A Baron is BornBaron de Montesguieu Name:

Charles Louis de Secondat was born in 1689 in the city of Bordeaux, France. Atage 27, he became Baron de Montesquieu (MON-teh-skew) when he inheritedhis uncle's fortune and title. Montesquieu was one of the great thinkers of the17th and 18th centuries. He spent a lot of time thinking about how governmentsshould be created and maintained. His ideas guided the Founding Fathers whenthey wrote the United States Constitution. Even today, Montesquieu's thinkinginfluences the way people think about government around the world.

Follow the Rules Baron de Montesquieu

The term liberty means different things to different people. Some think libertymeans being able to speak and act without being held back by laws and rules-in other words, being able to do whatever you want. But Montesquieu believedthat liberty is the peace of mind that comes from being safe. He believedsafety can only exist if everyone follows the law. If governments could provide

How do the laws in our and enforce clear laws that everyone would follow, it would increase liberty,society keep us safe? reduce the problems of society, and improve human life.

~ King George III

Separate ...

Montesquieu studied the laws, customs, and governmentsof European countries to see how they created andenforced laws. He admired the government of England.The English government had three parts: a king to enforcelaws, Parliament to create laws, and courts to interpretlaws. The government was divided into parts, and eachpart had its own purpose. Montesquieu called this theseparation of powers.

Sir William Blackstone, an -718th century English judge

."but EqualDividing the powers of government was just the first step. Each part of thegovernment needed to be ba/ancedwith the other parts. Montesquieu thoughtthat each of the parts, or branches, of government should be equal. Heworried that if one branch had more power than the others, people wouldsuffer and lose their liberty. To avoid this, he suggested that each branch havethe ability to /imitthe power of the other two branches. In England, if the kingtried to take too much control, the Parliament or the courts could act to stophim. Today, we call this the system of checks and balances.

Sound Familiar?James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," liked the idea thateach branch of government should have a clear role. As a result, theU.S. Constitution clearly explains what each branch is supposed to do:Congress makes laws, the President enforces laws, and the Courtsinterpret laws. Each branch has the power to check, or limit, the otherbranches. This keeps all branches of government balanced and equal.

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau Name:

A Man of Many TalentsJean-Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva, Switzerland in 1712. At age30 he moved to Paris to become a musician and composer. However he isbetter known for his writings on human behavior and government.Rousseau believed that a government's purpose is to protect liberty, orfreedom, and to help people get along. Rousseau believed that the bestform of government was a democracy. His writings influenced how peoplethink about government and how a democracy should work.

Freedom for AllWhat does freedom mean to you? Rousseau talked about two differenttypes of freedom. Natural freedom happens when people live in a stateof nature. In a state of nature there are no rules or governments. Peopleare free to follow their instincts and selfish desires without consideringthe needs of others. But in a state of nature, people are not secure.Social freedom happens when people sacrifice some natural freedomsso they can have the freedom that comes with security and protection.To accomplish this, they establish rules and set up governments.

A Social Contract

In his book The Social Contract, written in 1762, Rousseau talksabout what makes an effective government. In order to have realauthority, government must be based on an agreement, or contract,people make with society. People agree to give up some naturalfreedoms in exchange for protection. The government then followsthe general will-those things that are in the best interest ofsociety as a whole. If people disagree about what's best, thegovernment follows majority rule, or what more than half thepeople want. What kind of government does this sound like?

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What is the relationship betweennatural rights and the general will?

DIRECT DEMOCRACYREPRESENTATIVE

DEMOCRACY

Everyone meets to A few people meet anddiscuss and create laws create laws for everyone

All citizens get a direct Citizens hope representativessay in every decision will make good decisions

Difficult to do in a very More practical for very largelarge society societies

Two Types of Democracy

There are two main types of democracies. In arepresentative democracy, citizens vote for asmall number of people to represent the public ingovernment. Only the representatives are directlyinvolved in the government. In a direct democracy,all citizens are directly involved in making laws andrunning the government. This was the kind ofparticipation Rousseau believed citizens should have,so he was in favor of direct democracy.

