MK3 BLOG

MKitch3|Sept. 30,2025

The following conversations are from my GPT5 Study Constitutional Theory prompt. This is part of a project I started on the subject. This will be updated often.

Let’s study Constitutional Theory 

That’s a huge phrase you just dropped on the table. “Constitutional theory” could mean a dozen different beasts depending on whether you want law-school-seminar depth, “Founding Fathers with quills and whiskey” history, or modern pundits yelling on cable news.

Let’s not sprint before we can walk. To study this properly, I should know what angle you’re interested in:

• Philosophical roots (Locke, Montesquieu, natural rights, social contract)?

• American flavor (Federalist Papers, Anti-Federalist pushback, originalism vs. living Constitution)?

• Rousseau’s general will is put into practice as state sovereignty 

Practical use (judicial review, separation of powers, federalism)?

• Critiques (who gets left out, how it bends under crises, whether courts are kings in robes)?

Before I start dragging you through Madison’s notebooks and Supreme Court spats, which flavor of “constitutional theory” are you hungry for?

Let’s start with the Philosophical roots 

Good choice. The roots are where all the later squabbles grow from. Think of it like the soil: if you don’t know what kind of dirt the Constitution was planted in, you won’t understand why it sprouted the way it did.

Here’s a short cast of characters who shaped the ground:

• Thomas Hobbes: Famous for his “life is nasty, brutish, and short” line. He argued that humans in a state of nature would murder each other for scraps, so people need a sovereign (basically a bossy king) to keep order. Security first, liberty second.

• John Locke: The more optimistic one. He thought humans had natural rights—life, liberty, property—that governments must protect. If a ruler trampled those rights, the people had the right to overthrow him. You can almost hear Jefferson scribbling “pursuit of happiness” here.

• Montesquieu: Obsessed with separation of powers. He warned that if legislative, executive, and judicial power all sat in one set of hands, liberty would suffocate. U.S. founders borrowed this structure wholesale.

• Rousseau: The “general will” guy. He believed sovereignty belonged to the people collectively, and government was only legitimate if it expressed that. More radical than Locke, but he definitely fertilized the democratic streak.

Now here’s where I rope you in: if Hobbes says “give me order,” Locke says “give me rights,” Montesquieu says “split the power,” and Rousseau says “give the people the wheel”—which of those four do you think left the deepest imprint on the U.S. Constitution?

Montesquieu and split the power

Exactly—gold star. The whole architecture of the Constitution screams Montesquieu.

• Articles I, II, III don’t just appear by accident—they carve government into legislative, executive, judicial.

• The checks and balances (veto, impeachment, judicial review, Senate confirmation, etc.) are Montesquieu’s paranoia made into law: no branch gets too comfy.

• Even the federal vs. state split echoes his obsession with dividing authority.

But here’s the twist: the Founders weren’t copy-pasting. They took Montesquieu’s recipe and spiced it up with Locke’s sauce about natural rights and Rousseau’s whispers about popular sovereignty.

So the Constitution isn’t purely Montesquieu’s “don’t let anyone hog power.” It’s Montesquieu’s skeleton with Locke’s heart and a little Rousseau in the bloodstream.

Want me to show you how Locke’s “life, liberty, property” sneaks its way into the actual text of the Constitution and Bill of Rights?

Yes

Alright, watch how Locke’s fingerprints smudge the parchment:

• Locke’s natural rights = life, liberty, property.

• In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson tweaks it into “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” That’s Locke with a wig change.

• In the Constitution and Bill of Rights, you see those ideas become guarantees:

• 5th Amendment: “No person shall… be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” That’s Locke almost word-for-word.

• 14th Amendment later doubles down with the same phrase at the state level.

• Consent of the governed (Locke again):

• Preamble: “We the People” doesn’t just sound poetic. It’s a deliberate nod that government authority flows upward from the people, not downward from a king.

• Right to revolution:

• Locke said if a government tramples rights, the people can ditch it. The U.S. basically lived that theory in 1776. The Constitution itself even hints at it—Article V’s amendment process is a legal, non-bloody revolution mechanism.

So Locke gives the why (rights must be protected), and Montesquieu gives the how (structure to stop tyranny).

Quick check: if Locke’s “life, liberty, property” is the fuel, and Montesquieu’s “split the power” is the engine, what role do you think Rousseau’s “general will” played in the U.S. setup?

I think Rousseau’s general will is put into practice as state sovereignty  

That’s a sharp take. Rousseau would’ve smiled (or at least smirked) at the idea of states each holding pieces of the people’s will.

Think about it:

• Rousseau’s general will = the collective decision of the people is sovereign.

• In the U.S., sovereignty isn’t one big block—it’s split between the people of each state and the people of the nation as a whole. That’s federalism in action.

• The 10th Amendment is Rousseau-ish: powers not given to the federal government are “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” It’s like the Constitution says: the people’s will can live closer to home, not just in D.C.

The irony? Rousseau believed in a more direct democracy—all citizens gathering to vote. The Founders, terrified of mob rule, watered that down into representative democracy. The “general will” gets filtered through legislatures, courts, and all those checks Montesquieu insisted on.

So Rousseau’s ghost is there, but he’s on a leash.

Want me to map out a simple chart showing Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, and how each “father figure” got baked into the Constitution?

Yes

Here’s a clean chart you can picture in your head (or scribble out if you’re the pen-and-paper type):

So: Hobbes gave the fear of disorder, Locke gave the rights language, Montesquieu provided the architecture, and Rousseau whispered about sovereignty of the people.

Want to take this a notch deeper by looking at where the Founders twisted or even rejected these philosophers when writing the Constitution? That’s where it gets spicy.

