Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu: Philosophy

The Baron de Montesquieu was from a noble background like most philosophes, being a manorial lord of southern France. He inherited a seat in the Parlement of Bordeaux, and was active in politics and writing for most of his life. Widely traveled and very well educated by his family, Montesquieu was most influential as a writer against the absolutism of the French monarchy and greatly desired a more ordered form of government for France. Most affected by the British government and system of legislation, Montesquieu would greatly affect constitutional thinkers in America and in other countries on their systems of governance throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries.

By far, his most influential work is The Spirit of the Laws (1748). Two main ideas are presented in this analysis concerning the nature and workings of government. His first assertion is that forms of government will invariably differ according to the political and social climate and circumstances which they have to deal with. He concluded from analysis that despotic rule is best in large empires as to maintain control and order, especially those in the "hot climates." As for democracy, he concluded that small city-states would be the best situation for it, because it would be much simpler to maintain and govern, with general agreement of the populace being easier to achieve.

His second assertion, the most important of the treatise, is the fact that a balance and separation of powers is needed for an efficient and successful government. First of all, he states that power should be shared between the king and "intermediate bodies," (bodies representing other members of society) such as parlements (regional councils), provincial estates, organized nobility, chartered towns, and the Gallican (Catholic) Church. (Most probably, he placed greater influence on the upper classes, or estates, because of his own social position.) Such a division of power would prevent the "undue centralisation" of government arising from monarchial "despotism." He was greatly affected by the British government, which in his opinion had carried over the feudal town liberties of the Middle Ages onto mainstream life.

Two features in particular outdistanced British government from all others, in his opinion: the separation of powers (the distribution of power among several branches of government) and of functions of governing. The British had separated their government into the monarchy (king), nobility (lords), and general populace (commons). They had also separated the functions of government into three distinct branches of government, elements of government responsible for different functions of it: the legislature (for the making of law), the executive branch (for the enforcement of those laws), and the judiciary (for the interpretation and scrutiny of the law). Furthermore, Montesquieu states that such divisions of government must be able to keep a tight lookout on each other by having jurisdiction over one another in certain situations involving conflict in a system called checks and balances. By scrutinizing each other's action, the powers of each would be checked, or kept within the desired limits, and kept contextually equal to each other. In this way, the grappling of power by one division over the others would be prevented and the balance of power maintained.