America’s Machiavellian: Gouverneur Morris at The Constitutional Convention

Authors

John Patrick Coby, Smith CollegeFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-19-2017

Publication Title

The Review of Politics

Abstract

While generally a steady ally of James Madison and the nationalists, Gouverneur Morris, delegate from Pennsylvania, worked from a different conception of republican politics. Morris's republicanism was more old than new, relying on the divided sovereignty of a mixed regime to protect the rights of citizens and minorities. This conception, it is argued here, bears the stamp of Machiavelli, especially regarding the relationship of the classes and the role of the executive. Like Machiavelli—but unlike Madison—Morris wanted to underscore society's class divisions, organizing the representatives of rich and poor into two distinct, and hostile, chambers of the legislature. And like Machiavelli, whose “civil prince” was the champion of the people, Morris's executive was to be the “guardian of the people” and the “guardian of liberty.”

Volume

79

Issue

4

First Page

621

Last Page

648

DOI

doi.org/10.1017/S0034670517000614

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Rights

Licensed to Smith College and distributed CC-BY under the Smith College Faculty Open Access Policy

Comments

Peer reviewed accepted manuscript.

Recommended Citation

Coby, John Patrick, "America’s Machiavellian: Gouverneur Morris at The Constitutional Convention" (2017). Government: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/gov_facpubs/4