Judson Vandertoll

Montesquieu believed that a single leader had to much power so he came up with the concept of seperation of powers. This seperated the government into three parts, the legislative, executive, and the judicial branch. This allowed each person to check over each other and didnt give one branch more power over the other.

The spirit of the laws

Lasting Impact

1689 - Born1755- Died 1748 - The spirit of law1721- the persian letters

This book took Montesquieu 21 year wo write and covered a vast majority of information. He originally had this book published anonymously to prevent sensorship. In the book he talks about a constitutional goverment held together by a speration of powers. He also believed in the ending of slavery and the preservation of civil liberties.

Citations

- http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/montesquieu/montesquieu.html- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_of_the_Laws-http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Montesquieu.aspx

JudsonVandertoll

Montesquieu

Timeline

Famous Quote

"Luxury is therefore absolutely necessary in monarchies; as it is also in despotic states, In the former, it is the use of liberty, in the latter, it is the abuse of servitude... "Hence arrives a very natural reflection. Republics end with luxury; monarchies with poverty."MontesquieuThe Spirit of LawsBk. VII, Ch. 4

James Madison and the founding fathers looked over montesquieu's theories while drafting the constitution of america. Montesquieu's ideals make a heavy impact on what our govenment today and whithout his impact we wouldn't have the seperation of powers.

while living in bordeaux, montesquieu began to write the Persian Letters. He depicted france writing as 2 Persions. This gave a double persective on France. A large point made was that the French society couldn't be fixed by government action and good government relies on education and expample.

The Persian Letters

He believed that government fell under three categories. The first one is a rebulic, this is where the people as a whole hold sovereign power. The second is a monarchy, this is where a price rules but still has to follow laws and decide where to put the rest of his power. The last is a Despotism where one single ruler has all the pawer and can do what ever he pleases.

Governments