The reasons on which Montesquieu grounds his maxim are a further
demonstration of his meaning. "When the legislative and executive powers
are united in the same person or body," says he, "there can be no
liberty, because apprehensions may arise lest THE SAME monarch or senate
should ENACT tyrannical laws to EXECUTE them in a tyrannical manner."
Again: "Were the power of judging joined with the legislative, the life
and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control, for
THE JUDGE would then be THE LEGISLATOR. Were it joined to the executive
power, THE JUDGE might behave with all the violence of AN OPPRESSOR."
Some of these reasons are more fully explained in other passages; but
briefly stated as they are here, they sufficiently establish the meaning
which we have put on this celebrated maxim of this celebrated author.
If we look into the constitutions of the several States, we find that,
notwithstanding the emphatical and, in some instances, the unqualified
terms in which this axiom has been laid down, there is not a single
instance in which the several departments of power have been kept
absolutely separate and distinct.
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