Montesquieu's Contributions to the Enlightenment

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Many people living in The United States like to think that our founding fathers thought of the basic construction of our whole government system. They really did not; Charles-Louis Secondat, baron de Montesquieu thought of the system of checks and balances plus the three branches of government. The whole framework of our Constitution is based on what Montesquieu thought of during the enlightenment period. The purpose of the three branches is to make it where no one person or group of people is greater than the rest. Montesquieu wanted to make a government where the people had a say in what happened and there wasn't a single person in charge. The system of checks and balances was to reinforce what he was trying to do. Making it where one branch could stop another from making a bad choice for the country. This system of checks and balances mostly is there to stop one branch from abusing the other or from making decisions the people do not want.

Montesquieu argued that to protect the rights of the nation and the security of destruction from the law; self governing bodies must possess individual powers to slow down the natural tendencies of an absolute monarchy. Basically Montesquieu thought that in order to get out of an absolute monarchy and to govern yourself; you must protect the rights of your country and stop the destruction of your country from the law. He thought that human beings could solve society's problems by using their ability to reason. Montesquieu thought that people should take a direct part in their government and not follow what a king or dictator says. That the people living in the country should decide what laws they live by and what there freedoms are. He also thought that peoples ability to reason meant th...

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...hout his contributions to the Enlightenment period our country might have turned out the opposite of now.

I think that without Montesquieu’s contributions to government our world would not be where it is today. Because of this one person our country is set up where the people living in it are the ones who get to decide what happens to them. The people are in charge of their own governmental system; putting them in charge of their own life. The most important thing about Montesquieu was that he wanted to find a way where the people who knew how to reason were in charge. He wanted to find a way where people were in charge of their own life and weren’t just a puppet to their dictator. He wanted to make sure that because every body could reason that every body has an opportunity to voice their opinion freely. What he ‘enlightened’ in our society is our government.

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