Liberalism and Constitutional Developments

The marriage of state and nation in European constitutions

“…In Bobbitt's (2002: 96) terms, these were ‘territorial states’ where the codification of laws had made the state (rather than the monarch) the object of constitutional contestation. The notion of representative government was given a dramatic boost by the American and French revolutions, and the ideals of representative and limited government were present even in the written constitutions of the legitimist restorations that followed the Congress of Vienna (Hawgood 1964). The process of cultural homogenisation had begun before 1789, and was gradual.…”

“…The French constitutions of the 1790s, the Spanish and Norwegian constitutions of 1812 and 1814, the Portuguese constitution of 1822 and the Dutch and Danish constitutions of 1848/49 involved challenges to royal authority in the name of popular sovereignty, as did the constitutions of several German states in the 1830s (Saxony, Brunswick and Hanover) as well as Piedmont in 1848 and Prussia in 1850. Yet in practice they represented compromises between liberal demands and the old order, and entailed narrower franchises than the 1832 Reform Act would introduce in Britain (Hawgood 1964: 191). In almost all these cases the liberal forces represented a relatively homogeneous cultural group, so the identity questions were not pivotal.…”

“…Italy saw a successful and enduring alliance between the liberal and the national projects, united in opposition to the Catholic Church. The Piedmont constitution was written with a view to unification: the source of sovereignty was left somewhat unclear, but the king held his position by both the grace of God and the nation (Hawgood 1964: 200). It went on to become the constitution of liberal Italy, and survived the Mussolini period as well.…”