Ameritopia_ The Unmaking of America - Mark R. Levin [51]
Whereas the utopians start from the premise that the individual must be managed and suppressed by masterminds for the greater good, Locke opposed authoritarianism and sought to uncover the true nature of man and the environment most conducive to his fulfillment and happiness. Having experienced the wrath of monarchy, in Locke the Founders discovered a patron saint.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHARLES DE MONTESQUIEU AND REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT
JUST AS JOHN LOCKE’S influence on the Founders and the Declaration of Independence was profound, French philosopher Charles de Montesquieu, who lived from 1689 to 1755, was enormously important to the Framers of the Constitution, particularly respecting the form of government and separation of powers. However, in his seminal and extensive work, The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu also wrote at length about the nature of man and societies.
Montesquieu explains that “[p]rior to all these laws are the laws of nature, so named because they derive uniquely from the constitution of our being. To know them well, one must consider a man before the establishment of societies. The laws he would receive in such a state will be the laws of nature. The law that impresses on us the idea of a creator and thereby leads us toward him is the first of the natural laws in importance, though not first in the order of these laws. A man in the state of nature would have the faculty of knowing rather than knowledge. It is clear that his first ideas would not be speculative ones; he would think of the preservation of his being before seeking the origin of his being. Such a man would at first feel only his weakness; his timidity would be extreme.… In this state, each feels himself inferior; he scarcely feels himself an equal. Such men would not seek to attack one another, and peace would be the first natural law.”1
Like Locke, Montesquieu rejects explicitly Thomas Hobbes’s view of the state of man in nature. He observes that “Hobbes gives men first the desire to subjugate one another, but this is not reasonable. The idea of empire and domination is so complex and depends on so many other ideas, that it would not be the one they would first have. Hobbes asks, If men are not naturally in a state of war, why do they always carry arms and why do they have keys to lock their doors? But one feels that what can happen to men only after the establishment of societies, which induced them to find motives for attacking others and for defending themselves, is attributed to them before the establishment.… I have said that fear would lead men to flee one another, but the marks of mutual fear would soon persuade them to approach one another” (1, 1, 2).
As men join together in society and subsequently form governments, Montesquieu argues, the state of war begins. By this he means that nations need to protect themselves from other nations, and people within each nation must protect themselves from each other and from a government. There can be no political liberty without law. Respecting the establishment of laws, Montesquieu explains “Considered as living in a society that must be maintained, they have laws concerning the relation between those who govern and those who are governed, and this is the POLITICAL RIGHT. Further, they have laws concerning the relation that all citizens have with one another, and this is the CIVIL RIGHT” (1, 1, 2).
Montesquieu wrote of the nature of governments. “There are three kinds of government: REPUBLICAN, MONARCHICAL, and DESPOTIC. To discover the nature of each, the idea of them held by the least educated of men is sufficient. I assume three definitions, or rather, three facts: one, republican government is that in which the people as a body, or only a part of the people, have sovereign power; monarchical government is that in which one alone governs, but by fixed and established laws; whereas, in despotic government, one alone, without law and without rule, draws everything along by his will and caprices” (1, 1, 2). In republican government, Montesquieu explains, the people