The Peace of Westphalia (1648) as a Secular Constitution

is often used as shorthand for a system of equal and sovereign states; and the peace treaties of Westphalia are sometimes said to have established the modern concept of sovereign statehood. This paper seeks to shift the focus from this popular conception of the Westphalian treaties, and instead to treat them as constitutional documents. I argue that the Westphalian constitutional treaties successfully solved the problem of deep religious...