reduces the state to its capital, the capital to the court, and the court to his person alone” (8.6.117).
Montesquieu suggests that this tendency is a latent possibility woven into the very fabric of monarchy
inasmuch as despite the presence of “intermediate, subordinate and dependent powers,” in a monarchy
“the prince is the source of all political and civil power” (2.4.17). Monarchy requires a monarch to be the
institutional glue holding the society together.
The real depth of Montesquieu’s assessment of the problems of the regime types in Part I only
becomes fully apparent when he introduces the British Constitution in Part II. His entire approach to the
analysis of Britain differs markedly from the pattern set by the earlier typology. To start, Montesquieu at
least formally jettisons the idea of natures and principles in this account. We are never told the nature of
the British regime, nor does he identify any single principle or primary human passion that moves it. In
England he claims, “all the passions are free” (19.27.325). Rather than any single nature or passion
Montesquieu identifies a specific object to which the British regime is directed and that is “political
liberty” (11.5.156). He defines political liberty as “that tranquility of spirit which comes from the opinion
each one has of his security… such that one citizen cannot fear another citizen” (11.6.157). With this
self-regarding notion of liberty Montesquieu not only clearly contrasts political liberty with the self-
renunciation involved in the classical idea of political virtue, he also corrects the apparently natural
tendency of people to ascribe “the name of liberty” to any government that is consistent with their
customs or inclinations (11.2.155). Political liberty as it exists in England is not to be confused with “the
power of the people,” but rather involves the individual’s “power to do what one should want to do” (i.e.
everything the laws permit) and “in no way being constrained to do what one should not want to do”
(11.3.155). In this identification of political liberty exclusively with early modern Britain Montesquieu
suggests not only that there is something essential about liberty for human nature (MacDonald 2003:
113), but also how little political liberty has historically been understood.
The most fundamental structural feature of the regime directed to political liberty is the
separation of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial functions of government. Whereas
the classical republics relied on strict civic education to counteract the natural temptation to use public
power for private or factional interests, the British constitution resembles monarchy inasmuch as it relies
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Convention