On the Pre-history of Parliamentarism and Constitutional Monarchy, Hume, Smith and Spinoza

William Selinger’s (2019) Parliamentarism: From Burke to Weber (CUP), explores the significant role of parliamentary democracy to nineteenth century liberal thought. It’s very well written and even specialists will get a lot of out it. One very important strain of argument is that Montesquieu’s purported impact on liberal thought is much over-stated. This because from the start many informed commentators — beginning with the neglected Genevan, Jean Louis de Lolme (1740-1806), — recognized that the practice of the model nation that inspired Montesquieu’s theory of the separation of powers, Great Britain, did not neatly conform to his theory.

As theorists reflected on the failures of the French revolution, the actual English practice was theorized into modern parliamentary liberal democracy which is often accompanied by constitutional monarchy. As Selinger notes this model is incredibly popular in Europe. And it has been re-introduced in Spain in living memory with considerable success.

The key figures in Selinger’s story are De Staël and Constant. And he makes a very persuasive case that the lens of parliamentarianism is very fruitful in analyzing the writings of Tocqueville and J.S. Mill on democracy. In particular, Selinger manages to recover what government by discussion may have meant before it become a nearly forgotten platitude of liberalism. I expect to return to his main arguments before long.

Early in his book, he notes that Hume and Smith deviated from Montesquieu’s approach and laid the ground-work for De Lolme’s alternative framework. Hume’s relatively early (1741) essay, “Of the Independency of Parliament” and Smith’s lecture of Tuesday, March 8th 1763 (from his Lectures on Jurisprudence) are the key bits of evidence he relies on. As Selinger notes (p. 7-8), according to Smith, a “system of liberty” has been established in constitutional monarchy under the control of a parliament with the power of the purse. (Cf. the quoted passage from Spinoza, TP 7.31 at the end of this digression.)

It is worth asking why the contrast between Hume/Smith and Montesquieu has been missed. First, it is quite natural to assume that the first sentence of Hume’s essay is anticipating Montesquieu’s (1748) De l'esprit des loix: “Political writers have established it as a maxim, that, in contriving any system of government, and fixing the several checks and controuls of the constitution, every man ought to be supposed a knave, and to have no other end, in all his actions, than private interest.” In fact, the phrase, “checks and controuls” is derived from Letter XI of Bolingbroke’s (1733) Dissertation Upon Parties. And we know that Bolingbroke was an important source to Montesquieu about things English without being a slavish follower. (I assume that’s uncontroversial.) If you are American, especially, it is very hard not to read anticipations of Madison into this sentence (especially because we know that Montesuieu and Hume influenced Madison). As Federalist 51 puts it, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

But as he makes clear later in the essay with an explicit citation to Bolingbroke’s Dissertation, Hume is firmly disagreeing with Bolingbroke (who he treats as a party-fanatic). While Hume is clearly borrowing a phrase from Bolingbroke, the first sentence “Of the Independency of Parliament” is really much more inspired by Spinoza’s Political Treatise. See, for example, Spinoza's Political Treatise (PT) 6.3: "If human nature were so constituted that men desired most what is most useful, there’d be no need of skill to produce harmony and loyalty.” (Translation by Curley.) Chapter 6 of Spinoza’s PT is explicitly on how a monarchy should be constituted through careful mechanism design so as not to slide into a tyranny. (See here for more on that.)

And while my claim is a bit speculative (there are no explicit mentions of Spinoza in Hume’s political writings), Hume’s perfect political constitution (In “An Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth”) and his wider political writings are explicitly shaped by Hume’s own reflections on Dutch political history and practices (see here for scholarly defense of that claim.) As Seligman shows avoidance of monarchic despotism just is the topic under which parliamentarism is often debated in the liberal tradition. (Seligman oddly ignores the role of the United Provinces in the early liberal imagination.)

Hume’s Spinozism on these maters is also visible in Hume’s second sentence: “By this [private] interest we must govern him, and, by means of it, make him, notwithstanding his insatiable avarice and ambition, co-operate to public good.” Compare that again with PT 6:3: “This happens if the affairs of the state are so arranged that nothing which concerns the common well-being is committed absolutely to the good faith of any one person.” As Spinoza puts it at PT 7.4: “because human nature is so constituted that everyone is most strongly disposed by his affects to seek his personal advantage, judges those laws most equitable which are necessary to preserve and advance his own interest, and defends another person’s cause just to the extent that he believes it makes his own situation more stable, it follows that the Counselors chosen ought, necessarily, to be those whose personal situation and advantage depend on peace and the common well- being of everyone.”

Now, despite my use of' ‘inspire’ I am not suggesting that Hume only could have gotten this framework from Spinoza. It’s clearly in Mandeville, and there are passages in Machiavelli and Bacon that could have inspired all of them. And, of course, Hume and Montesquieu are reflecting on very similar sources.

