A Commentary and Review of Montesquieu's "Spirit of Laws"
By Antoine Louis Claude Destutt de Tracy
Antoine Louis Claude Destutt de Tracy (1754-1836) composed
A Commentary and Review of Montesquieu’s Spirit of Laws in 1811. It was promptly translated to English by Thomas Jefferson, who published it along with translations of M. Condorcet’s “Observations on the [Twenty-ninth] Book” (the original cover page produced by William Duane’s Philadelphia press erroneously reads as the “Thirty-first Book”) and “Two Letters of Helvetius, on the Merits of the Same Work”. We reproduce all these translated items here.Although Destutt de Tracy’s
Commentary is self-contained and does not require the prior reading of Montesquieu’s 1752
The Spirit of Laws, that work is readily available in translation at the
Online Library of Liberty (OLL).Destutt de Tracy’s work stands today as a classic in Political Science. His strength is his consistent ability to bring logic, creativity, and a modern scientific approach to explaining the motives, and hence the observed consequences, of various kinds of government styles. He systematically works through many substantial flaws in Montesquieu’s influential 1752 work, and delves into Montesquieu’s logical gaps. (See, for example, Tracy’s chapters on Montesquieu’s
Book XI on “Laws Which Establish Public Liberty, In Relation to the Constitution”.) His values of personal liberty, human equality, and intellectual pursuit show through in every chapter. His explanations of economics and how different government organizations do or do not contribute to economic welfare and personal liberty are clever and clear; and he is frank in suggesting that economics as a theoretical subject warrants illumination by others.Tracy’s explanations are clever and clear, and include material on the benefits of specialization of labor, free trade, and even include an explanation of
Ricardian equivalence (before Ricardo). Tracy’s enthusiasm, creativity, and intellectual honesty are inspiring and thought-provoking throughout this fine work.A few corrections of obvious typos were made for this website edition. However, we have erred on the side of caution in order to preserve the many variable and unusual spellings of the period. We have also preserved the punctuation of Jefferson’s original, including the unusual usage of multiple periods instead of m-dashes or other familiar punctuation. (The multiple periods do not seem to indicate elided material, but rather suggest a kind of pause for the reader to fill in additional thoughts or examples.) We have changed small caps to full caps for ease of using search engines.Editor,
Library of Economics and Liberty
2002
Translator/Editor
Thomas Jefferson, trans.
First Pub. Date
1811
Publisher
Philadelphia: William Duane
Pub. Date
1811
Comments
First written in French.
Copyright
The text of this edition is in the public domain.
- Author
- Preliminary Observations
- Book I
- Book II
- Book III
- Book IV
- Book V
- Book VI
- Book VII
- Book VIII
- Book IX
- Book X
- Book XI, Chap. I
- Book XI, Chap. II
- Book XII
- Review
- Book XIII
- Books XIV-XVII
- Book XVIII
- Book XIX
- Books XX-XXI
- Book XXII
- Book XXIII
- Books XXIV-XXV
- Book XXVI
- Books XXVII-XXVIII
- Book XXIX
- Books XXX-XXXI
- Observations on the Twenty-Ninth Book of the Spirit of Laws, by M. Condorcet
- Letters of Helvetius, Addressed to President Montesquieu and M. Saurin
Of Laws That Establish Political Liberty in Relation to the Citizen.
Book XII
The book preceding, Montesquieu entitles…. Of laws establishing political liberty in relation to the constitution. We have seen that, under this title, he treats of the effects which the laws forming the constitution of a state, produce on the liberty of man; that is to say…. which regulate the distribution of political power. These laws, in effect, contain the principles of those which affect the general interests of society, and by combining them with those which regulate the public economy, that is those which govern the formation and distribution of wealth, we shall be in possession of the whole code by which the aggregate interests of the political body are regulated, and by which the happiness and liberty of each is influenced, and thence the happiness and liberty of the whole.
