From: Stephen Holmes (1984). Benjamin Constant and the Making of Modern Liberalism. Yale University Press: New Haven, CT. Constant was a late 18th century – early 19th century French political thinker; Holmes is an American political scientist; and the book has been called a landmark study.
In truth, Constant’s hostility was never directed against democracy itself, but only against the pretext of democracy. He did not fear popular government, though (like Rousseau) he took it for granted that direct, polis-style self-rule was impossible in large modern states. He did not worry that if democracy were carried too far it would be transmogrified into its opposite. What he dreaded was the perverse exploitation of democratic rhetoric to justify the concentration of all power in a few hands and to conceal acts of oppression. In other words, Constant did not share the apprehensions of Tocqueville and Mill about a potential tyranny of the majority. He could not have been more explicit on this point. In 1829, he wrote: “during the last forty years, every time there has been tyranny in France, minorities have governed.” Even more emphatically: “The majority never oppresses. One confiscates its name, using against it the weapons it has furnished.” Not the majority but the all-justifying name of the majority, confiscated by a few, was his fundamental concern. (Holmes 1984, 25; internal endnotes deleted)
