The Hobbesian Basis of American Constitutionalism

Professor Coleman writes of Hobbes, of Locke and Madison as essentially Hobbesian, and of the inability of the American political system, oriented to the management of conflict, to recognize and act effectively on major social problems. The hero-villain of the piece is Hobbes; for he, not Locke, is the father of "the philosophy of liberal-democratic constitutionalism employed in America." The argument includes the historical proposition that both the 1688 and 1776 revolutions were not really revolutions at all, and accorded with Hobbes' position on the right of rebellion. The essay may be read as part of the contemporary effort to revitalize the sense of a common good in American public life, to replace self-interest as the motive and harmony as the test of a good polity.