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Paul A. Rahe, Montesquieu and the Logic of Liberty, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Andrea Radasanu, "Montesquieu on Moderation, Monarchy and Reform," History of Political Thought 31, no. 2 (2010), p. 283–307. Rolando Minuti, Studies on Montesquieu: mapping political diversity, Cham (Switzerland): Springer
Frontispiece and title page of 1748 edition. Initially, Montesquieu only intended on writing a few pages on the topic. [1] However, the size of his topic overwhelmed him, so he chose to expand the scope of his writing from the beginnings of the Roman Republic to the decay of the late Roman Empire. [1]
Château de la Brède, Montesquieu's birthplace. Montesquieu was born at the Château de la Brède in southwest France, 25 kilometres (16 mi) south of Bordeaux. [4] His father, Jacques de Secondat (1654–1713), was a soldier with a long noble ancestry, including descent from Richard de la Pole, Yorkist claimant to the English crown.
Separation of powers is a political doctrine originating in the writings of Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu in The Spirit of the Laws, in which he argued for a constitutional government with three separate branches, each of which would have defined authority to check the powers of the others.
The term "tripartite system" is commonly ascribed to French Enlightenment political philosopher Montesquieu, although he did not use such a term but referred to the "distribution" of powers. In The Spirit of Law (1748), [17] Montesquieu described the various forms of distribution of political power among a legislature, an executive, and a ...
Proponents of the doux commerce theory argued that the spread of trade and commerce will decrease violence, including open warfare. [6] [7] Montesquieu wrote, for example, that "wherever the ways of man are gentle, there is commerce; and wherever there is commerce, there the ways of men are gentle" [8] and "The natural effect of commerce is to lead to peace". [1]
Montesquieu pleaded in favor of a constitutional system of government, the preservation of civil liberties and the law and the idea that political institutions ought to reflect the social and geographical aspects of each community. In particular, he argued that political liberty required the separation of the powers of government.
Many of the major political and intellectual figures behind the American Revolution associated themselves closely with the Enlightenment: Benjamin Franklin visited Europe repeatedly and contributed actively to the scientific and political debates there and brought the newest ideas back to Philadelphia; Thomas Jefferson closely followed European ...