The question here is, what are the laws which directly concern each citizen in his private interests? It is no longer public and political liberty it attacks, or immediately protects, it is individual and particular liberty. It will be perceived, that this second species of liberty is very necessary to the first, and intimately connected with it; because every citizen should be secure against oppression in his person and goods, in order to be able to defend political liberty: and it is very evident that if any authority, for example, should be possessed of the right of inflicting imprisonment, banishment, or fines, it would be impracticable to restrain it within the bounds that may be prescribed to it by the constitution of the state, if it has a constitution very exact and formal. Montesquieu also says…. that under the consideration in question,
liberty consists in
security, and that the constitution may be free…. that is, it may contain clauses favorable to liberty…. while the citizens do not really enjoy liberty; and he adds, with much reason, that in most states…. he might have said in all…. individual liberty is more restrained, violated, and kept down, than the constitution authorises or requires. The reason is, that the functionaries, always desirous of going beyond the bounds of law, instead of regarding them, find it necessary to check and repress political liberty, in order to keep down individual liberty. As principles the constitutional laws, and in operation the administrative laws, influence general liberty, so criminal and civil laws dispose of civil liberty. The subject we are treating of belongs almost entirely to the sixth book, where Montesquieu proposed examining
the consequences and principles of different governments, in relation to the simplicity of criminal laws, the forms of judgment, and the infliction of punishment. A better method of distribution and connexion of ideas, would have united that book with this, and even with the twenty-ninth, which treats of the manner of composing laws, and at the same time to appreciate their effects; but we must follow the order adopted by our author: any one so disposed, would do well to new model both his work and ours, and form for himself a connected and complete system of principles.
We have said at the opening of the sixth book, that notwithstanding the great and admirable views which it contains, we do not there meet with all the instruction we had a right to expect; we are obliged to say the same of this. Naturally it ought to comprehend an exposition and estimate of the principal institutions, most favorable or most adverse to the security of each citizen, and the free exercise of his natural, civil, and political rights. Now we do not meet with any of these topics. Montesquieu, according to custom, travels through all times and countries, and particularly through remote ages and countries not well known, in a multitude of small unconnected chapters. It is true, that he generally draws very exact inferences from all the facts he produces, but there was no necessity for so much enquiry or such a display of learning, to inform us…. that the accusations for exercising magic were absurd…. that errors purely religious should be corrected by means purely religious…. or that in monarchies the law against high treason has been often abused even to barbarity, and so far as to become ridiculous…. that it is tyrannical to punish for satirical writings, or indiscreet words…. that judgments should not be sought by special commissions, nor by spies, nor by anonymous informers; all of which are odious, often atrocious: if he had been obliged to employ address, in daring to declare such truths, and if it was impossible for him to go beyond such a course, we should condole with him, but we should not stop there.
But even among all this, I meet with only one refection of real importance, which is, that it is very dangerous in a republic to multiply punishments on account of the crime of high treason, or treason against the nation, under pretence of avenging the republic; for then, says Montesquieu, the tyranny of vengeance will be established: it is those who are dominated over, and not the dominator, that will be punished or destroyed. The ordinary course of government should be pursued in such cases, as well as in all others, and the laws which protect all, operate equally against all who transgress them. These sentiments are admirable, they are derived from facts in Grecian history, and cannot be invalidated. The exile, or the return from exile, of proscribed citizens, are always attended with commotion and a change in the constitution; and the history of modern times is not deficient of examples which might be cited to corroborate it, if it were necessary.
But accompanying these wise considerations, there is one principle admitted that is very dangerous, and contrary to the formal advice of Cicero; which is, that there are occasions which may authorise a law to be made against a single man; and that there are cases
when a veil should for a moment be cast over liberty, as the statues of the Gods are sometimes concealed. To what lengths has the prepossession for the government of England conducted this great man.
Whatever political liberty may be, for our author has not thought proper to penetrate further into the subject, we shall confine ourselves here to repeating that it cannot subsist without individual liberty and that of the press; and that for the preservation of this last, all arbitrary seizure and detention should be proscribed, and the use of trial by jury adopted, at least in criminal cases: referring the reader to what we have said on these subjects in the preceding books, particularly in the fourth, sixth, and eleventh, where we have shewn why these principles are favored or opposed by the nature and spirit of each kind of government.