Book: The Spirit of the Laws
Background: Montesquieu was a French aristocrat and lawyer. He was interested in the building blocks of what principles were necessary to create a good government so he studied the history of various governments, from ancient Rome as well as the governments of his own time. Based upon his research, he wrote the book The Spirit of the Laws, which was published 7 years before his death. The following are excerpts from his book in which he explains what a successful government would be from his perspective:
[1] In every government there are three sorts of power; the legislative; the executive, in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive, in regard to things that depend on the civil law.
[2] By virtue of the first [sort of power], the prince or magistrate [judge] enacts temporary or perpetual laws, and amends [changes] or abrogates [enforces] those that have been already enacted. By the second [sort of power], he makes peace or war, sends or receives embassies [ambassadors]; establishes the public security, and provides against invasions [military defense]. By the third [sort of power], he punishes criminals, or determines the disputes that arise between individuals. The latter [last sort of power previously mentioned] we shall call the judiciary power, and the other simply the executive power of the state.
[3] The political liberty of the subject is a tranquility of mind, arising from the opinion each person has of his safety. In order to have this liberty, it is requisite the government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of` another.
[4] When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates [judges], there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest [for fear that] the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical [oppressive] laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
[5] Again, there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary [uninformed] control, for the judge would then be the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with all the violence of an oppressor.
[6] There would be an end of everything were the same man, or the same body, whether of the nobles or of the people to exercise those three powers that of enacting laws, that of executing the public resolutions, and that of judging the crimes or differences of individuals.
[7] Most kingdoms in Europe enjoy a moderate government, because the prince, who is invested with the two first powers, leaves the third to his subjects. In Turkey [Ottoman Empire], where these three powers are united in the sultan's person the subjects groan under the weight of a most frightful oppression.
Book: Two Treatises of Government Background: John Locke was an Englishman born in 1632. In 1690, nearly 40 years after the appearance of Thomas Hobbes’ book Leviathan, John Locke published a book that challenged Hobbes ideas. His book was entitled Two Treatises of Government. The views of these two men are debated to this day! The following is an excerpt from his book providing his perspective on what is imperative for a government to flourish:
To understand political power, we must consider the condition in which nature puts all men [Which is their natural state of nature – how man would behave without restrictions or government]. It is a state of perfect freedom to do as they wish and dispose of themselves and their possessions as they see fit, within the bounds of the law of nature. They need not ask permission or the consent of any other man.
The state of nature is also a state of equality. No one has more power or authority than another. Since all creatures of the same species and rank have the same advantages and the use of the same skills, they should be equal to each other without subordination or subjection. The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it. Reason is that law. It teaches all mankind that, since all men are equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, liberty, or possessions. All men are made by one omnipotent [supreme] and infinitely wise Maker [God]. They are all His [God’s] property, made to live during His, not another's pleasure. He has put men naturally into a state of independence, and they remain in it until, by their own consent, they choose to become members of a political society.
If man in the state of nature is free, if he is the absolute lord of his own person and possessions, why will he part [give up] with his freedom? Why will he subject himself to the dominion [authority] and control of any person or institution? The obvious answer is that rights in the state of nature are very uncertain for they are constantly exposed to the attacks of others. Since every man is his equal and since most men do not concern themselves with equity [fairness] and justice, the enjoyment of rights in the state of nature is unsafe and insecure. Hence each man joins in society with others for the mutual protection of his life, liberty and estates, which I call by the general name property.
Since men hope to secure their property by establishing a government, they will not want that government to destroy the objective they sought to attain. When legislators try to destroy or take away the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the populace [masses], who can refuse to obey the laws. When legislators, motivated by ambition, fear, folly [foolishness], or corruption, try to gain or give someone else absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people, they abuse the power which the people had put into their hands. It is then the privilege of the people to establish a new legislature to provide for their safety and security. These principles also hold true for the executive, who helps to make laws and carry them out...
…However, it will be said that this philosophy may lead to frequent rebellion. To which I answer, such revolutions are not caused by every little mismanagement in public affairs. But if a long train of abuses, lies, and tricks, all tending the same way, make a government's bad intentions visible to the people, they cannot help seeing where they are going, it is no wonder that they will then rouse themselves, and try to put the rule into hands which will secure to them the purpose for which government was originally organized.
