Spirit of Laws By Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu

Montesquieu's tone in The Spirit of the Laws, published in 1748, was less humorous. He presented a wide–ranging comparative examination of political systems, rather than mocking French habits as he did in The Persian Letters. He claimed that the sort of governance used depended on the situation. This notion may not sound revolutionary now, but it indicated that governments in the eighteenth century did not have to be permanent. Montesquieu, like Locke, believed that government should not be based on the power of fathers in their homes. The finest government, on the other hand, was the one that best suited the people in question.
It is normal for a republic to have a small area; otherwise, it will not be able to survive for long. In a large republic, there are men with large fortunes, and thus less moderation; there are trusts too large to be placed in any single subject; he has his own interests; he soon begins to believe that he can be happy and glorious by oppressing his fellow-citizens; and that he can raise himself to grandeur on his country's ruins.
The public good is surrendered to a thousand individual ideas in a large republic; it is subject to exceptions and is dependent on circumstances. In a small one, the public interest is more visible, more understood, and more accessible to every person; abuses are less widespread, and, of course, less protected.
The size of a monarchical state should be modest. If it were small, it would form a republic; if it were large, the nobility, with vast estates far from the prince's gaze, a private court of their own, and safe from sudden executions by the laws and manners of the country—such a nobility, I say, might throw off their allegiance, having nothing to fear from a government that was too slow and too distant.
A vast empire implies that the ruler has dictatorial control. It is necessary for the prince's resolutions to be as quick as the distances they are sent to; for fear to prevent the distant governor or magistrate from being remiss; and for the law to be derived from a single person, and to shift constantly in response to the accidents that must multiply in a state in proportion to its size.
A NEW PHYSICAL CAUSE OF ASIA'S SLAVERY AS WELL AS EUROPE'S LIBERTY
Great Empires have always existed in Asia; they could never exist in Europe. Asia has wider plains; mountains and oceans divide it into much more widespread divisions; and, since it is further south, its springs are more readily dried up; the mountains are less snow-covered; and the rivers, which are smaller, create more constricted barriers.
As a result, power in Asia should always be dictatorial; otherwise, if their enslavement is not harsh, they would quickly create a separation that is incompatible with the country's character.
The natural division of Europe creates numerous moderately sized states in which the rule of law is not incompatible with the existence of the state; on the contrary, it is so beneficial to it that the state would decay and become a prey to its neighbors if it did not exist.It is because of this that every portion has developed a genius for liberty, making it exceedingly difficult to be conquered and submitted to a foreign authority without the use of laws and the benefit of commerce.
On the contrary, Asia has a slavish spirit that it has never been able to shake off, and it is difficult to locate a single passage in all of its histories that reveals a spirit of liberty; we will never see anything there but the excess of servitude.

 

1. For the better understanding of the first four books of this work, it is to be observed that what I distinguish by the name of virtue, in a republic, is the love of one’s country, that is, the love of equality. It is not a moral, nor a christian, but a political virtue; and it is the spring which sets the republican government in motion, as honour is the spring which gives motion to monarchy. Hence it is that I have distinguished the love of one’s country, and of equality, by the appellation of political virtue. My ideas are new, and, therefore, I have been obliged to find out new words, or to give new acceptations to old terms, in order to convey my meaning. They who are unacquainted with this particular, have made me say most strange absurdities, such as would be shocking in any part of the world, because in all countries and governments morality is requisite.

Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, "Spirit of Laws ", II.1