Origins of the Three Branches of Government in the US Constitution

A friend asked me to review the antecedents of the three branches of government in the US constitution.  This was not a new idea at the time of the founding.  In general, the best book to read to understand what the founders were thinking is the Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay.  It is evident in reviewing the Federalist Papers that the founders were students of the Enlightenment and in particular the ideas of Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, who in 1748 finished one of the greatest works of political science, Spirit of Laws.  But Montesquieu was not the only important political scientist who informed the founders.  Aristotle, who wrote in the fourth century BC and whom the Englightenment famously rejected was still read.  It is important to understand that the education of that period and through the 19th century was religious in nature and emphasized the classics in the original Greek and Latin.  In political science and ethics students read Aristotle as part of the curriculum.  The founders were mostly knowledgable in Latin and Greek, and were certainly familiar with Aristotle's Politics.

Aristotle was one of the most important advocates of freedom in the history of ideas.  Unlike some of his Athenian contemporaries, he was not an abolitionist.  However, he responds thoroughly to the communist ideas of his professor, Plato.  He makes clear that it is fundamental to a state to have plurality and openness of exchange, and that excessive unity is deleterious.  He begins Book IV, Chapter 13 of his Politics as follows:

"Having thus gained an appropriate basis of discussion we will proceed to speak of the points which follow next in order...All constitutions have three elements, concerning which the good lawgiver has to regard what is expedient for each constitution.  When they are well-ordered, the constitution is well-ordered, and as they differ from one another, constitutions differ. There is (1) one element which deliberates about public affairs; secondly (2) that concerned with the magistracies--the questions being, what they should be over what they should exercise authority, and what should be the mode of electing to them; and thirdy (3) that which has judicial power."

Aristotle there refers to the three branches of government that correspond to the US Constitution, the deliberative or legislative; the magistracy or executive; and the judicial.  Aristotle was not unkind to democracy, but he saw it as flawed unless it contained elements of aristocracy, by which he meant selection of the most virtuous to rule. This could be done using republican methods. 

Montesquieu relies on Aristotle's framework in writing his monumental Spirit of Laws. The scope and scholarship of Montesquieu's book is still awe inspiring today. In Book XI Section 6 Montesquieu discusses the Constitution of England. England at that time was the freest country, and he admired it greatly.  He writes:

"In every government there are three sorts of power: the legislative; the executive in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive in regard to matters that depend on the civil law.  By virtue of the first, the prince or magistrate enacts temporary or perpetual laws, and amends or abrogates those that have been already enacted.  By the second, he makes peace or war, sends or receives embassies, establishes the public security, and provides against invasions.  By the third, he punishes criminals or determines the disputes that arise between individuals..."

In the Federalist Papers, which Hamilton and Madison published in several newspapers to drum up public support for the Consitution, Montesquieu is referred to numerous times. In general, the founding fathers were students of the Enlightenment and applied their understanding of Montesquieu, Locke, Hobbes, Smith and other Enlightenment thinkers to their conceptualization of the Constitution. 

The United States had been founded by religious sects fleeing persecution in Europe.  At least several of the original 13 colonies were founded by religious groups.  New York was not (it was founded by a commercial enterprise, the Dutch West India Company), nor was Virginia.  The founders differed considerably as to their religious orientations.  All were trained religiously, for education in those days was a religious enterprise.  However, not all were religious. George Washington was an observant church goer.  Benjamin Franklin was an atheist. Jefferson and Adams were Deists, which is not quite being a full Christian.  Jefferson re-wrote the Bible, taking out all of the miracles.  The Jefferson Bible is available to read.  Jefferson was an enlightenment rationlist. Deism is something like Unitarianism. On his grave Jefferson had three achievements listed:  (1) author of the Declaration of Indepdence; (2) author of the Virginia Statute of Religious freedom and (3) founder of the University of Virginia.  He did not list President or Governor of Virginia.  The Virginia Statute on Religious freedom concludes:

"Be it enacted by General Assembly that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities. And though we well know that this Assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of Legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare that the rights hereby asserted, are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right."

