Autor: Manent, Pierre

Buch: An Intellectual History of Liberalism

Titel: An Intellectual History of Liberalism

Stichwort: Montesquieu1; M. vs. Hobbes, Locke (Naturzustand, Souveränität, Selbsterhalt, Recht); M.: Problem d. Souveränität bei L. -> Reflexion auf die Pattstellung zw. König und Parlament (Glorreiche Revolution)

Kurzinhalt: ... the Lockean assertion of the people's sovereignty expressed itself practically, at the time of the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89... Montesquieu's thought represents that ... moment of liberalism when the question of legitimacy could be forgotten ...

Textausschnitt: CHAPTER V
Montesquieu and the Separation of Powers

53a In going from Hobbes and Locke to Montesquieu we change worlds. Montesquieu's political intentions remain essentially the same as those of Hobbes and Locke, but the means chosen for realizing them, and the language in which they are described, are radically different. (Fs)
53b The political intention remains the same: the end of the political institution is to ensure the security of persons and goods. The more certain the security, the more recommendable the institution. But the need for individual self-preservation is no longer strictly speaking the foundation of political legitimacy, of an absolute and incontestable legitimacy. Whereas Hobbes and Locke spoke the language of absolute rights—the individual's or the sovereign's—Montesquieu abandons this language and reestablishes on new bases the flexibility of the ancient politics. For example, Locke considered absolute monarchy to be not only a bad and illegitimate regime, but in fact not a political regime at all. It left men in a state of nature worse than the original one. Montesquieu, in contrast, considered the defects and merits of the French monarchy with equanimity. The French monarchy's principle of legitimacy was radically illiberal, but its effective functioning assured tolerable liberties. In short, Montesquieu's liberalism is not aggressive like Locke's; he is liberal not only in his principles, but also in his mood or tone. If he was able to abandon the Lockean "absolutist" language, it is because he managed to found liberty on bases other than the concepts of the state of nature and sovereignty. (Fs) (notabene)

53c The doctrine of sovereignty was both the salvation and the bane of early modern political thought. It saved it by making possible the conception of a neutral power, superior in principle to all interests and passions that drive men to war, whether political or religious. Sovereignty was responsible for constituting a human world invulnerable in principle to religion's power. The bane was that, by constructing a power capable of imposing peace, one simultaneously raised a power capable of making war on its subjects. Of course, Locke attempted to make it impossible for the absolute sovereignty to turn against citizens by placing it in a legislative assembly representing their desire for preservation. But what if this assembly betrays its mandate, becomes oppressive? Then, says Locke, the only recourse is to appeal to Heaven—to rebel. This recourse is always open since the people are the ultimate source of all legitimacy.1 Montesquieu will show how the liberal plan can do without the dangerous means of absolute sovereignty, as well as the perilous remedy of rebellion, without risking anarchy. (Fs) (notabene)

54a Unlike Hobbes, Locke makes a distinction between the legislative and executive powers but does not achieve a doctrine of the separation of powers comparable to Montesquieu's. On the contrary, Locke insists on the essential subordination of the executive to the legislative. For a more or less equal distribution of power between the two cannot be conceived of, so long as sovereignty resides in the king. If the king is sovereign, he must necessarily possess the two powers—or at least, possessing the executive, he must also have a direct share in legislation. The liberal plan therefore required that the idea of royal sovereignty be refuted. To an absolute sovereignty, however, one can oppose only another absolute sovereignty: to that of the king, that of the people. The people's sovereignty, as absolute, is not in principle more propitious to the separation of powers than the king's sovereignty. But since the sovereign people cannot rule directly, and since the assembly of its representatives is also scarcely suited to govern, a regime based on the people's sovereignty practically needs a power other than that of the sovereign. At least Locke's English contemporaries thought so: the Lockean assertion of the people's sovereignty expressed itself practically, at the time of the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89, through a compromise between the representative Houses and the reformed monarchy. Once this compromise was established and began functioning passably well, it became possible to describe English politics as resting on the interplay of two almost equal powers, leaving aside the absolute sovereignty that had made the compromise possible, and leaving the question of legitimacy to lie dormant. (Fs) (notabene)

54b Montesquieu's doctrine is not founded on an analysis of man's original condition or of the bases of political legitimacy. It depends on the interpretation of a political experience, namely the English experience, whose results Montesquieu contemplated from afar. The doctrine of the separation of powers finds its classical expression in Montesquieu thanks only to the "forgetting" of the principle of legitimacy that made it possible. Montesquieu's "forgetting," which only reproduced that of English actors and authors who had already made the compromise, suggested that in the future the principle of legitimacy—the people's sovereignty—which made the separation of powers possible, could be turned against it. The two doctrines have no intrinsic affinity: democratic legitimacy, the condition for liberal institutions in the framework of the English monarchy, could in other circumstances become their enemy. Thus Montesquieu's thought represents that unique, exquisite moment of liberalism when the question of legitimacy could be forgotten, a pause between the active sovereignty of kings (which comes to an end with the English Revolution) and the active sovereignty of the people (which begins with the French Revolution). (Fs) (notabene)