Happy birthday, Montesquieu

It is the birthday of French political thinker Montesquieu (1689), whose work The Spirit of the Laws (1748) and other writings greatly influenced James Madison in writing the Constitution of the United States. Montesquieu defined three types of government: monarchies, republics, and despotisms. He also defined two types of governmental power: the sovereign and the administrative. In the administrative, he saw three branches, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial, none of which should hold more power than the other. His Persian Letters (1712) poked fun at French society in a series of imaginary letters to a Persian visitor to Paris. Montesquieu also wrote two novels, The Temple of Gnidos (1725) and Arsace and Isménie (1742).

William Blackstone influenced American law

It is the birthday of English barrister William Blackstone (1723), who is remembered for writing Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1769), a four-volume treatise on common law—the rights of people and things, and the difference between private wrongs and public wrongs. It was immensely popular in England, though not without detractors. Perhaps its greatest influence, however, was on the development of law in the American colonies and later in the fledgling United States. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers and the early formation of the Supreme Court were all affected by Blackstone's writing. Indeed, the Supreme Court, even in modern times, continues to quote from Blackstone.