The Place of Religion in the Liberal
Philosophy of Constant, Tocqueville,
and Lord Acton

A Dissertation Submitted to the University of Chicago’s Faculty of the Division of the Social Sciences in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy for the Committee on Social Thought,
Chaired by F. A. Hayek

BY
RALPH RAICO

Copyright © 2010 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute

Published under the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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Introduction

Religion and liberty—few issues are more controversial among current-day libertarians. At least four positions can be distinguished. One well-known position holds that religion and liberty are separate spheres that are almost hermetically sealed from one another, while any historical point of contact is purely accidental or contingent. According to another wide-spread position, religion and liberty are outright antagonistic. These advocates see in religion the most deadly foe of individual liberty, an even greater enemy of mankind than the state.

CHAPTER 1

Benjamin Constant

“He loved liberty as other men love power” was the judgment passed on Benjamin Constant by a nineteenth-century admirer. Constant’s great public concern, all throughout his adult life, was the attainment of a free society, especially for his adopted country, France.

CHAPTER 2

Alexis de Tocqueville

For most of the great social thinkers of the nineteenth century, the changes in European society associated with the Industrial Revolution and the political upheavals of the modern age (including especially the French Revolution) were by no means isolated phenomena.

CHAPTER 3

Lord Acton

In attempting to clarify Acton’s position on the interconnection of religion and freedom, it must be kept in mind that a consistent attitude cannot be gleaned from his works as they now stand, since on crucial points they contain a number of contradictions.

CHAPTER 4

Conclusions

Among the most interesting pages of Tocqueville’s little masterpiece, L’Ancien Régime et la Revolution, are those which he devotes to liberal thought in the decades preceding 1789. He takes the Physiocrats as the group of Enlightenment reformers who most genuinely reflect the underlying principles and tendencies of the age, and passes in review their notions on government and society.

Bibliography

Acton, Lord. Essays on Freedom and Power. Edited by Gertrude Himmelfarb. New York: Meridian, 1956.

——. Lectures on the French Revolution. New York: Noonday, 1959.

——. Letters to Mary Gladstone. Edited by Herbert Paul. London: Macmillan, 1905.

——. Lord Acton and His Circle. Edited by Abbot Gasquet. New York: Franklin, 1968.

——. Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton. Edited by J.N. Figgis and R.V. Laurence. London: Longmans, 1917.

Index

A

Acton, John Emerich Edward

Ambrose, St., 125

American Revolution, 112, 146

Austin, 126

Benedict XIV, 109

Bentham, 128, 146

Beza, 125

Blennerhassett, Lady, 110, 112, 113, 120, 126

Bryce, 113

Burke, Edmund, 108–114, 138

Catholic State, 108

Charles Borromeo, Saint, 123

Christianity and liberal thought, 2