A Prodigy Child of the Dutch Revolt: Immediate ‘Precursors’ to Grotius on Just Revolt

Abstract

One of the odd things about Grotius’s thought is that he – advocate of a rebellious regime – was not very supportive of the right of resistance. Justifying the revolt at the time not only meant legitimizing the new regime he was serving; it also meant ruling out opposition against it. That posed an intricate puzzle; a puzzle Grotius solved by drawing on the theorizing on just revolt of the previous decades. This paper purports to show the connection between Grotius’s thought on just revolt and the intellectual and political environment in which Grotius came of age. It also sets out to show that the solution to the puzzle lies in the element of authority and the particular view taken on the constitutional position of the States in the Low Countries.1