The American and the French Republics, German Idealism, and the Principle of Inwardness

Abstract

In the 12 years between the ratification of the first constitution of the United States and the Reign of Terror in France 1793 to July 1794, Pestalozzi wrestled with the issue of the best possible political constitution for the political community. To Pestalozzi, the Swiss republics seemed to be in a hopelessly corrupt state, so at first he saw enlightened absolutism as the means to guarantee the foundations of classical republicanism: secure livelihood and thus the appropriate level of prosperity—not riches!—that allows people to devote themselves to the common good. Just how the right to private property should be reconciled with the duty to the common good was the central question of those 12 years. He would not find his (preliminary) “answer” in either the American or in the French Republic and certainly not in the context of the old Swiss republics but rather, of all things, in German idealism, which was strongly indebted to Lutheran Protestantism.