Rights, Representation, and Reform: Nonsense Upon Stilts and Other Writings on the French Revolution

Jeremy Bentham

Oxford University Press, 2002 - Constitutional law - 486 pages

The French Revolution provided Bentham with what appeared to him to be an exciting opportunity to influence the reconstruction of the French state. Drawing on his knowledge of English political and constitutional practice, as well as the theoretical resources he had developed in his own work,he suggested imaginative and innovative measures to achieve the peaceful and constitutional reform in France. In discussing the nature of representation he produced the earliest utilitarian justification of political equality and representative democracy, even recommending women's suffrage.Moreover, he provided a major critique of the dominant constitutional theory of the division of power, including both the doctrine of the balance of powers and that of the separation of powers. Turning his attention to Britain, for a time he advocated measures of parlimentary reform, but becomingdisenchanted with the course of the Revolution he produced the celebrated 'Nonsense upon Stilts' (hitherto known as 'Anarchical Fallacies'), the most devastating attack on the theory of natural rights ever written, in which he argued that natural rights provided an unsuitable basis for stable legaland political arrangements. All the essays published in this volume, with the exception of Emancipate your Colonies!, an important early critique of colony-holding, are based on the original manuscript sources, many of which have not been previously published in any form.

Contents

• SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS: xv
• NECESSITY OF AN OMNIPOTENT: xix
• Lettre dun Anglois à M le C de M sur lobjet soumis: xxii
• Publication préliminaire: 23
• Plan de marche pour la conduite des affaires: 44
• Véracité avec Fidelité: 51
• CONSIDÉRATIONS DUN ANGLOIS SUR: 63
• Termes capitaux servant de points de ralliement aux principes: 67
• RÉPONSES: 87
• Acquiescence: 145
• COMPOSITION DES ÉTATSGÉNÉRAUX: 157
• OBSERVATIONS SUR RÉSULTAT: 167
• OBSERVATIONS ON THE DRAUGHTS: 177
• Observations on the Report of the Committee in which: 179
• SHORT VIEWS OF ECONOMY FOR THE: 193
• Limits to Economy: 200
• Appropriation: 208
• RetrenchmentPensions on RetreatDonations: 219
• National Assembly and King: 229
• OBSERVATIONS: 237
• Préface: 246
• Introduction and Heads: 265
• EMANCIPATE YOUR COLONIES ADDRESSED: 289
• JUNE 1829: 314
• Art 4: 338
• Art 5: 341
• Art 6: 343
• Art 7: 349
• Art 8: 353
• Art 9: 356
• Art 10: 358
• Art 11: 361
• Art 12: 364
• Art 13: 366
• Art 14: 369
• Art 15: 371
• Art 16: 372
• Art 17: 374
• DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF THE MAN AND THE CITIZEN A 1795: 376
• Art 2: 378
• Art 4: 379
• Art 5: 380
• Art 2: 381
• Art 4: 383
• Art 5: 384
• Art 7: 385
• Art 8: 387
• OBSERVATIONS ON THE DECLARATION OF RIGHTS AS PROPOSED BY CITIZEN SIEYÈS: 389
• Art 2: 390
• ON THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORD RIGHT: 398
• DIVISION OF POWER: 405
• 63: 412
• OF THE INFLUENCE OF: 419
• PARLIAMENTARY REFORM: 428
• COLLATION: 435
• INDEX OF NAMES: 479

About the author

Catherine Pease-Watkin and Philip P Schofield are both at University College London.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Rights, Representation, and Reform: Nonsense Upon Stilts and Other Writings on the French Revolution; Collected works of Jeremy Bentham, James Henderson Burns; Collected works of Jeremy Bentham. Political writings, Jeremy Bentham; Volume 15 of Works, Jeremy Bentham; Works. Political writings, Jeremy Bentham
• Author: Jeremy Bentham
• Editors: Philip Schofield, Catherine Pease-Watkin, Cyprian Blamires
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2002
• ISBN: 019924863X, 9780199248636
• Length: 486 pages