Of the People, By the People, For the PeopleRousseau's work inspired many to think about the kind of government theywanted. This included the Founding Fathers of the United States, who wrotethe United States Constitution. The Constitution created a democracy andguaranteed citizens a voice in government. Rousseau's ideas can also be seenin one of Abraham Lincoln's famous quotes, "a government of the people, bythe people, for the people."

ie.vles Influence Library Rousseau p.l

John Locke Name:

A Man with Many HatsJohn Locke was born in England in 1632. Locke considered becoming aminister, started his career as a doctor, but ended up as a philosopherand political scientist. He had many interests and produced a number ofwritings that influenced future leaders. One of those leaders wasThomas Jefferson, who helped America gain independence from Britainnearly 150 years after Locke was born. Jefferson studied Locke'swritings, and Locke's ideas show up in our own Constitution.

The Blank Slate

One of Locke's books, called An Essay Concerning HumanUnderstanding, took over 18 years to write! In it, he says thatpeople are born with a mind like a tabula rasa, which means ablank slate or page. During life, that blank slate gets filled up withthe things a person experiences with the five senses. He saidpeople learn and develop differently because they are exposed todifferent things. The one thing people have in common is thatthey are human and share a human nature that is the same for allpeople everywhere.

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Natural Rights

Locke imagined a set of natural rights that human beings share.These are the right to life, liberty, and property. life refers to the factthat people want to live and will fight to survive. Liberty means thatpeople want to be as free as possible to make their own decisions.Property represents the fact that people want to own things thathelp them survive, such as land, food, and tools. Locke believed theserights aren't given to people-people are born with them.

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Why do we need a government?

Locke also wondered what life would be like if people didn't have agovernment. In this state of nature there would be no rules, noone in charge, and no way for people to protect their naturalrights. He believed the purpose of government is to end the stateof nature and give people certain protections. Most importantly,Locke believed governments should protect people's natural rights.

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Social Contract

Locke believed a government can only be legitimate, or valid, if it isbased on a social contract with citizens. A contractis an agreementbetween people in which both sides agree to something in order toreach a shared goal. A social contract happens between agovernment and its people. The people agree to give up somefreedoms if the government agrees to protect everyone's rights. Ifthe government fails to deliver, the people revolt-like the colonistsdid during the American Revolution .

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Locke p.1

Thomas Hobbes Name:

Nope, Not the Cartoon Tiger (the other Hobbes)

Thomas Hobbes was an English scholar and philosopher. He was born in1588 and later became a tutor to a very wealthy family. As a tutor Hobbeshad access to many books, traveled often, and met many important thinkers.Hobbes lived in Paris through the English Civil Wars and was interested in thenature of government. He wrote about many topics, including politics,geometry, physics, religion, and history. Hobbes was one of many scholarswho tried to answer the question, "Why do we have government?"

the life of man)solitary) poor) nastybrutish and short.

- T. Hobbes

Social Contract

Thomas Hobbes

Poor, Nasty, Brutish, and Short

Hobbes saw humans as naturally selfish and quick to fight. Hebelieved that before there were governments, people lived in astate of nature. In a state of nature, everyone had a right toeverything. In order to get what they wanted, people would alwaysbe at war with everyone else. Nobody would produce anything likeinventions, art, or even crops or tools because they would be afraidother people would take them away. Hobbes didn't paint a verypretty picture of life without government.

Hobbes lived at a time when many philosophers were thinking aboutthe nature of government. He was one of the first of his era todiscuss the idea of a social contract between people and theirgovernment. A contract is an agreement in which both sides agree tosomething in order to reach a shared goal. In Hobbes'view, peopleagreed to give up some rights and power in exchange for protection.But for Hobbes, the social contract was no two-way street. Hebelieved that once the people agreed to hand over power inexchange for protection, they lost the right to overthrow, replace, oreven question the government.

leviathanHobbes wrote a book called Leviathan (luh-Vl-uh-then) to explain how hethought governments should work. Hobbes wrote Leviathan during theEnglish Civil War. He wrote about the social contract, and he spent muchof the book trying to show that a strong central authority was the only wayto avoid the evils of war. Hobbes believed a single sovereign, or ruler,should have total authority over the people. He believed in a monarchy ledby a king. That's because he thought that government would work best ifall the power rested in one place. No three branches for Hobbes!

Monarchy? Not Democracy?

Many political thinkers-including America's Founding Fathers-built onHobbes' ideas, especially the idea of a social contract. Hobbes was moreconcerned with protection and order than rights. But people like JohnLocke and Jean-JacquesRousseauchanged the focus from monarchy todemocracy-power with the people instead of a sovereign. They began tosee that people have rights that must be protected even from government.Cover art from Leviathan.

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