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The separation of powers
- His ideas on the separation of powers, that is, between the executive, legislative, and judiciary, were influential on other Enlightenment thinkers and on the 13 colonies that became the United States of America.
www.worldhistory.org › Montesquieu
May 15, 2024 · Montesquieu, French political philosopher whose principal work, The Spirit of Laws, was a major contribution to political theory. It inspired the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Constitution of the United States. Learn more about Montesquieu’s life and work.
- Robert Shackleton
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According to a survey of late eighteenth-century works by political scientist Donald Lutz, Montesquieu was the most frequently quoted authority on government and politics in colonial pre-revolutionary British America, cited more by the American founders than any source except for the Bible.
Nov 17, 2023 · Montesquieu is a French political philosopher best known for championing liberty and a separation of powers between a government's executive, legislative, and judiciary. His views influenced the Founding Fathers of the United States.
- Mark Cartwright
Jan 10, 2018 · Montesquieu was among the most influential thinkers behind America’s founding in pursuit of the blessings of liberty. Central to that influence was his recognition that liberty required that “Government should be set up so that no man need be afraid of another.”
Montesquieu's greatest influence on American constitutionalism is seen in the twin doctrines of separation of powers and checks and balances. Montesquieu adopted the idea of separation of powers from john locke, but he fundamentally modified it by defining the three branches of government as legislative, executive, and judicial.
French political philosopher Montesquieu was best known for The Spirit of Laws (1748), one of the great works in the history of political theory and of jurisprudence.
In America the framers of the constitution were so enamored of Montesquieu's depiction of the need to separate executive, legislative, and judicial powers that they made him the most quoted author during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and divided the American government into three separate branches, each one empowered to check the others ...