Yes.

Now we’re getting into the fun part—the Founders weren’t just obedient students; they cherry-picked and sometimes flipped these philosophers upside down. Here’s the “rebellious remix”:

• Hobbes rejected: He wanted an all-powerful sovereign. The Founders basically said, “nice try,” then built a system where no one can be sovereign alone. The presidency is strong but hemmed in, and the people keep ultimate authority. So Hobbes is in the background more as a warning than a blueprint.

• Locke twisted: Locke said property is the third natural right. Jefferson swaps it for “pursuit of happiness.” Why? Property was politically loaded (slavery, land grabs, wealth inequality). Jefferson softened it, but property still sneaks back in through the 5th Amendment.

• Montesquieu bent: Montesquieu admired England’s system of a king, a House of Lords, and a House of Commons. The Founders said, “We’ll keep the three-branch idea, but no king, thanks.” They also went farther with checks and balances than Montesquieu ever dreamed, basically turning government into a cage match.

• Rousseau diluted: Rousseau loved direct democracy—all citizens voting all the time. The Founders were horrified. They built representative democracy instead, with extra filters like the Electoral College and Senators originally being chosen by state legislatures (not direct vote until 1913). Rousseau’s “general will” got run through layers of insulation.

So the Constitution is less a philosopher’s dream and more a Frankenstein’s monster stitched together from European theory, colonial experience, and a healthy dose of paranoia.

Want me to throw you a quick exercise: imagine if the U.S. had gone full Rousseau with direct democracy in 1787. What kind of problems do you think would’ve blown up right away?

You wouldn’t get anything accomplished with “all” voting “all” of the time. The population was much less then compared to now. 300 million citizens voting every time a topic came to pass? It’s unrealistic much less unsustainable 

Exactly. You nailed the Achilles’ heel. Even in 1787, with a few million people scattered across farms and towns, getting “everyone in the room” was impossible. Add 300+ million today and it’s laughable.

Direct democracy at that scale collapses under its own weight:

• Logistics: Imagine waiting three weeks for your ballot mule to arrive from frontier Kentucky just to vote on a post office budget.

• Speed: Crises—wars, famines, rebellions—need quick decisions. You can’t pause to poll the entire nation.

• Factional chaos: Madison warned about “factions” in Federalist 10. Direct democracy would let majority passions whip-saw policy nonstop, like a national Twitter mob ruling by referendum.

That’s why they settled on representative democracy, insulated by structures (Congress, Electoral College, Senate). It was messy but functional.

Let me flip it back on you: if pure Rousseau doesn’t work, and pure Hobbes (absolute sovereign) is tyranny, what’s the genius middle ground the Constitution is really aiming for?

The people have some sovereignty in the form of unalienable rights, rights/freedoms laid out in the bill of rights. The states keep some sovereignty in the form of state constitutions and the Federal Government is supposed to me the mediator? The people are free but within boundaries, the states keep their sovereignty but within boundaries The federal government being the oversight but within strict boundaries? 

That’s beautifully put—you basically sketched the three-layer cake the Founders were baking.

• Layer 1: The People → Rousseau and Locke smiling in the corner. Individuals hold unalienable rights (Bill of Rights), which no government is supposed to touch. That’s the baseline sovereignty.

• Layer 2: The States → semi-sovereign entities with their own constitutions, laws, and police powers. This is federalism’s “many little laboratories.”

• Layer 3: The Federal Government → designed not as a king, but as a referee, handling what the states couldn’t: foreign policy, war, interstate trade, currency.

And you nailed the most important word: boundaries. Each layer is fenced in by the Constitution. The trick (and the drama for 200+ years) is who decides when those fences are crossed. Spoiler: courts, politicians, and the people have been arguing over those fences since day one.

Want me to walk you through a few of the earliest constitutional crises where those boundaries got tested—and bent—right out of the gate?

Yes

Alright, first round of constitutional growing pains—the “we just built this machine and it’s already smoking” moments:

1. Hamilton vs. Jefferson (1790s) – The Bank Fight

• Hamilton wanted a national bank to stabilize credit and handle federal funds.

• Jefferson cried foul: “Show me where in the Constitution it says Congress can build a bank!”

• Hamilton countered with the Necessary and Proper Clause (“implied powers”).

• Result? Bank created. Federal power stretched. Jefferson sulked.

• Lesson: the Constitution’s “boundaries” aren’t concrete—they bend depending on who’s reading.

2. Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)

• Federalists in Congress passed laws criminalizing criticism of the government.

• Jefferson and Madison fired back with the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, arguing states could nullify unconstitutional federal laws.

• Boom: first major clash of federal vs. state sovereignty.

• Lesson: free speech and federal overreach were hot-button issues immediately.

3. Marbury v. Madison (1803)

• The Supreme Court grabbed a power the Constitution doesn’t explicitly give it: judicial review(deciding what’s constitutional).

• Jefferson was furious, but the Court’s move stuck.

• Lesson: the judiciary became the referee, even though the Constitution never said “refs included.”

These early battles show your point: people’s rights, states’ sovereignty, and federal oversight were all there—but the “boundaries” were blurry enough that politicians and judges started redrawing them almost instantly.

Want me to keep marching forward into the Civil War era, where those boundaries didn’t just blur but exploded?

We will resume from here tomorrow night

Got it. I’ll keep the thread right here—Hamilton and Jefferson still bickering in the background, the Alien and Sedition Acts smoldering, and Chief Justice Marshall polishing his referee’s whistle. When you’re ready tomorrow, we’ll pick up with the Civil War boundary-breaking.

Don’t stay up too late plotting revolutions.