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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.
Montesquieu's philosophy that "government should be set up so that no man need be afraid of another" [17] reminded Madison and others that a free and stable foundation for their new national government required a clearly defined and balanced separation of powers. Montesquieu was troubled by a cataract and feared going blind.
Madison states Montesquieu used the British government as an example of separation of powers to analyze connections between the two. Madison quotes Montesquieu in The Spirit of Law as saying the British are the "mirror of political liberty." Thus, Montesquieu believed that the British form of separation of powers was of the utmost caliber.
Separation of powers requires a different source of legitimization, or a different act of legitimization from the same source, for each of the separate powers. If the legislative branch appoints the executive and judicial powers, as Montesquieu indicated, there will be no separation or division of its powers, since the power to appoint carries ...
Montesquieu's treatise, already widely disseminated, had an enormous influence on the work of many others, most notably: Catherine the Great, who produced Nakaz (Instruction); the Founding Fathers of the United States Constitution; and Alexis de Tocqueville, who applied Montesquieu's methods to a study of American society, in Democracy in America.
[79] [80] The idea of Separation of Powers inherent in the Constitution was largely inspired by eighteenth-century Enlightenment philosophers, such as Montesquieu and John Locke. [81] The influence of Montesquieu, Locke, Edward Coke and William Blackstone were evident at the Constitutional Convention.
Apart from his contemporaries, only Montesquieu became widely acknowledged as the author of a concept of separation of powers (although he wrote rather on their "distribution"). [ 4 ] According to some scholars, for example, Heinrich August Winkler , the notion also influenced the writers of the United States Constitution who based the idea of ...
The Americans closely followed English and Scottish political ideas, as well as some French thinkers such as Montesquieu. [115] As deists, they were influenced by ideas of John Toland and Matthew Tindal. There was a great emphasis upon liberty, republicanism, and religious tolerance. There was no respect for monarchy or inherited political power.