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  • Montesquieu's Natural Rights Constitutionalism

  • Edited by Ellen Frankel Paul, Bowling Green State University, Ohio, Jeffrey Paul, Bowling Green State University, Ohio, Fred D. Miller, Jr, Bowling Green State University, Ohio
  • Book:
    Natural Rights Individualism and Progressivism in American Political Philosophy
    Published online:
    05 June 2014
    Print publication:
    27 August 2012, pp 51-81

  • Summary

    Montesquieu is most famous for his contribution to the study of political psychology and political architecture. Jean-Jacques Rousseau charged that Montesquieu limited himself to the sphere of positive right and David Hume thought him a rationalist on the model of René Descartes's great Augustinian admirer Nicolas Malebranche. Montesquieu makes clear that organized political society and despotism come much later in time and tend to be coeval with the discovery of agriculture, the institution of property in land, and the invention of coinage. The way of thinking about constitutionalism that Montesquieu bequeathed to the American Founding Fathers was based on an understanding of the state of nature, of objective natural right, and of subjective natural rights fundamentally similar to but not identical with that found in Locke's book. It stands to reason that if we want to understand the present discontents, we should take note of Woodrow Wilson's argument.