Montesquieu (January 18, 1689-February 10, 1755) was a French political philosopher who greatly influenced nineteenth century thought. , Baron Charles Louis Joseph de Secondat Montesquieu wrote Persian Letters, 1721, which was a satirical reflection on France's sociopolitical institutions.
In 1748, he wrote The Spirit of the Laws, introducing a revolutionary concept of government where the powers of a monarch were divided into judicial, legislative and executive bodies to guarantee individual freedoms.
Donald S. Lutz of the University of Houston, with Charles S. Hyneman, in their article "The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought," published in the American Political Review 189, 1984: 189-197, reviewed nearly 15,000 items written between 1760 and 1805 by the Founding Fathers, including newspaper articles, monographs, books, pamphlets, and tracts. Their research revealed that Baron Charles Montesquieu was the second most frequently quoted source next to the Bible.
In the beginning of his work The Spirit of the Laws, 1748, Baron Montesquieu wrote:
<God is related to the universe, as Creator and Preserver; the laws by which He created all things are those by which He preserves them....
But the intelligent world is far from being so well governed as the physical. For though the former has also its laws, which of their own nature are invariable, it does not conform to them so exactly as the physical world. This is because, on the one hand, particular intelligent beings are of a finite nature, and consequently liable to error; and on the other, their nature requires them to be free agents. Hence they do not steadily conform to their primitive laws; and even those of their own instituting they frequently infringe....
Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws. As an intelligent being, he incessantly transgresses the laws established by God, and changes those of his own instituting. He is left to his private direction, though a limited being, and subject, like all finite intelligences, to ignorance and error: even his imperfect knowledge he loses; and as a sensible creature, he is hurried away by a thousand impetuous passions.
Such a being might every instant forget his Creator; God has therefore reminded him of his duty by the laws of religion. Such a being is liable every moment to forget himself; philosophy has provided against this by the laws of morality. Formed to live in society, he might forget his fellow-creatures; legislators have therefore, by political and civil laws, confined him to his duty.> 1689BM001
Montesquieu understood the inherently selfish nature of man, and that, opportunity provided, he would accumulate more and more power unto himself, becoming despotic. In The Federalist No. 51, Madison wrote: "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place...If angels were to govern men, neither external or internal controls on government would be necessary." This echoed Montesquieu's philosophy that powers of government should be separated into branches which were jealously pulling against each other, allowing power to check power. Each branch of Government: Judicial, Legislative and Executive, was pitted against the other two, relying on the selfishness in one branch to keep a check on the selfishness in the other two branches.
In The Spirit of the Laws, 1748, Montesquieu wrote:
<The Christian religion, which orders men to love one another, no doubt wants the best political laws and the best civil laws for each people, because those laws are, after [religion], the greatest good that men can give and receive...
Nor is there liberty if the power of judging is not separated from legislative power and from executive power. If it [the power of judging] were joined to legislative power, the power over life and liberty of the citizens would be arbitrary, for the judge would be the legislator. If it were joined to executive power, the judge could have the force of an oppressor. All would be lost if the same...body of principal men...exercised these three powers.> 1689BM004
In Book XXIV of The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu wrote:
<I have always respected religion; the morality of the Gospel is the noblest gift ever bestowed by God on man. We shall see that we owe to Christianity, in government, a certain political law, and in war a certain law of nations-benefits which human nature can never sufficiently acknowledge.
The principles of Christianity, deeply engraved on the heart, would be infinitely more powerful than the false honor of monarchies, than the humane virtues of republics, or the servile fear of despotic states.
It is the Christian religion that, in spite of the extent of empire and the influence of climate, has hindered despotic power from being established in Ethiopia, and has carried into the heart of Africa the manners and laws of Europe.
The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic rage with which a prince punishes his subjects, and exercises himself in cruelty....
A moderate Government is most agreeable to the Christian Religion, and a despotic Government to the Mahommedan....While the Mahommedan
princes incessantly give or receive death, the religion of the Christians renders their princes less timid, and consequently less cruel. The prince confides in his subjects, and the subjects in the prince. How admirable the religion which, while it only seems to have in view the felicity of the other life, continues the happiness of this!> 1689BM005
In Book XXIV of The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu wrote:
<Society...must repose on principles that do not change.> 1689BM006
In The Spirit of the Laws, 1748, Book 24, Chapter 4, Montesquieu wrote:
<It is a misfortune to human nature, when religion is given by a conqueror. The Mahometan religion, which speaks only by the sword, acts still upon men with that destructive spirit with which it was founded.> 1689BM008
In The Spirit of the Laws, 1748, Book 24, Chapter 5, Montesquieu wrote:
<That the Catholic Religion is most agreeable to a Monarchy, and the Protestant to a Republic.
When a religion is introduced and fixed in a state, it is commonly such as is most suitable to the plan of government there established; for those who receive it, and those who are the cause of its being received, have scarcely any other idea of policy, than that of the state in which they were born.
When the Christian religion, two centuries ago, became unhappily divided into Catholic and Protestant, the people of the North embraced the Protestant, and those of the south adhered still to the Catholic.
The reason is plain: the people of the north have, and will for ever have, a spirit of liberty and independence, which the people of the south have not; and therefore a religion, which has no visible head, is more agreeable to the independency of the climate, than that which has one.> 1689BM009
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1689BM001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Baron Charles Louis Joseph de Secondat Montesquieu, 1748, The Spirit of the Laws (New York: Hafner, 1949, 1962), 1:1-3. Donald S. Lutz and Charles S. Hyneman, "The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought," American Political Review 189 (1984): 189-197. (Courtesy of Dr. Wayne House of Dallas Theological Seminary.) John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution-The Faith of Our Founding Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, A Mott Media Book, 1987, 6th printing 1993), pp. 51-53. Stephen K. McDowell and Mark A. Beliles, America's Providential History (Charlottesville, VA: Providence Press, 1988), p. 156. [1760-1805], Origins of American Constitutionalism, (1987). John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution-The Faith of Our Founding Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, A Mott Media Book, 1987, 6th printing 1993), pp. 54-55. 1689BM002. Baron Charles Louis Joseph de Secondat Montesquieu, 1748, The Spirit of the Laws, Anne Cohler, trans. (reprinted Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 457.
1689BM003. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Baron Charles Louis Joseph de Secondat Montesquieu, 1748, The Spirit of the Laws, Anne Cohler, trans. (reprinted Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 457. 1689BM004. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Baron Charles Louis Joseph de Secondat Montesquieu, 1748, The Spirit of the Laws, Anne Cohler, trans. (reprinted Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 457. 1689BM005. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Baron Charles Louis Joseph de Secondat Montesquieu, 1748, The Spirit of the Laws, Book 24, Anne Cohler, trans. (reprinted Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). The Spirit of the Laws (New York: Hafner, 1949, 1962), 24:27-29. John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution-The Faith of Our Founding Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, A Mott Media Book, 1987, 6th printing 1993), pp. 55-56. Stephen Abbott Northrop, D.D., A Cloud of Witnesses (Portland, OR: American Heritage Ministries, 1987; Mantle Ministries, 228 Still Ridge, Bulverde, Texas), p. 322.
1689BM006. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Baron Charles Louis Joseph de Secondat Montesquieu, 1748, The Spirit of the Laws. George Bancroft, Bancroft's History of the United States (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1859), Vol. V, p. 24.
1689BM008. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Baron Charles Louis Joseph de Secondat Montesquieu, 1748, The Spirit of the Laws, Book 24, Chapter 4.
1689BM009. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Baron Charles Louis Joseph de Secondat Montesquieu, 1748, The Spirit of the Laws, Book 24, Chapter 5.