Civics In A Year
What do you really know about American government, the Constitution, and your rights as a citizen?
Civics in a Year is a fast-paced podcast series that delivers essential civic knowledge in just 10 minutes per episode. Over the course of a year, we’ll explore 250 key questions—from the founding documents and branches of government to civil liberties, elections, and public participation.
Rooted in the Civic Literacy Curriculum from the Center for American Civics at Arizona State University, this series is a collaborative project supported by the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. Each episode is designed to spark curiosity, strengthen constitutional understanding, and encourage active citizenship.
Whether you're a student, educator, or lifelong learner, Civics in a Year will guide you through the building blocks of American democracy—one question at a time.
Civics In A Year
Separation of Powers: Montesquieu's Blueprint for American Democracy
The separation of powers doctrine formulated by Baron de Montesquieu profoundly shaped America's constitutional foundation and remains central to our political system today. Dr. Paul Carrse explains how this French philosopher's revolutionary ideas about dividing government into legislative, executive, and judicial branches provided the blueprint for American democracy.
• Montesquieu's "Spirit of Laws" (1748) served as the political science textbook for America's founding generation
• While John Locke influenced revolution theory, Montesquieu was the most crucial philosopher for constitutional design
• The three-branch government model prevents concentration of power while creating beneficial division of labor
• Montesquieu innovated by emphasizing an independent judiciary as the "safety valve" for liberty
• American states began implementing the separation of powers in their constitutions even before the Declaration of Independence
• The system includes deliberate power mixing (checks and balances) to prevent any branch from dominating
• Bicameral legislature design creates space for more argument, compromise, and representation of minority viewpoints
• Montesquieu's philosophy explains why we have structures like presidential veto, judicial review, and legislative oversight
Check Out the Civic Literacy Curriculum!
School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership
Welcome back everyone. We have Dr Paul Carice back with us today to talk about Baron de Montesquieu. Dr Carice, our question today is how did Montesquieu's idea about separation of powers influence our Constitution?
Speaker 2:Thank you, liz. This is a really important topic. It fits with topics and questions we posed in earlier episodes about philosophy and philosophers are very big ideas shaping the Declaration of Independence and the argument for revolution and independence, shaped now to be thinking about our constitutional order as a whole from the founding period being shaped by leading philosophers. This is an Enlightenment philosopher, as the term is used, a modern philosopher of liberal, democratic politics.
Speaker 2:Montesquieu is a Frenchman. He is a lawyer who becomes a judge, but he becomes more fascinated as a young man with philosophy than with being a lawyer and a judge and as a nobleman he has enough money to devote himself to philosophy and he becomes quite famous as a fairly young man and that gives him for a book. He writes a kind of novel, a satire about French politics and European life, about French politics and European life, and that gives him a little more time to write a huge work that he spends 20 years writing called the Spirit of Laws or the Spirit of the Laws, and this book by Montesquieu was the textbook, in effect, of political science for what becomes the American founders' generation. It's published in 1748 in France. It's very quickly translated into English. One reason it's translated into English is. He has two long chapters in this very big book that praise the English constitution and English politics because of its devotion to liberty. And the English like this they like a French nobleman who's a baron and a judge.
Speaker 2:They like this, and so it gets translated very quickly, by 1750, and then it's in the American colonies very quickly, and so by the time that, think of people like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton and James Madison going to college in the American colonies. Well, this is like the new hot standard kind of textbook of what the science of politics is, of what political philosophy is for. Very clearly, it's a huge book. He's being very comprehensive, it's almost encyclopedic, about monarchies and republics and he's very against despotism and authoritarian politics. But he's, you know, for the American colonists this is great because he's talking about politics of liberty and the rule of law, supporting liberty and constitutionalism. So he becomes, as the American Revolution is breaking out, we think, well, john Locke is the most important philosopher and there's a way in which Locke is more important than Montesquieu on the arguments about revolution. But Montesquieu is always there in the 1760s, 1770s, 1780s. So he's I think the scholars are correct to argue he's the single most important philosopher of the entire founding period. And so here's the separation of powers question. If you think about the Declaration of Independence, you read the politics set the rules and guardrails so that these ideas of individual rights that we have, these ideas of equality among all people that we have, are actually being practiced and enforced and observed by everybody. And Montesquieu's argument is you need to disperse the powers, you need a kind of division of labor if this politics of the rule of law and ordered liberty, constitutional government is actually going to work. So the three powers and we get this formula from Montesquieu, not from any other philosopher the three powers are you want a legislative power, a body of representatives who make the laws. But how do they do that? They argue with each other, they deliberate with each other to make the laws, and then we'll talk more about how complicated Montesquieu thinks that should be. Then an executive power, a, a governor, a president, you know, ministers, things like that, people who will take the laws and execute them, implement them, administer them, make sure they're actually being followed by everybody, including everybody in the government, as well as the citizens and foreigners and others. So we've got two powers now legislative power, making the laws, executive power.
