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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.
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.
In The Spirit of Law (1748), [17] Montesquieu described the various forms of distribution of political power among a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary. Montesquieu's approach was to present and defend a form of government whose powers were not excessively centralized in a single monarch or similar ruler (a form known then as ...
Liberalism, the belief in freedom, equality, democracy and human rights, is historically associated with thinkers such as John Locke and Montesquieu, and with constitutionally limiting the power of the monarch, affirming parliamentary supremacy, passing the Bill of Rights and establishing the principle of "consent of the governed".
Generally favoring the most highly populated states, it used the philosophy of John Locke to rely on consent of the governed, Montesquieu for divided government, and Edward Coke to emphasize civil liberties. [9] The New Jersey Plan proposed that the legislative department be a unicameral body with one vote per state.
In Chapters I to X, Montesquieu postulates that the wealth, military might and expansionist policies, which were by most historical accounts a source of great strength for Rome, actually contributed to the weakening of the spirit of civic virtue of Roman citizens. After detailing the history of Rome's many wars, Montesquieu claimed, "The ...
In the Federalist Paper No. 51, Madison illustrated his beliefs on how a balance in the power was necessary for a government to exist. These ideas originated in the work of French philosopher Baron de Montesquieu who described these concepts in his book The Spirit of the Laws (1748). Here Montesquieu explained how these checks on powers were ...