Montesquieu: Of the Corruption of the Principles of the Three Governments

LONANG Library

• Historic Reference

• Organic Documents

LONANG Commentaries

• Legal Foundations

• Constitutional Law

• LONANG Curriculum

Tribunal of Justice

LONANG Institute

• Search Our Site

• About Us

• Contact Us

• Home

*New!*
Reassert the Rule of Law
Reform Civil Government
Reclaim The Church

* NOW - Buy this resource online! Click here * Of the Corruption of the Principles of the Three Governments1. General Idea of this Book.2. Of the Corruption of the Principles of Democracy.3. Of the Spirit of extreme Equality.4. Particular Cause of the Corruption of the People.5. Of the Corruption of the Principle of Aristocracy.6. Of the Corruption of the Principle of Monarchy.7. The same Subject continued.8. Danger of the Corruption of the Principle of monarchical Government.9. How ready the Nobility are to defend the Throne.10. Of the Corruption of the Principle of despotic Government.11. Natural Effects of the Goodness and Corruption of the Principles of Government.12. The same Subject continued.13. The Effect of an Oath among virtuous People.14. How the smallest Change of the Constitution is attended with the Ruin of its Principles.15. Sure Methods of preserving the three Principles.16. Distinctive Properties of a Republic.17. Distinctive Properties of a Monarchy.18. Particular Case of the Spanish Monarchy.19. Distinctive Properties of a despotic Government.20. Consequence of the preceding Chapters.21. Of the Empire of China. FOOTNOTES
   1. See Plutarch in Timoleon and Dion.
   2. It was that of the Six Hundred, of whom mention is made by Diodorus, xix. 5.
   3. Upon the expulsions of the tyrants, they made citizens of strangers and mercenary troops, which gave rise to civil wars. -- Aristotle, Politics, v. 3. The people having been the cause of the victory over the Athenians, the republic was changed. -- Ibid., 4. The passion of two young magistrates, one of whom carried off the other's boy, and in revenge the other debauched his wife, was attended with a change in the form of this republic. -- Ibid.
   4. Ibid.
   5. Ibid.
   6. The aristocracy is changed into an oligarchy.
   7. Venice is one of those republics that has enacted the best laws for correcting the inconveniences of an hereditary aristocracy.
   8. Justin attributes the extinction of Athenian virtue to the death of Epaminondas. Having no further emulation, they spent their revenues in feasts, frequentius coenam, quam castra visentes. Then it was that the Macedonians emerged from obscurity, 9, 1. 6.
   9. Compilation of works made under the Mings, related by Father Du Halde, Description of China, ii, p. 648.
   10. During the reign of Tiberius statues were erected to, and triumphal ornaments conferred on, informers; which debased these honours to such a degree that those who had really merited them disdained to accept them. Frag. of Dio, lviii. 14, taken from the Extract of Virtues and Vices, by Constantine Porphyrogenitus. See in Tacitus in what manner Nero, on the discovery and punishment of a pretended conspiracy, bestowed triumphal ornaments on Petronius Turpilianus, Nerva, and Tigellinus. -- Annals, xiv. 72. See likewise how the generals refused to serve, because they condemned the military honours: pervulgatis triumphi insignibus -- Ibid., xiii. 53.
   11. In this state the prince knew extremely well the principle of his government.
   12. Herodian.
   13. Aristotle, Politics, ii. 10.
   14. They always united immediately against foreign enemies, which was called Syncretism. Plutarch Moralia, p. 88.
   15. Republic, ix.
   16. Plutarch, Whether a Man Advanced in Years Ought to Meddle with Public Affairs.
   17. Republic, v.
   18. The Gymnic art was divided into two parts, dancing and wrestling. In Crete they had the armed dances of the Curetes; at Sparta they had those of Castor and Pollux; at Athens the armed dances of Pallas, which were extremely proper for those that were not yet of age for military service. Wrestling is the image of war, said Plato Laws, vii. He commends antiquity for having established only two dances, the pacific and the Pyrrhic. See how the latter dance was applied to the military art, Plato, ibid.
   19. Aut libidinosce. Lad�as Lacedamonis pal�stras. -- Mutual, iv, 55.
   20. Plutarch, in the treatise entitled Questions Concerning the Affairs of the Romans, question 40.
   21. Ibid.
   22. Plutarch, Table Propositions, book ii, question 5.
   23. Book i, pref.
   24. Livy, iii. 20.
   25. Ibid., 32.
   26. About a hundred years after.
   27. See xi, 12.
   28. See Dio, xxxviii, Cicero in Plutarch, Cicero to Atticus, iv. 10, 15. Asconius on Cicero, De Divinatione.
   29. As when a petty sovereign supports himself between two great powers by means of their mutual jealousy; but then he has only a precarious existence.
   30. See M. Le Clerc, the History of the United Provinces.
   31. "It is the cudgel that governs China," says Father Du Halde, Disc. de la Chine, ii, p. 134.
   32. Among others, De Lange's account.
   33. Of the Family of Sourniama, Edifying Letters, coll. xviii.
   34. See in Father Du Halde how the missionaries availed themselves of the authority of Canhi to silence the mandarins, who constantly declared that by the laws of the country no foreign worship could be established in the empire.
   35. See Lettres persanes, 210.
   36. See the order of Tsongtou for tilling the land, in the Edifying Letters, coll. xxi.