Speaker 2:And then he is definitely the innovator, maltescu is the innovator of this third one, because John Locke talks about an executive power and a legislative power. Legislative power is first for Locke, of course, then executive power, but he doesn't really talk about judges or judiciary very much. Locke doesn't. Montesquieu makes a big deal out of the judicial power of courts. It's not. He doesn't invent the idea. I mean, you know Aristotle's talking about courts and judges and juries and things like that. Montesquieu just says if you want a politics of liberty and an ordered liberty under the rule of law and constitutionalism, you must have an independent judiciary. Now it's the third power, it's the least powerful power, it's the least political power, but it's got to be there.
Speaker 2:And so that's the separation of powers, theory, philosophy that Jefferson Adams, adams, hamilton, madison, john jay, they're all reading this in college in a way, and it's there from 1775, right before we forget this, before the declaration of independence in july of 1776, the second continental congress is saying to the colonies you are in effect states already, you should, should be drafting constitutions. You're not colonies anymore, Because you know, especially after Lexington conquered, shots have been fired, you know. So get serious, folks. And there are states that draft constitutions by late 1775 and early 1776. And what do they do? Separation of powers this state shall have a government of this kind and it shall have a legislative branch. It shall have an executive branch, it shall have a judicial branch. It's Montesquieu right.
Speaker 2:So I'm not saying Locke is not important at the time of the day. Right, locke's very important, but he's not the only important philosopher. And the declaration itself says the king and the parliament have violated this principle about the legislative power and this principle about the executive power and this principle about the judicial power and and the way the powers are supposed to interact and be separated from. So and in fact god is referred to, the divinity is referred to as a legislator, an executive and a judge, if you think about the references to a divinity in the Declaration of Independence. So this is a big idea, this separation of powers idea. We kind of take it for granted and we kind of demean it. Oh, you know, these are the stupid questions. You get on a quiz about how many branches of government are and who cares? It's just mechanics, it's just wrong. This is foundational for, to use Malteski's phrase for his book, the spirit of the laws, the whole spirit and philosophy of our form of politics and law.
Speaker 1:So why did Montesquieu then think that kind of this complicated structure of institutions would be helpful to or for free politics, rather than a hindrance, because it would almost seem to somebody who's maybe not familiar of? Why are you giving all of these different branches, all of these different you know jobs? Why can't Congress or the legislator make laws and then make sure people are following them?
Speaker 2:Yes, this kind of concern about the inefficiency or how complicated this is, hard to understand, hard to operate, hard to get things done right. This criticism really arose in the late 19th century and the 20th century. Among American thinkers. Woodrow Wilson is probably the most famous as a professor of political science, before he becomes president, saying that this is a kind of Newtonian mechanics, you know action and reaction, and it's too complicated a machinery. We need something more organic. And he of course becomes president. But as a political science professor he's saying a single president collaborating with a legislature, the way the British do it right, a prime minister who's actually a member of the parliament, of legislative body, that's much more organic and efficient, gets things done quickly. So Maltescu knows about those arguments and is insisting that the principle of liberty is important and he's very worried about concentrating too much power in any one branch and there's a negative, so to speak, part of that preventing something bad from happening Despotism, authoritarianism, actually majoritarianism. You know you have a very popular figure, he or she wins an election and then they just want to change everything right and minority views then get trampled upon and minority rights get trampled on. So is very concerned to argue the advantages of making a more complicated form of government. And the negative side is prevent too much power being concentrated in any one branch, especially in a king, a monarchy or president or a popular figure, right? So that's the kind of negative, preventative side. The positive side is this idea I mentioned earlier a division of labor. We do this all the time in life, right? Wouldn't you be a better judge if you focused on judging? You know, as complicated enough as it is, knowing all the law, knowing all the case law, knowing how lawyers argue and think, and having and you're not trying to do five jobs, okay, and this is true all over our lives Wouldn't legislators do a better job if they focused on the very complicated and important task of representing a population of citizens from different places and different points of view and arguing with each other, listening to each other, arguing with each other and here Montesquieu, it's sort of the principle. You could make fun of it the more complicated the better.
