’ revival of republican thought took place in a particular social and
political context and depends on that context for much of its meaning. For in-
stance, the generally accepted social framework, and the intellectual framework
as well, was one of hierarchy. It was commonly believed that some were bom
to rule and others were bom to be ruled. Society was seen as an organic unit,
composed of a hierarchy of classes. The upper classes were, in fact, obliged to
4
While Machiavelli’s classicism is sometimes obscured by other matters, it is, nonetheless,
quite real. See such works as Guiseppe Prezzolini, Machiavelli (New York: Farrar,
Straus, and Giroux, 1967), pp. 73 ff.; Federico Chabod, Machiavelli and the Renaissance
(New York: Harper and Row, 1965), esp. pp. 149 ff.; and Herbert Butterfield, The
Statecraft of
Machiavelli (New York: Collier Books, 1962). As pointed out by Sydney
Anglo, Machiavelli: A Dissection (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1969), pp.
95-96, Machiavelli’s emphasis on the classics is derived from his assumptions that his-
tory repeats itself and that, based on this cyclical process, the Roman republic provides
a model to be imitated. Robert Cummings, Human Nature and History (Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1969), II, 6 ff., offers the view that Machiavelli’s theory is
derived from Polybius. More’s reliance on the classics is even more obvious. See Ed-
ward Surtz, The Praise of Pleasure (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), pp.
5 ff. for the argument that More’s Utopia relies heavily on Epicurus. See also his Praise
of Wisdom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957). J. H. Hexter, More’s Utopia:
The Biography of an Idea (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), pp. 48 ff., stresses the
role of the Christian classics in the formation of his views. For a general discussion of
More’s sources, see the introduction to Surtz and Hexter, The Complete Works of St.
Thomas More (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), Vol. IV. Ligeia Gallagher,
More’s Utopia and Its Critics (Fair Lawn, N.J.: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1964),
offers a useful summary of the major interpretation of More’s Utopia.
5
Fink, op. cit., p. viii.

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34
rule, while virtually no one believed that the common people were entitled to
a say in politics. As Peter Laslett puts it, &dquo;if you were not a gentleman ...
then you counted for little in the world outside your small village community
and its neighborhood.&dquo; This order was believed to be natural, for it was
thought to merely reproduce on the human level the divine order of the uni-
verse. Down
to the late eighteenth century most men accepted without question
the conception of the universe as a &dquo;great chain of being&dquo; composed of an
infinite number of links ranging in order from the meagerest spot through every
possible grade to the highest kind of natural creature and then, separated by an
infinite gap, to the Creator.’ Since society was a single whole, what affected one
class affected the others as well, and the social order was both interlocking and
paternalistic. Indeed, Wood finds in this view one of the primary defenses of
the theory of virtual representation; it was argued that what affects the people
also affects their leaders and the leaders thus shared their interests.’ In a very
real sense, then, society is a body politic and may well be treated as though it
shared many of the characteristics of a living creature.
Further, it must be recognized that republican theory did not, generally,
occur in theoretical isolation. That is to say, since few writers dealt only with re-
publics, classical republicanism usually was presented within a matrix of a theory
of government in general. Thus, some of the leading elements of the general
theory must be understood if repubican theory, in particular, is to be under-
stood fully. For example, almost all theory of the period espoused some form of
popular sovereignty, but qualified it by removing actual policy-making from
the hands of the people. McIlwain, in his Constitutionalism: Ancient and
Modern, makes a useful distinction : the law, jurisdictio, is made by the people
or their representatives, but policy-making, gubernaculum, is entirely in the
hands of the king.’ As...