The paper analyzes the development of the democratic tendencies of liberal political thought in Russia at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries. It considers the process of formation and development of the liberal idea of constitutionalism within the context of political and legal conditions of autocratic power in Russia at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries. It grounds the consequence of the peculiarities of the liberal ideas of constitutionalism and democracy in the historical reality of Russia at the turn of the centuries.