Speaker 2:He likes what the English came up with across hundreds of years of constitutional development. This legislative branch. The English say we're going to split it in two, we're going to have an upper house and it's a constitutional monarchy. So there's an aristocracy, a class of nobles. We're going to have an upper house for the nobles, the House of Lords, and we're going to have a lower house with more members in it for the commons, the commoners, the common people. And Montesquieu says this is a very good idea. And of course the Americans then take this over and saying yes, we want an upper house which becomes the Senate. In the state constitutions they have different names an upper house, smaller, different functions, and then a larger, more representative, you could say, more democratic branch in the legislature. So the more complicated the legislature is, the better, because now you're doing better work in representing different points of view and there's got to be more argument and then more compromise, and so there the legislative power.
Speaker 2:Moteski's idea is he likes the English and wants to sort of. You know you have to do it in your own way wherever you are in the world, right, but here's the English model. You will get out of that complicated legislative process bicameralism, we call it two houses. You will get more argument, more space for minorities to make their arguments or minority points of view, and more compromise, and then you can think on the negative side, the laws will be less dumb, less stupid, you know, less unjust, or you could think on the positive side, these laws will be smarter, a little bit wiser, a little bit more just and have a larger consensus majority behind them. Ok, so legislative power will be better if that's separate from the others, executive power will be.
Speaker 2:That, you know, is action, the principle of action. If an executive can focus on action, not on having to sit around and deliberate and listen to people and argue that'll be done better, and then the judging power is kind of the safety valve for these two, and it's he's really the innov in this. You want a safety valve, beyond the lawmakers and the people who execute and enforce the laws, for the average citizen or association or corporation to say wait a minute, I'm not guilty of violating the law. A prosecutor from the executive branch has come after me, right? Or a fellow citizen or another corporation or somebody, some entity is violating the law and the executive is not doing anything about it and I need to file a lawsuit, right. So this leads to the great American principle I mean it's got to be written somewhere in our founding documents the right to sue. You know, I mean this is the great American thing, right, that we have lawyers and we can sue other people, people, right.
Speaker 2:So this is Montesquieu's idea If you divide, you'll get better functioning in each of the three crucial functions legislating, executing, executive and enforcing. And especially there, by the way, I should mention international affairs. Right, president or prime minister is the chief executive about foreign affairs and defense and security and war? You need speed there, not deliberation. You know you need to get stuff done quickly. And then the judicial power to be this kind of safety valve and then to sort of wrap it all up. That's all the positive division of labor kind of argument I mentioned. The negative don't concentrate power.
Speaker 2:Montesquieu is also saying that this will be a better form of politics for everybody if the powers are not entirely separate from each other. A little bit mixed with each other, because this is a paradox from each other. A little bit mixed with each other because this is a paradox. This is how you keep them separate. They can kind of protect each other. They can protect themselves from the others by being a little bit mixed with the other one, right? So the president has a veto power.
Speaker 2:In our constitutional system, a governor or a president has a veto power against the legislature. He can't strike down every law, the veto can be overridden, but it kind of, you know, if the executive thinks, hey, wait a minute, you folks in the legislature are way out of your lane, you're way out of your bounds, it's a kind of protection, defensive mechanism and the legislature, well, can prevent the executive from doing things by not funding the executive or by overriding vetoes or by turning down appointments that the executive suggests. The judiciary has this power, which it's not literally written in our 1787 Constitution but was implied at the Constitutional Convention. We call it judicial review, a power of constitutional review. Right, if they think the legislature and the president have gone out of their bounds, gone out of their lane and written a statute or some other action that violates the constitution, the judges can say, hey, wait a minute, that's null and void, right? So this kind of a little mixing of the powers, just enough to keep them separate and and make sure the other players in the game are following the rules. So you could say the separation of powers is generally the positive principle, the positive division of labor. Each of these functions will be done better if separated. And checks and balances, which is a different principle but clearly related, is the kind of negative principle, the checking principle, to help with the separation and to generally help with this issue of not letting any one branch or center of power have too much power. So that's the larger argument and again Montesquieu spells this out in the Spirit of Laws.