Okay, be that as it may, in this essay, Hume actually goes on to deny that Britain has separation of powers. Rather what he claims is that has “a very regular system of mixed government, where the authority was so distributed, that one rank, whenever it pleased, might swallow up all the rest, and engross the whole power of the constitution.” (The emphasis is in Hume.) And as Selinger notes (p. 33), Hume goes on to claim that “The share of power, allotted by our constitution to the house of commons, is so great, that it absolutely commands all the other parts of the government.” As Selinger rightly notes Hume and Smith both think this is due to the fact that the commons controls the power of the purse. (Smith actually also claims that an ambitious and parsimonious king could wrest control back because the royal allowance would permit it to maintain an army that could subdue the commons. In Wealth of Nations, Smith makes clear there is no risk of this if the leading army officers are also leading citizens—that’s straight out Spinoza, by the way.)

At this point one may wonder why according to Hume, England is a monarchy at all. His answer is a bit puzzling “the interest of the body is here restrained by that of the individuals, and that the house of commons stretches not its power, because such an usurpation would be contrary to the interest of the majority of its members.” Why such an usurpation is against the interest of the majority of its own members is left unclear by Hume. As Selinger notes, later liberals will claim (echoing Cato’s Letters) that in virtue of the existence of a constitutional monarch the ambitions of particular individual usurpers is automatically checked; their ambition must be lowered and channeled through parliamentary politics. (Contrast Boris Johnson and Donald Trump.)

As an aside I don’t think this claim is in Spinoza. But Spinoza, too, defended constitutional monarchy with rather constrained powers as safer to the monarch: “it follows that a King is less his own Master, and that the condition of his subjects is more wretched, the more absolutely the Right of the Commonwealth is transferred to him. So, to establish a Monarchic government properly, it’s necessary to lay firm foundations for it. If this is done, the Monarch will be secure, and the multitude will have peace. Accordingly, a Monarch will be most his own master, when he’s most attentive to the well-being of the multitude.” (PT 6.8)

And maybe this is what Hume also has in mind. Because the following sentence clearly suggests he is thinking of ambitious individuals (e.g., Cromwell) that try to usurp the crown by drawing on the power of the House of commons to control the purse. This ambition can be blocked by a species of corruption or spoils: “The crown has so many offices at its disposal, that, when assisted by the honest and disinterested part of the house, it will always command the resolutions of the whole so far, at least, as to preserve the antient constitution from danger.” One of the truly eye-opening features of Selinger’s book is how long a spoils system was defended as necessary to unified and good government! Anyone familiar with the practice of contemporary Dutch parliamentarism (which is as close to the liberal ideal of Constant as one gets in reality) knows that such a spoils system — based on party affiliation — is incredibly robust.

Now, there are two reasons why I think Spinoza’s Political Treatise matters to this conversation that when it comes to what a constitutional monarchy should be like in practice, he is, first, adamant that the king’s ministers should sit in the deliberative council (TP 6.17) that advices the king: “It will also be the duty of this Council to promulgate the King’s statutes and decrees, to take responsibility for what has been decreed about Public affairs, and to look after the whole administration of the state, as deputies of the King.” (TP 6.18) (In fact, Spinoza basically thinks the legislative branch shapes the executive.) As Selinger notes, that ministers should sit in, deliberate with, and be accountable to parliament becomes central to liberal self-understanding.

Second, Spinoza thinks there should be a distinct and independent system of law that is ultimately accountable to parliament:

“For administering justice another Council must be formed, composed entirely of Jurists. Their duty is to decide lawsuits and punish criminals, but to do this in such a way that all their decisions are approved by the deputies of the great Council, who must decide whether due process has been observed and the decision made without favoritism. If a losing party is able to show that one of the judges was corrupted by a gift from his opponent, or has any other common reason for friendship toward his opponent (or for hatred toward the complainant), or finally, that the standard procedure for judging hasn’t been observed, he is to be made whole.” (TP 6.26)

As Selinger notes (p. 31) the independent judiciary was central to people’s understanding of the English constitution. And one may well think that Spinoza here has something different in mind. But as Selinger points out this rule of law, “required parliamentary supervision of the government for the public needed some recourse if the government chose to disregard the courts.” (p. 31-32 pote 74.) And this is explicitly anticipated by Spinoza. (Later in 1752, in “Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth,” Hume decides that there should be a distinct organ of state, the court of competitors, which investigates and prevents such bribery.)

There is one final reason why I think Hume is jumping off the Political Treatise chapters 6-7 (without slavishly following it). When in the final paragraph of “Of the Independency of Parliament,” Hume gets to the composition of large assemblies in hypothetical republics (but approximated in the Commons), Hume writes, “because the members of such numerous assemblies may be presumed to be always nearly equal in capacity and virtue; and it is only their number, riches, or authority, which enter into consideration.” Spinoza writes, “this Council is composed of such a large number of citizens, it must be attended by many whose mentality is quite uncultivated. Still, this is certain: each of them will be shrewd and clever enough in matters he has long been passionately involved in.” (PT 7.4) As Spinoza puts it, a “multitude can preserve a full enough freedom under a King [mediated through a deliberative council], so long as it brings it about that the King’s power is determined only by the power of the multitude, and is preserved by the multitude’s support.” (TP 7.31) While this deviates from Spinoza’s radical chic, he is clearly a theorist of the stream that leads to liberalism.

*