Who was Montesquieu?
Charles-Louis de Secondat, later Baron de Montesquieu, was born near Bordeaux in 1689. He studied law and inherited the post of president in the Parlement of Bordeaux. His witty Persian Letters, from 1721, made him a name across France. He then toured Europe and spent a long time in England, where he studied how the government worked. In 1748 he published his masterwork, The Spirit of the Laws. It sorts governments into republics, monarchies and despotisms, each running on its own principle, and it looks at how climate, land, faith and trade shape the rules a people live by. The Catholic Church banned it in 1751. He died in 1755.
Political views
- Warned that anyone given power is tempted to misuse it and will go as far as they are allowed.Source: press-pubs.uchicago.edu
- Argued that freedom needs lawmaking, enforcing and judging to sit in different hands, so that one power can hold back another.Source: press-pubs.uchicago.edu
- Said a monarchy differs from a despotism because the king rules through settled laws and bodies such as the nobility that stand between him and the people.Source: plato.stanford.edu
- Held up the English constitution as a system built to guard political liberty.Source: plato.stanford.edu
- Backed religious toleration and thought forcing people to believe was foolish and cruel.Source: plato.stanford.edu
- Believed trade softened harmful prejudice and pushed nations toward peace.Source: plato.stanford.edu
- Argued that a country's laws should suit its own climate, geography, economy and customs, not copy one universal model.Source: plato.stanford.edu
Legacy
The separation of powers shaped the authors of the US Constitution, who quoted Montesquieu often, and it left its mark on the design of many later democracies. Liberals value his theory of limited government. Conservatives value his respect for custom and slow change. Critics say he drew too rosy a picture of England, that his theory of climate relied on crude stereotypes of whole peoples, and that his defence of noble privilege clashes with equal rights. Many also see him as one of the first comparative social scientists. On the 12 axes, his strongest marks are for liberty, democratic checks, local power and free trade.
In their own words
“To prevent this abuse, it is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.”