Speaker 2:He uses the English Constitution as a case study, but he's making his own philosophical arguments about it along the way, about it along the way, and it ends up being the concise statement of the English political constitutional culture. There's no one in the English language who states it so concisely and philosophically. Blackstone after Montesquieu writes commentaries on the laws of England and cites Montesquieu as the first philosopher, modern philosopher he cites right. So it's a funny thing. We know this in life, right? You travel abroad and you learn some things about another country, but you also see some things about your own country by having a. And Montesquieu lived in England for about 18 months and then wrote this study later and it ends up being this wonderful concise statement and it just goes like wildfire.
Speaker 2:In the American colonies they think that's what a constitutional government of liberty is. And so my hunch is this word right in the middle of the Declaration of Independence. We don't pay a lot of attention to it a charge where the Second Continental Congress sits in Jefferson's draft. Almost in this way, he, the king, has joined with others to violate our constitution in the singular Jefferson had our constitutions plural. And the Congress says Second Continental Congress says no, this violates our constitution, it violates the constitution of liberty.
Speaker 2:What does that mean? That's Montesquieu's constitution of liberty. His explanation this is what the English political culture and Constitution of Liberty is. The king and parliament are violating it. So that's Montesquieu's influence right there in 1776. And so look, if you don't like this form of government, it's too complicated and you want to make your arguments against it, the challenge for you is you better read Motsku and you better read Bloxton and you better read the federalist papers and you better know the very big, long thinking and arguments defending this kind of constitutionalism which is in our federal constitution and in almost all the state constitutions have the tripartite separation of powers. So you better know about all this and then have your criticisms and complaints.
Speaker 1:And I appreciate that you brought up the Federalist Papers, because that'll be in later episodes. So as you're talking about, you know, separation of powers, I'm thinking about Federalist 51 and thinking about Federalist 70 and Federalist 78 when we talk about the executive and the judiciary, and I know we have some really great episodes coming up on that. So Montesquieu really didn't just have a little bit of influence, there was a lot of influence and we see that. Dr Carice, as always, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much, Okay next one.
Speaker 1:See, I warned you, I was going to go on too long.
Speaker 1:You're totally fine because you are answering. But you but you kind of did, and I was actually looking, as there is a question on state constitutions that Sean is doing, so that that question will eventually get answered. So, yeah, no, that was that's going to tie in so nicely, because I already recorded with Alan Gibson and he did Federalist 10 and 51. So a lot of what you said is already going to marry into his. So it's going to be yeah, Alan's a good guy.
Speaker 2:That's terrific. Yeah, okay, okay, let me pull up my notes for yes, hopefully I won't go 19 minutes on George Washington, I'm excited about him too. So, yeah, okay, okay, let me pull up my notes for.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Hopefully I won't go 19 minutes on George Washington.
Speaker 1:George Washington.
Speaker 2:I'm excited about him too, so got to be careful.
Speaker 1:I love George Washington.
Speaker 2:All right, let me just get Stopwatch. Okay, all right, I'm good.
Speaker 1:Welcome back everyone. Today I get to talk about somebody I really, really admire and love as a historical figure, and I get to do it with one of my favorite scholars, Dr Preece. So, Dr Preece, welcome back, Thank you, liz, today we're talking about George Washington, so can you talk to us about the role that George Washington plays at the Constitutional Convention, the role that George Washington plays at the Constitutional Convention.
Speaker 2:Thank you, liz, another great question you've posed. Of course Washington is famous in a certain way not as famous and well-loved now, 250 years after the founding, as he was at the time and for much of the 19th century. But he does still have the title of the founding father for those of us who pay attention to him and admire him. But this is a role, his important role at the Constitutional Convention itself in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, that we don't pay much attention to, even those of us who are fond of George Washington and admire him. And there are good reasons for that.
Speaker 2:James Madison is known is given the sort of honorary title of the father of the Constitution. He's absolutely crucial at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. His notes, published long, long later because the deliberations were secret it was a rule of secrecy give us the most full account of what happened at the Constitutional Convention. So all praise to James Madison and he deserves the title of Father of the Constitution. And then of course, there are other delegates we know from not just Madison's notes but other notes, who spoke a lot and played crucial roles, even if they weren't in the open debates. They perform crucial committee roles Gouverneur Morris and James Wilson and Roger Sherman, et cetera. So we tend to overlook this because in the notes Washington doesn't say a lot, doesn't say a lot. So give me a moment here to explain why and I'm going to cite a scholar from Yale University, akil Amar, constitutional law professor, who makes the argument Washington is as important as Madison for producing the 17th Amendment.