Americans Fed Up

Phil Orenstein of Democracy Project has blogged about Glenn Beck's new protest group. Phil writes:

>"When I stood up to speak, introducing myself as a Republican and promoting certain candidates for public office as potential standard bearers for disenfranchised American patriots like us, I could sense the overall disdain for politicians and political parties. I got the idea that they have no use for the Republican, Conservative or Libertarian parties or the corresponding labels that define their alleged principles. They see their elected officials and party leaders mostly as petty, self serving, unprincipled charlatans, except perhaps for Rep. Peter King. Nothing I said regarding translating their anger into action at the polls in November, made any sense to them."

The disenfranchisement of many Americans stems from the excessive size of the Amnerican federal republic. When the nation was founded it had 3 million people and the states had an average of 231,000 people each. In 1995 and 1996 231,000 foreign immigrants came to New York City alone. 231,000 is the population of Plano, Texas. Los Angeles and Chicago alone have populations of about 3 million.

The nation has become too large to govern. The problem is aggravated by the conflicting commitments to democracy and to the welfare state. Both are incompatible with ever-increasing size. Service delivery must respond to local needs so that nationalized programs like Social Security are too inflexible. Democracy requires that voters have some input into electoral processes. But the small effect of a single vote in a nation with 50 states and an average population of six million per state means that voters have no reason to believe that their voice counts. Size stifles voice. Thus, voting rates tend to be low and voting is dominated by people with something to gain from advocacy of state wealth transfers. American government therefore discourages creativity and progress by taxing production. The federal government has become a cancer on the promise of American life to provide increasing improvement in technology and standards of living. For the past 36 years, since 1971, real hourly wages have declined as government spending has mushroomed.

The problem is compounded by practical limits on the size of Congress. In a state with 231,000 people, each Senator could represent 115,000 people. In a state with six million people, each Senator reprsents three million. Each Senator today has the same representation ratio that the president had in 1790. The first House of Representatives had 59-64 members. That is one Congressman for every 48,000 citizens. The 110th Congress had 434 members. That is one Congressman for every 691,000 citizens. The ratio has increased fourteen fold.

The Federalists based much of their thinking on Montesquieu, who argued that democracy was possible only in a small republic. Madison argued otherwise in the Federalist Number 10, that the potential magnitude of the United States would support democracy because factions or special interests would counteract each other.

The Montesquieu effect is that an individual's voice has greater effect the smaller the republic becomes. The likelihood of political action increases with decreasing size because action has efficacy. Personal reputation, public respect, and economic gain are more likely to be achieved. However, crowd emotion threatens democracy. In larger republics, such as the United States in 1790, interest groups form and counteract each other. The nation is still small enough that individuals can influence interest groups. Large size makes communication and transportation difficult. There is less responsiveness due to the larger size than in the smaller democracy. But the large size has the advantage of permitting dissidents to exit and encourages more reasoned discussion by interests. The Madison effect outweighed the Montesquieu effect in 1790 because interest groups can correspond to a legitimate range of public needs.

However, there is no reason to believe that this will be so indefinitely, that size can increase infinitely and the Madison effect will continue to outweigh the Montesquieu effect. It is quite likely that the Montesquieu effect will begin to outweigh the Madison effect when interest groups are too large to motivate individuals to participate or skewness in benefits from organization become marked.

Mancur Olson has outlined this process. When the benefits from organization outweigh the organizational costs to each individual, then organization is likely. Small groups with large benefits tend to be better at organizing. They contribute to politicians and have the most access. Politics increasingly becomes a matter of economic opportunism. Specific financial arrangements that depend on special interest organization, for example the monetary creation powers of the Federal Reserve Bank, governmental privileges of health care providers, laws protecting trial attorneys and the like delineate the contours of power. General public concerns become mired in cross conflict because reward structures are unclear. Interests such as Wall Street arrange $2.5 trillion subsidies while defense, government operations, education, and other governmental responsibilities are botched or co opted by specific interests. Thus, there is a tipping point where the Montesquieu effect outweighs the Madison effect. This began to occur a century or so ago. In 1884 the Mugwumps were still willing to organize a national outcry against supposed corruption of a presidential candidate, James G. Blaine. In 2008, corruption by congressmen occurs with impunity.

