3 - Revolutionary Republicanisms

Summary

Chapter 3 presents the development of new forms of republicanism in the revolutionary period. Republicanism was called upon to address a problem that was historically foreign to it: enabling the emancipation of a large and diverse people that had just lost the unifying power of their King. After examining the arguments of the first republican treatises (Condorcet, Robert, Billaud-Varenne), the chapter lays out the solutions republicans imagined to the problems that arose with the defection of the King. This included the attempt to create a united popular sovereign, and, in response to Montesquieu’s challenges, the creation of a virtuous and educated citizenry that was ready to defend the republic. Revolutionaries imagined a republic based on an abstract notion of citizenship and a representative system without representation of particular interests. This chapter concludes with a discussion of the debate between Sieyès, Condorcet, and Robespierre on the representation of the people in a republic.