Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu





Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (January 18, 1689 - February 10,
1755) was a French political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment and
articulated the theory of separation of powers, implemented in many
constitutions the world over.

Born in 1689 at Chateau La Brede near Bordeaux, he was president of the
parlement of Bordeaux by the age of twenty-seven, and shortly afterwards
achieved literary success with the publication of his Lettres persanes
(1721), a satire based on the imaginary correspondence of an Oriental
visitor to Paris, pointing out the absurdities of contemporary society. He
travelled widely, spending two years in England (1729 - 1731), but was
troubled by poor eyesight, and was completely blind by the time of his death
in 1755. His great work, De l'esprit des lois (1748), was published
anonymously and was enormously influential.

He argued that the aristocracy - which Voltaire would decry - protected the
state from the absolutist despot (or monarchy) and from the despotism of the
many (or anarchy). His was a purely political and rational defense,
conveniently non-economic. Montesquieu's motto was, "Liberty is the
stepchild of privilege." This allowed Montesquieu to defend the
constitutional monarch as he claimed it was governed by honor. Montesquieu
argued that the monarchs could become too passionate and the commons were
too big and too egalitarian to rule properly. However, he portrayed the
aristocracy as having and maintaining the honor that kept monarchies
constitutional. But, he also warned that the aristocracy is doomed when it
becomes self-interested, arrogant and parasitic.

Montesquieu's most radical work situated the three French classes into
checks and balances, a term he coined, of three sovereignties; the monarchy,
the aristocracy, and the commons. Montesquieu saw two types of powers
existing; the sovereign and the administrative. The administrative powers
were the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary. These powers were to
be divided up amongst the three classes so that each would have a power over
the other. This is so radical because it completely eliminates the clergy
from the estates and because it erases any last vestige of a feudalistic
structure.

Montesquieu's thought was a powerful influence on many of the American
Founders, most notably James Madison.

Quotes

   * "Law should be like death, which spares no one."