There are other factors that modify size effects, specifically the development of technology. It would seem that centralized media changed the Montesquieu effect. This may be why as America grew to large population in the 19th century the republic was able to function. Yellow journalism bound the nation together. This was reinforced by radio, then television. Centralized media made the nation smaller so that its large scale was less of an impediment. The effect of the corrupting influence from centralized economic actors, railroads and other large corporations, led to a Madisonian response: reforms proposed by the Mugwumps, the Progressives and the Roosevelt New Deal. But such reforms were ineffective. They assumed away the scale and rationality problems that confront large organizations. This was because the idea of cognitive limits on management was unknown. The Progressives, moreover, chiefly focused on state reform. By the 1930s, naivete about the management possibilities of large scale had escalated even business enterprise had arrived at decentralizing responses to limits on the ability to manage large organizations. The Roosevelt New Dealers claimed that they could surmount scale impediments to competent management that had stymied America's best managers.

The centralizing trend of the federal government continued unabated. There are numerous reasons why this trend would result in destructive, suboptimal outcomes. The interest group problem becomes exacerbated. Competent execution of programs is difficult. One program after the other has either failed to be discarded; has failed to respond to public needs; has responded instead to particular needs of special interests; and/or has been mismanaged.

Rationality and Decentralization in Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws

In his famous article "The Nature of the Firm", Ronald Coase claimed that firms exist because they are cost minimizing. It is cheaper to coordinate a set of economic processes using methods available to business concerns than on the market. Coase thus suggests that marginal costs of organization will tend to be equated to the returns from organization. In general, the larger the firm the greater the costs of organization. Transactions involved in maintaining complex or large organizations are more costly than transactions involved in maintaining smaller ones. Firms grow to an optimal size given the costs and benefits to scale. Economies of scale refer to declining unit costs because of increasing sized firms' increasing ability to spread overhead over a large number of units. But increasing organization costs, also due to increasing size, may outweigh the costs per unit.

Anticipating Coase by more than two centuries and relying on comparative historical analysis, Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montestquieu, makes a parallel claim about the benefits of scale in the design of republics. Montesquieu writes that the optimal size of republics is small, because large scale republics permit large fortunes, which in turn create immoderate demands by interest groups. The competition of special interests leads to an overemphasis on private concerns and an underemphasis on the public good:

"In an extensive republic the public good is sacrificed to a thousand private views; it is subordinate to exceptions, and depends on accidents. In a small one, the interest of the public is more obvious, better understood, and more within the reach of every citizen; abuses have less extent, and of course are less protected."*

Montesquieu gives as an example the Greek republics, which were small city states. Montesquieu also notes that there are advantages to great as opposed to petty states. Thus, he is arguing for a balance, or optimization, of benefits as opposed to costs. In Book IX Montesquieu notes that small republics may be destroyed by foreign invasions and large repulics are destroyed by "internal imperfections". But, argues Montesquieu "confederate republics" have the advantages of a republic together with the external force of a monarchical government. "Hence it proceeds that Holland, Germany and the Swiss cantons are considered in Europe as perpetual republics." The many states balance power. Insurrections in one state can be quelled by others. But confederacies must consist entirely of republics (this was integrated into the Constitution). I would add that confederacies permit intelligent management of information while permitting economies of scale with respect to defense and economic markets.

Of course, there are many other factors relevant to the nature of government. In writing about the geographical differences between Europe and Asia**, Montesquieu notes that geographical differences facilitate the "slavery" of Asia and identifies large scale with despotism:

"In Asia they have always had great empires; in Europe these could never subsist. Asia has larger plains; it is cut out into much more extensive divisions by mountains and seas; and as it lies more to the south, its springs are more easily dried up...Power in Asia ought, then, to be always despotic: for if their slavery was not severe they would make a division inconsistent with the nature of the country."

In the 1960s and 1970s, Mancur Olson and George Stigler argued that ease of organization of interest groups and the economic benefit per participant due to successful lobbying lead to success or failure of specific groups in economic competition. For a long time physicians formed a successful lobby because they shared common training, common values and attended conferences of the American Medical Association. Geographic advantages would certainly be among the kinds of advantages different interests might enjoy. Geography, argued Montesquieu in 1748, contributes to the nature of political organization, and large geographic scope is most consistent with despotism.