Book: Leviathan Background: Thomas Hobbes was born in London in 1588. He lived during a time where he beard witness to the English Civil War and the turmoil between Parliament. This had a large impact on his thinking. He received his college education at Oxford University in England, where he studied classics. Hobbes traveled to other European countries several times to meet with scientists and to study different forms of government. During his time outside of England, Hobbes became interested in why people allowed themselves to be ruled and what would be the best form of government for England. In 1651, Hobbes wrote his most famous work, entitled Leviathan. The following are excerpts from that book proposing his ideas about government:
Chapter XVII- Of the Causes, Generation, and Definition of a Commonwealth: …For the laws of nature, as justice, equity [fairness], modesty, mercy, and, in sum, doing to others as we would be done to, of themselves, without the terror of some power to cause them to be observed, are contrary to our natural passions, that carry us to partiality [bias], pride, revenge, and the like. And covenants [agreements], without the sword, are but words and of no strength to secure a man at all. Therefore, notwithstanding the laws of nature (which every one hath then kept, when he has the will to keep them, when he can do it safely), if there be no power erected [assembled], or not great enough for our security, every man will and may lawfully rely on his own strength and art for caution against all other men.
Chapter XXX- Of the Office of the Sovereign Representative: THE office of the sovereign, be it a monarch or an assembly, consists in the end for which he was trusted with the sovereign power, namely the securing of the “safety of the people”; to which he is obliged by the law of nature, and to render [provide] an account thereof to God, the Author of that law, and to none but Him. But by safety here is not meant a bare preservation [defense], but also all other contentment [satisfaction] of life, which every man by lawful industry, without danger or hurt to the Commonwealth, shall acquire to himself…
And because, if the essential rights of sovereignty [property]…be taken away… every man returns into the condition and calamity [disaster] of a war with every other man, which is the greatest evil that can happen in this life; it is the office of the sovereign to maintain those rights entire, and consequently against his duty, first, to transfer to another or to lay from himself any of them. For he that deserts the means deserts the ends; and he deserts the means that, being the sovereign, acknowledges himself subject to the civil laws, and renounces the power of supreme judicature [system of law courts]; or of making war or peace by his own authority; or of judging of the necessities of the Commonwealth [nation]; or of levying money and soldiers when and as much as in his own conscience he shall judge necessary; or of making officers and ministers both of war and peace; or of appointing teachers, and examining what doctrines are conformable or contrary to the defense, peace, and good of the people. Secondly, it is against his duty to let the people be ignorant or misinformed of the grounds and reasons of those his essential rights, because thereby men are easy to be seduced and drawn to resist him when the Commonwealth [nation] shall require their use and exercise.
Book: The Social Contract
Background: Rousseau was born into poverty. He was an emotional, undisciplined man. Much of his early life was spent wandering from one job to another. He went on, in 1762, to publish an important book on government titled The Social Contract. His idea of the social contract, as in the voluntary relationship between the government & the people, differed from that Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. His views favored the rule of the majority- his writings encouraged both those that favored democratic governments and nationalism. The following is an excerpt from that book explaining his ideas about government.
Man was born free, but everywhere he is in chains…Man believes that he is the master of others, and still he is more of a slave than they are…At a point in the state of nature when the obstacles to human continuation have become greater than each individual that his own strength can cope with . . ., an adequate combination of forces must be the result of men coming together…"How is a method of associating to be found which will defend and protect-using the power of all-the person and property of each member and still enable each member of the group to obey only himself and to remain as free as before?" This is the fundamental problem; the social contract offers a solution to it.
…The social contract's terms, when they are well understood, can be reduced to a single condition: the individual member alienates himself totally to the whole community together with all his rights. This is first because conditions will be the same for everyone when each individual gives himself totally, and secondly, because no one will be tempted to make that condition of shared equality worse for other men....
It is very necessary for us to distinguish between the respective rights of the citizens and the sovereign and between the duties which men must fulfill in their role as subjects from the natural rights they should enjoy in their role as men. It is agreed that everything which each individual gives up of his power, his goods, and his liberty under the social contract is only that part of all those things which is of use to the community, but it is also necessary to agree that the sovereign alone is the judge of what that useful part is.
Government … is wrongly confused with the sovereign, whose agent [representative] it is. What then is government? It is an intermediary body established between the subjects and the sovereign to keep them in touch with each other. It is charged with executing the laws and maintaining both civil and political liberty.... The only will dominating government ... should be the general will or the law. The government's power is only the public power vested in it. As soon as [government] attempts to let any act come from itself completely independently, it starts to lose its intermediary role. If the time should ever come when the [government] has a particular will of its own stronger than that of the sovereign and makes use of the public power which is in its hands to carry out its own particular will-when there are thus two sovereigns, one in law and one in fact-at that moment the social union will disappear and the body politic will be dissolved.
…Sovereignty [authority/ rule] cannot be represented.... Essentially, it consists of the general will, and a will is not represented: either we have it itself, or it is something else; there is no other possibility. The deputies of the people thus are not and cannot be its representatives. They are only the people's agents and are not able to come to final decisions at all. Any law that the people have not ratified in person is void, it is not a law at all.