Jean-Louis de Lolme

Jean-Louis de Lolme (1741–1804) was a Swiss and English political theorist, born in the then semi-independent city of Geneva. As an adult he moved to England, and became a British subject.

His most famous work is the Constitution de l'Angleterre, which appeared in English as The Constitution of England (1771 in French, and later editions in English)^[1] In this book, he advocated a constitutional form of government enshrining the principle of balanced government, balancing the one, the few, and the many, or the ideas of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. De Lolme extolled the British government because, in his view (influenced by his own observations and study as well as by the prewvious writings of Voltaire and Montesquieu), the unwritten constitution of government of Great Britain embodied the ideal of balanced government better than any other government of the time. De Lolme in particular praised the elements of representative democracy in the unwritten English constitution, and urged an extension of the suffrage. He developed and refined his political thinking to a large extent in opposition to the more radical theory of direct democracy advocated by his compatriot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whom de Lolme accused of being unrealistic. De Lolme is sometimes identified as a probable candidate for being the person behind the pseudonymous political commentator Junius.

De Lolme influenced many of the framers of the American constitution. One founding father who was not present in Philadelphia but whose Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States influenced the delegates there was John Adams, who praised De Lolme's book as one of the best on the subject of constitutionalism ever written. Some have argued that De Lolme's work also influenced the Constitution of Norway.

1. ^ Jean-Louis De Lolme (David Lieberman, ed. and introduction), The Constitution of England (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2007). ISBN 0865974659

Persondata
Name	Lolme, Jean-Louis De
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1741
Place of birth
Date of death	1804
Place of death