A school of historians, to include William Appleman Williams, Gabriel Kolko, Martin Sklar and James Weinstein, has identified Progressivism, which appeared following the advance of big business and the closing of the American frontier, as a pro-big business ideology; that Progressivism was the ideology of big business even though it was packaged as "liberal" and served to preempt socialism (and end laissez-faire capitalism). Montesquieu did not anticipate Progressivism, but he did anticipate that as nations grow in scope they are more likely to be dominated by economic special interests and that the domination is likely to be authoritarian in nature, which is the claim that Kolko-Williams school makes about Progressivism.

Montesequieu also anticipated the ideas of David Riesmann in his famous book The Lonely Crowd. In Book XIX Montesquieu discusses "Laws in relation to the principles which form the general spirit, the morals and customs of a nation".*** He notes that factors like climate, attitudes toward tyranny, religion, laws, morals and other factors influence "the spirit of mankind". He argues that nations ought to pass laws that fit their temperaments. In a puritanical nation with good character "no one ought to restrain their manners by laws, unless he would lay a constraint on their virtues." For instance, laws that reduce luxury or restrain women might cause the nation to "lose that peculiar taste which would be the source of the wealth of the nation, and that politeness which would render the country frequented by strangers." Thus, it is difficult to be rational with respect to law, and it is easiest to fit the temperament of the populace in designing law. Law should be avoided:

"Let them but leave us as we are, said a gentleman of a nation which had a very great resemblance to that we have been describing, and nature will repair whatever is amiss..our indiscretions joined to our good nature would make the laws which should constrain our sociability not at all proper for us."

If laws are necessary, they should build on existing patterns

One of the key attributes (Book XIX, section 8) is "effects of a sociable temper". This is analogous to Riesmann's other-directedness. Montesequieu writes:

"The more communicative a people are the more easily they change their habits, because each is in a greater degree a spectacle to the other, and the singularities of individuals are better observed. The climate which influences one nation to take pleasure in being communicative, makes it also delight in change, and that which makes it delight in change forms its taste.

"...the desire of pleasing others more than ourselves gives rise to fashions. This fashion is a subject of importance; by encouraging a trifling turn of mind, it continually increases the branches of its commerce."

Riesmann notes that the commercial centers are characterized by other-directedness while rural America is still inner- and tradition-directed. Likewise, David McClelland finds in his book Achieving Society that high achievers couple other-directedness with need for achievement. But McClelland was writing after America's greatest achievements were complete. The inner-directeds' achievements were in building a great nation, the other-directedness in consumption and mass communication. Other-directedness, as in Athens and likely Rome, are associated with decline after the inner-directeds have built their vision.

Montesquieu anticipated 20th century arguments such as Walter Lippmann's claim that the public is incapable of rational democratic decision; Mancur Olson's and George Stigler's claim that in a democracy special interest groups tend to organize along economic contours and extract rents from the public; and James March and Herbert Simon's claim that boundaries on rationality inhibit firms from thinking strategically or clearly.

Montesquieu notes the link between commerce and communication.++ It is likely that other-directedness is most advantageous where coordination is more important, i.e., in large firms and in interpersonally driven-tasks involving diplomacy or sales.

He adds:

"The effects of commerce is riches; the consequences of riches, luxury; and that of luxury the perfection of the arts. We find that the arts were carried to great perfection in the time of Semiramis; which is a sufficient indication that a considerable commerce

This is seen in his claim that the necessities of state and those of the taxpayers need to be balanced in assaying taxes, but that few politicians have "the wisdom and prudence" to limit tax levels.+ The wisdom required in a very large state is greater than the wisdom required in a small one. Much as Coase argued that there are limits to economies of scale, so Montesquieu argued, 220 years before Coase, that there are limits to the advantages of the scale of nations.

*Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws. New York Prometheus Books, 2002. Translation originally published in New York by the Colonial Press, 1900, p. 120.
**Ibid., Book XVII, section 6, p. 269.
***Ibid., p. 292
+Ibid., p. 207
++Ibid., p. 334.

Montesquieu on Infrastructure Improvement

"The public revenues are a portion that each subject gives of his property, in order to secure or enjoy the remainder.

"To fix these revenues in a proper manner, regard should be had both to the necessities of the state and to those of the subject. The real wants of the people ought never to give way to the imaginary wants of the state.

