Age of Revolutions

Baron de Montesquieu believed that a separation of powers would

• prevent tyranny by acting as a check on power

• restore authority to the Roman Catholic Church

• increase corruption of political authority

• decrease the power of the middle class

The ideas of Enlightenment philosophers were based on

• efforts to achieve salvation

• faith in human reason

• traditional practices

• the inevitability of poverty

The idea that all people are born with the natural rights of life, liberty, and property is most directly associated with the writings of

• Baron de Montesquieu

• Thomas Hobbes

• Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

• John Locke

Locke and Rousseau, as writers during the Enlightenment, expanded the concept of

• total war

• self-sufficiency

• natural laws and rights

• divine right

“When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates [government officials], there can be no liberty; because apprehensions [fears] may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws to execute them in a tyrannical manner. . . .”— Baron de Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws

Which solution would Baron de Montesquieu offer to avoid the enactment of tyrannical laws?

• granting freedom of speech

• reinstating absolute monarchies

• separating the branches of government

• limiting natural laws

Speaker A: I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.

Speaker B: Government has no other end, but the preservation of property.

Speaker C: Man is born free, and everywhere he is in shackles.

Which historical period is best represented in the ideas expressed by these speakers?

• Enlightenment

• Counter Reformation

• Age of Exploration

• Early Middle Ages

A major concept promoted by philosophers of the Enlightenment was the need for

• a return to traditional medieval ideas

• the use of reason for rational and logical thinking

• overseas expansion by western European nations

• strengthening the power of the organized religions

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke both agreed that a government should be based on the

• separation of nationalities

• religious values of the people

• equal distribution of wealth

• consent of the governed

… Nor is there liberty if the power of judging is not separate from legislative power and from executive power. If it were joined to legislative power, the power over the life and liberty of the citizens would be arbitrary, for the judge would be the legislator. If it were joined to executive power, the judge could have the force of an oppressor.…

—Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws

In this passage, Montesquieu references:

• enlightened despotism

• a policy of mercantilism

• a separation of powers

• a social contract

… Nor is there liberty if the power of judging is not separate from legislative power and from executive power. If it were joined to legislative power, the power over the life and liberty of the citizens would be arbitrary, for the judge would be the legislator. If it were joined to executive power, the judge could have the force of an oppressor.…

—Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws

One historical development that resulted from (was an effect of) the ideas expressed here was the

• End of Time

• French Revolution

• Glorious Revolution

• Cultural Revolution