Charles De Montesquieu\'s Ideals Are the Embodiment

Charles de Montesquieu's ideals are the embodiment of the basis for the enlightenment and have many ties to the ideals of the Protestant reform and its substantial impact upon many political climates since its inception as a nucleus of thought. Montesquieu documented ideals about government and it's branches that established a basis for the United States constitutional government. Montesquieu outline several possible forms of government and then proceeded to admonish or bolster the truths as he saw them.

It is clear that the framers of the U.S. constitution were well studied in Montesquieu lore. Montesquieu was elitist enough to suit the needs of a foundling governmental movement, that established the ideals of the cream floating to the top and yet he also refreshingly appointed the masses, in a democracy, the right to pride in judgment and influence. "The suffrage by lot is a method of electing that offends no one, but animates each citizen with the pleasing hope of serving his country. Yet as this method is in itself defective, it has been the endeavor of the most eminent legislators to regulate and amend it" (Book II).

An example often used to describe just what the above statement means is the constitutional establishment of the electoral college of the United States. Though the popular vote seems to be the vote that counts, e.g. that which is broadcast and debated on, it is only a step in the process of the election of the President of the U.S. What often happens is the Electoral College Votes match the popular vote, yet they have the full right and freedom to vote in just the opposite manner, as they occasionally do.

Montesquieu rallies the importance of selective suffrage,

In a democracy the people are in some respects the sovereign, and in others the subject. There can be no exercise of sovereignty but by their suffrages, which are their own will; now the sovereign's will is the sovereign himself. The laws therefore which establish the right of suffrage are fundamental to this government. And indeed it is as important to regulate in a republic, in what manner, by whom, to whom, and concerning what, suffrages are to be given, as it is in a monarchy to know who is the prince, and after what manner he ought to govern (Book II).

As the division of those who have a right of suffrage is a fundamental law in republics, so the manner of giving this suffrage is another fundamental" (Book II). Montesquieu repeatedly establishes the value of the ability of the people in a Democratic government to choose the right representation yet, he also makes clear that the selectivity of the more knowledgeable is necessary in almost all cases.

The ideal of selective suffrage was absolutely present in the beginnings of representative style governments in both Great Britain and in the United States. This can be attested to by the many struggles waged over the years to grant universal suffrage, first to non-land owners, then to lower classes in general, then to people of different races and/or nationalities, and last but not least to women. Not to simplify matters as these four categories, with the exclusion of women as women are present across classes, are blurred owing to socioeconomic disparity relating to the other factors. In most cases class distinctions produced elitism. "The lower class ought to be directed by those of higher rank, and restrained within bounds by the gravity of eminent personages" (Book II). As an aside it could also be argued that women have the same distinct disadvantage of the "lower classes" owing the legal and monetary restrictions often placed on them by sometimes total limit of their ability to earn money that is then accepted to be their own by right.

A bold attempt to maintain the status quo, of white male suffrage can be seen in the history of suffrage for African-Americans in the United States. Laws that required literacy tests, which by many standards could not be passed by the white electorate, were used at the poll or at voter registration offices to discourage blacks from voting. This was a legitimate form of discrimination that often went hand in hand with a less legal form of coercion in the form of extreme violence. This went on much later than many people think and was only outlawed in the late 1960's with the help of the civil rights movement.

This very Protestant in ideal, the ability for men to secure proof of success and celestial favor by making a success of their worldly life was furthered greatly by thinkers like Montesquieu. This ideal may seem almost un-American yet, truth be told the rhetoric of the catch phrases that drive American sentiment, such as "anyone can make it here" are motivational only when the success truly occurs, which is not always the case given the difficulty of the barriers that are present from birth in many people's lives.

Montesquieu did go further in suggesting the legitimization of socioeconomic division when he describes the ancients in this case Servius Tullius:

We find in Livy and in Dionysius Halicarnassus, in what manner he lodged the right of suffrage in the hands of the principal citizens. He had divided the people of Rome into 193 centuries, which formed six classes; and ranking the rich, who were in smaller numbers, in the first centuries, and those in middling circumstances, who were more numerous, in the next, he flung the indigent multitude into the last; and as each century had but one vote it was property rather than numbers that decided the election (Book II).