After examining which laws are related to the nature of each government, we must see which ones are related to its principle.
The difference [1] between the nature of the government and its principle is that its nature is what makes it what it is, and its principle is what makes it work. One (…)
I have said that the nature of republican government is that the people as a whole, or certain families, hold the sovereign authority ; the nature of monarchical government, that the prince holds the sovereign authority, but wields it according to established laws ; the nature of despotic (…)
It does not take much probity for a monarchical or despotic government to maintain or sustain itself. The force of the laws in the first, and the ever-threatening arm of the prince in the second, determine or contain everything. But a popular state needs to be driven by something more, which is (…)
As there must be virtue in a popular government, it must also be present in the aristocratic one. It is true that it is not so absolutely requisite.
The common people, who are in relation to nobles what subjects are in relation to the monarch, are contained by their laws. They therefore have (…)
In monarchies, politics makes great things happen with as little virtue as it can ; as in the most admirable machines, art uses as few movements, forces and wheels as possible.
The state subsists independently of love of country, of the desire for true glory, of self-renunciation, of the (…)
I am moving quickly and taking long strides so it will not be thought I am satirizing monarchical government. No : if it lacks one driving force, it has another. Honor, which is to say the prejudice of each person and of every rank, takes the place of virtue, and represents it everywhere ; honor (…)
Monarchical government, as we have said, supposes pre-eminences, ranks, and even a founding nobility. The nature of honor is to claim preferences and distinctions ; it is therefore inherently in its place in this government.
Ambition is pernicious in a republic. It has good effects in a (…)
It is not honor which is the principle of despotic states, where, all men being equal, one cannot prefer oneself to others ; men there all being slaves, one cannot prefer oneself to anything.
Besides, as honor has its laws and its rules, and is unable to bend, as it indeed depends on its own (…)
As there must be virtue in a republic, and honor in a monarchy, there must be fear in a despotic government ; for virtue there is not necessary, and honor would be dangerous.
The vast power of the prince passes directly to those to whom he entrusts it. People capable of great self-esteem would (…)
In despotic states, the nature of the government requires extreme obedience, and the will of the prince, once known, must have its effect as infallibly as one billiard ball striking another.
There are no attenuations, modifications, accommodations, equivalent substitutions, negotiations, (…)
Montesquieu
Unité Mixte de Recherche 5317, CNRS