"CONSTITUTIONALISM" 41weakness. The Emperor seemed to pursue different, contradictorypolicies one after another. And while it is quite tru~ that Alexander
rarely had the patience and energy to apply his mind to the exacting
task of implementing his plans completely and well, he did not waver
as much in his basic principles as might appear from a superficial
acquaintance with the facts of his reign. Behind the changeability
and indirectness of means, there was a stubborn persistency of purpose.
Duplicity and weakness are not the answer, and to discover the meaning
the concept of constitution had for Alexander we must look in another
direction.
The answer lies in the very contents the Emperor put into the
term constitution. His idea of what "constitution" should imply was
shared by many other personalities of the time - the four members
of the Unofficial Committee, for one example - although they were
at times willing to carry its implications further than was the monarch.
As Alexander and his friends were neither experienced jurists nor
learned in political philosophy, they did not state their definition of
the term anywhere explicitly, unambiguously, or fully. However, the
meaning they attached to the term can be inferred from scatteredcomments and the "twist" they gave their reform proposals. It will
perhaps be easier to begin with what they did not mean by the term
constitution. They did not have in mind that meaning of the term
which gained currency after 1815, particularly in the 1820's, and which
substantially is the meaning we still give it today. When about 182'0 the
future Decembrists, for instance, spoke of constitution, they referred to
the concepts and traditions which had their origin in English
parliamentarism and which found formal and extreme expression in
the written constitutions of the American and French revolutiOn!!,
Constitution then meant a written document clearly stating the sources
and character of political sovereignty, guaranteeing the basic rights of
all citizens, establishing the mechanism of a representative parliamentary
government, and, most important, confining the executive to a position
subordinate to that of the elected legislative power. Neither Alexander
I nor the members of the Unofficial Committee subscribed to this
definition of constitution.
What they called constitution should perhaps be termed "fundamen-
tal principles of administrative organization". The term constitution
conveyed to them the idea of an orderly system of government and
administration, free from the caprices and demoralizing tyranny of
arbitrariness. To give Russia a constitution, therefore, implied bringing
clarity and order to the administration and basing the relationship