"Imaginary wants are those which flow from the passions and the weakness of the governors, from the vain conceit of some extraordinary project, from the inordinate desire of glory, and from a certain impotence of mind incapable of withstanding the impulse of fancy. Often have ministers of a restless disposition imagined that the want of their own mean and ignoble souls were those of the state.

"Nothing requires more wisdom and prudence that the regulation of that portion of which the subject is deprived, and that which he is suffered to retain.

"The public revenues should not be measured by the people's ability to give, but by what they ought to give; and if they are measured by their abilities to give, it should be considered what they are able to give for a constancy."

--Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Spirit of Laws, Book XIII, "Of the Relation Which the Levying of Taxes and the Greatness of the Public Revenues Bear to Liberty".

Where Montesquieu Was Wrong

Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws is remarkable. He outlines the basic principles of federalism: the three branches of government; the upper and lower house of the legislature; the independent judiciary. He discusses why federations of states work better than single states in establishing a republic. He contrasts the main forms of government: republics, monarchies, tyrannies and aristocracies with respect to the kinds of laws that are appropriate to each. Then, in a massive historical tour de force, he traces how various social, climatic, cultural, religious and other variables interacted with laws in a wide range of countries to make them effective or ineffective. He covers moral and religious law as well as monetary policy. The Spirit of Laws was written in the 1740s. The Founding Fathers relied on it heavily in writing the Federalist Papers and conceptualizing the Constitution and the earlier Articles of Confederation. Montesquieu is not the economist that Adam Smith was, but his political insight and the strength of his historical analysis, which spans ancient law and culture, to include law and culture of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Japanese and the Barbarians, including a fascinating analysis of the Law of Salique, which he quotes at length and the customs of the Franks, Lombards, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Burgundians and other Barbarian tribes in the times of Rome through Charlemagne are breathtaking. His expansive analysis of Rome could have constituted a book in itself. One of the things I found interesting is that as a Frenchman, Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu, Montesquieu still conceptualized himself as a Frank and a German. When he mentions his "ancestors" he is thinking of a German tribe, the Franks, not Roman or Gaul ancestry. Also, he mentions that German tribal law was still dominant in the time of Charlemagne.

Here is his discussion of Roman depreciation of the currency, which he argues began when Rome was still a Republic during the Punic War. He does not believe that republics can inflate secretly, or that inflation is impossible in the modern world without it being evident:

"In the changes made in the specie during the time of the republic, they proceeded by diminishing it: in its wants, the state intrusted the knowledge to the people, and did not pretend to deceive them. Under the emperors, they proceeded by way of alloy. These princes, reduced to despair even by their liberalities, found themselves obliged to degrade the specie; an indirect method which diminished the evil without seeming to touch it. They withheld a part of the gift and yet concealed the hand that did it; and without speaking of the diminution of the pay, or of the gratuity, it was found diminished.

"We even still see in cabinets a kind of medals which are called plated, and are only pieces of copper covered with a thin plate of silver. This money is mentioned in a fragment of the 77th book of Dio.

"Didius Julian first began to debase it. We find that the coin of Caracella had an alloy of more than half; that of Alexander Severus of two-thirds; the debasing still increased, till in the time of Gallienus nothing was to be seen but copper silvered over.

"It is evident that such violent proceedings could not take place in the current age; a prince might deceive himself but he could deceive nobody else. The exchange has taught the banker to draw a comparison between all the money in the world, and to establish its just value. The standard of money can no longer be a secret. Were the prince to begin to alloy his silver, everybody else would continue it, and do it for him...If, like the Roman Emperors he debased the silver without debasing the gold, the gold would suddenly disappear, and he would be reduced to his bad silver..."

I guess Montesquieu never heard of Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, and the Federal Reserve Bank!

Montesquieu on the Democrats

From Book VIII, section 2 of The Spirit of Laws:

"The people fall into this misfortune, when those in whom they confide, desirous of concealing their own corruption, endeavor to corrupt them. To disguise their own ambition, they speak to them only of the grandeur of the state; to conceal their own avarice, they incessantly flatter theirs.

