46
The Constitution’s Deep Roots
Ranking of Political Thinkers by Frequency of Citation
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
Montesquieu
Blackstone
Locke
Hume
Plutarch
Beccaria
Trenchard and
Gordon (Cato)
Delolme
Pufendorf
Coke
Cicero
Hobbes
Robertson
Grotius
Rousseau
Bolingbroke
Bacon
Price
8.3
7.9
2.9
2.7
1.5
1.5
1.4
1.4
1.3
1.3
1.2
1.0
0.9
0.9
0.9
0.9
0.8
0.8
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
Shakespeare
Livy
Pope
Milton
Tacitus
Coxe
Plato
Raynal
Mably
Machiavelli
Vattel
Petyt
Voltaire
Robinson
Sidney
Somers
Harrington
Rapin-Thoyras
Other
0.8
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6
0.6
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
52.2
This table is based on 3,154 references to 224 European thinkers found in 916
pamphlets, books, and essays. Source: Donald Lutz, A Preface to American Political Theory
(Lawrence: Kansas University Press, 1992), 136.
chical government effectively vanished with the massive emigration of
the Loyalists to Canada and the mother country during the Revolution.
Far more influential than any of these writings, however, was Locke’s
Second Treatise of Civil Government, which sought to provide a theoretical
justification for the Glorious Revolu [ۋ[