Montesquieu on Federalism and Anglo-Gothic Constitutionalism

Abstract

The common perception that Montesquieu is not a major theorist of federalism is due both to the peripheral nature of his account of confederate republics and his praise of the unitary British Constitution in the Spirit of the Laws. This study challenges this view by arguing that, despite his endorsement of the separation of powers, Montesquieu had serious reservations about England's highly centralized system of parliamentary sovereignty. Moreover, his most significant reflections on federalism were not contained in his brief treatment of confederate republics, but rather in his lengthy consideration of Gothic constitutionalism. I conclude that Montesquieu's complex constitutional theory involves two distinct dimensions including both the separation of powers exemplified in England and the federal principles in the decentralized Gothic system of medieval France. Montesquieu is seldom seen as an important theorist of federalism. The reasons for this assessment appear to be twofold. First, his brief account of confederate republics in the Spirit of the Laws is typically interpreted to be peripheral to the aim of the work as a whole, and simply a reflection on the problematic political possibilities available to small classical republics with little purchase for large states and modern notions of sovereignty (Wolfe 1977, 427-445; Nelson 1987, 112). 1 Second, many commentators have long followed the lead of no less an authority on federalism than James Madison, who identified the unitary British Constitution with its separation of powers as the apogee of Montesquieu's thinking, the ''perfect model'' from which he drew all ''the principles and rules'' of government (

Pluralism Without Privilege? Corps Intermédiaires, Civil Society, and the Art of Association

“…Montesquieu ([1748] 1989. For an account of Montesquieu's defense of provincial autonomy that amounts to a kind of federalist constitutionalism for monarchies, see Ward (2009).…”

Montesquieu on Ancient Greek Foreign Relations

“…Interpreters who take the confederate republic to be a true solution either maintain that classical republicanism is a relevant model for Montesquieu (Keohane 1972, 395; Onuf 1998, 233; Rosow 1984, 358-59) or argue that despite the inadequacies of the confederate model, it points to Montesquieu’s desire to find a new international model of shared sovereignty (Howse 2006, 5-6; Long 2008, 99; Long 2010, 774). Many commentators note the lack of clarity of the confederate republican proposal, indicating that Montesquieu’s account of the internal coherence and external security is unconvincing (Carrithers 2001, 128; Levy 2006, 53-54; Nelson 1975, 61; Pangle 1973, 83-84; Shklar 1998, 247; Ward 2007, 555). Some of these go so far as to suggest that Montesquieu did not understand confederacy, as this concept had yet to make its way into France in the middle of the eighteenth century (Larrère 2005–6, 120-23; Nelson 1975, 8).…”

George Mason and the Ambiguity of Executive Power

“…For a sampling of the expansive secondary literature on the views of these writers on this question, see Pangle (), Mansfield (; ), Nichols (), Zuckert (; ; ), Ward (; ; ). For the original writers, see Locke (), Montesquieu (1989), Sidney (1996), and Trenchard and Gordon ().…”