Abstract
This article is part of a larger project that seeks to retrieve a forgotten or lost form of constitutionalism, one which aspires to prevent socioeconomic inequality from translating into political inequality and, hence, better to ensure the liberty of average citizens.1 This more democratic constitutional model does not presuppose “the people” to be a unitary, homogenous sovereign subject, and it does not fix general election as the primary means of appointing public officials. This alternative constitutional model differs markedly from post–eighteenth-century constitutionalism in three primary ways: it excludes wealthy citizens from important legislative assemblies and executive offices; it appoints public magistrates through a lottery or through a mixture of lottery and election; and it leaves to the ultimate judgment of the entire citizenry the punishment of public officials or private individuals indicted for political crimes. Niccolo Machiavelli, virtually alone among all the major advocates of republican government from Aristotle, Cicero, Guicciardini, and Montesquieu through Madison and beyond, argued that common citizens, in order to live free from oppression by
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