"The corruption will increase among the corruptors, and likewise among those who are already corrupted. The people will divide the public money among themselves, and, having added the administration of affairs to their indolence, will be for blending their poverty with the amusements of luxury. But with their indolence and luxury, nothing but the public treasure will be able to satisfy their demands.

"We must not be surprised to see their suffrages given for money. It is impossible to make great largesses to the people without great extortion: and to compass this, the state must be subverted. The greater the advantages they seem to derive from their liberty, the nearer they approach towards the critical moment of losing it. Petty tyrants arise who have all the vices of a single tyrant. The small remains of liberty soon become insupportable; a single tyrant starts up, and the people are stripped of every thing, even of the profits of their corruption.

"Democracy has, therefore, two excesses to avoid--the spirit of inequality, which leads to aristocracy or monarchy, and the spirit of extreme equality, which leads to despotic power, as the latter is completed by conquest."

Montesquieu on the Constitution

Montesquieu published the Spirit of Laws in 1748 and died in 1755, 32 years before the United States Constitution was adopted. The Founding Fathers relied on Montesquieu in their thinking about federalism and the Federalist Papers quote Montesquieu as an authority. Moving the clock forward 120 years, one of the questions that the Progressives raised concerned the Constitution's value. For example, Charles Beard argued, likely accurately, that the participants in the Constitutional Convention were in part motivated by concern for their own economic welfare. The model that Herbert Croly and Walter Weyl offered was one of a powerful, rationally guided state that could address emerging social problems. The fly in the Progressive ointment is its claim that rationality is possible. The history of rationality offers mixed results. The history of monetary policy, the most fundamental of political policies, has been one of error and misstep. Education policy has been a standing joke for ten decades. Simple retirement programs like Social Security and regulation of private pensions have been full of error. The Progressives misunderstood the principle of rationality. Intelligence is not primarily derived through deductive logic, but rather is learned inductively. Pragmatic experimentation is far more useful than mathematical derivation of hypotheses from clear and distinct axioms.

The Constitution works, so it would be foolhardy to reject it or to be overly aggressive in modifying it. Judicial activism is a crap shoot, and judges are as guilty of the American vice of speculative risk-taking as are Wall Street executives and real estate developers.

Montesquieu (Book V, Section XV):

"After what has been said, one would imagine that human nature should perpetually rise up against despotism. But, notwithstanding the love of liberty, so natural to mankind, notwithstanding their innate detestation of force and violence, most nations are subject to this very government. This is easily accounted for. To form a moderate government, it is necessary to combine several powers; to regulate, temper and set them in motion; to give, as it were, ballast to one, in order to enable it to counterpoise the other. This is a masterpiece of legislation, rarely produced by hazard, and seldom attained by prudence. On the contrary, a despotic government offers itself, as it were, at first sight; it is uniform throughout; and as passions only are requisite to establish it, this is what every capacity may reach."

Montesquieu on the Culture War

In Book IV of The Spirit of Laws Montesquieu discusses how the laws of education ought to animate the principles of the chief political systems, republics, monarchies and tyrannies. He emphasizes virtue as the chief principle on which education in a republic needs to focus. He describes virtue as follows:

"This virtue may be defined as the love of the laws and of our country. As such love requires a constant preference of public to private interest, is is the source of all private virtues; for they are nothing more than this very preference itself.

"This love is peculiar to democracies. In these alone the government is intrusted to private citizens. Now, a government is like every thing else; to preserve it we must love it.

"Has it ever been known that kings were not fond of monarchy, or tht despotic princes hated arbitrary power?

"Everything, therefore, depends on establishing this love in a republic; and to inspire it ought to be the principal business of education: but the surest way of instilling it into children is for parents to set them an example...

"It is not the young people that are degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of maturer age are already sunk into corruption."

Montesquieu emphasizes the importance of familial inculcation of belief in democracy, republicanism and patriotism. Yet, the American higher education system advocates academic freedom and in turn uses the academic freedom to present a curriculum that is primarily "critical".

Would Montesquieu have believed that the benefits of today's universities are worth their costs? I think not. Universities exist in order to make the nation wealthier and more successful. But there is no evidence that what occurs in universities contributes to technological knowlege in excess of universities' costs. It is likely that the subsidization of those who have contempt for freedom and republicanism harms the nation in a variety of ways--politically as well as economically.