Translator’s note: Although Montesquieu was often known later on for espousing the view that republics need to be small in order to survive, [1] he made an exception, which was less frequently noticed by contemporaries, for federal republics. Jaucourt, who had lived in the United Provinces for a while, offers here a brief article that draws on and highlights Montesquieu’s arguments, arguments that would be of great interest to the American Founders some years later.

Federal Republic, form of government → by which several political bodies consent to become citizens of a larger state that they wish to form. It is a society of societies that make a new one, which can be enlarged by new associates that unite with it. [2]

If a republic is small, it can be destroyed by a foreign force; if it is large, it is destroyed by an internal defect. This dual drawback taints democracies and aristocracies equally, whether they are good or bad. The problem is in the thing itself; there is no form that can remedy it. Thus, it is very likely that men would ultimately have been obliged to live forever under the government → of one alone if they had not devised a kind of constitution and of association that has all the internal advantages of republican ← government → and the external strength of monarchy.

Such associations made Greece flourish for so long. By using them, the Romans attacked the world, and by their use alone the world defended itself against them. And when Rome had reached the height of its grandeur, the barbarians were able to resist her by associations made beyond the Danube and the Rhine, associations created by fright. Because of them, Holland, Germany, and the Swiss leagues are regarded in Europe as eternal republics .

Associations of towns were more necessary in the past than they are today; a city without power risked greater perils. Conquest made it lose not only executive and legislative power, as today, but also everything men have a stake in—civil liberty, possessions, wives, children, temples, and even tombs.

Able to resist external force, this sort of republic can maintain itself at its present size without internal corruption; the form of this association provides against every drawback. Whoever might want to be a usurper could scarcely enjoy equal credibility in all the confederated states. If he became too strong in one state, he would alarm all the others. If he subjugated a part, the still-free part could resist him with forces independent of those he had usurped, and overwhelm him before he had managed to establish himself.

If sedition occurs in one of the members of the confederation, the others can pacify it. If abuses are introduced somewhere, they are corrected by the healthy parts. This state can perish in one place without perishing in another; the confederation can be dissolved and the confederates can remain sovereign. Composed of small republics , it enjoys the goodness of the internal ← government → of each one; as for the exterior, the force of association gives it all the advantages of large monarchies.

The federal republic of Germany is composed of free cities, and of small states subject to princes. [3] Experience shows that it is more imperfect than the federal republics of Holland and Switzerland. It lasts, however, because it has a leader; the magistrate of the union is in some sense the monarch.

All federal republics do not have the same laws in their constitutional form. [4] In the republic of Holland, for example, one province cannot form an alliance without the consent of the others. This law is very good, indeed necessary, in a federal republic . It is missing from the German constitution, where it would ward off the misfortunes that can come to all members from the imprudence, ambition, or avarice of one alone. A republic united by a political confederation has given itself entirely, and has nothing more to give.

It is clearly impossible for states that associate to be of the same size and of equal power. The republic of the Lycians was an association of twenty-three towns. The large ones had three votes in the common council; the medium-sized ones, two; the small ones, one. The republic of Holland is composed of seven provinces, large and small, each having one vote. The cities of Lycia paid taxes in proportion to their votes. The provinces of Holland cannot follow this proportion; they must follow the proportion of their power.

In Lycia, the judges and magistrates of the cities were elected by the common council, and in the proportion we have stated. In the republic of Holland, they are not elected by the common council, and each city names its magistrates. If one had to propose a model of a fine federal republic , the republic of Lycia would merit this honor.

When all is said and done, concord is the great support of federal republics . It is also the motto of the confederated United Provinces: concordiâ res parvae crescunt, discordiâ dilabuntur . [5]

History records that an envoy from Byzantium came in the name of his republic to exhort the Athenians to join a federal alliance against Philip, king of Macedon. That envoy, whose height was very similar to that of a dwarf, mounted the tribune to explain his official business. At the first sight of him, the people of Athens broke out laughing. Without being disconcerted, the Byzantine told them: “You have much to laugh at, gentlemen; I actually have a wife quite a bit shorter than I am.” The laughter redoubled, and when it had stopped, the witty pygmy, who never lost sight of his subject, adapted to this episode and substituted for his prepared declamation the following simple words: “When a woman such as I depict, and myself such as you see me, do not run a good household, we cannot get along together in Byzantium, however large it is. But as soon as we are in harmony, we are happy; the tiniest shelter is enough for us. O Athenians (he continued), turn this example to your advantage! Beware lest Philip, who threatens you nearby, soon profiting from your discord and your unseasonable gaiety, subjugate you with his power and his guile and transport you to a country in which you will have no desire to laugh.” [6]

This apostrophe produced a marvelous effect. The Athenians withdrew among themselves, the proposals of the Byzantine minister were heeded, and the federal alliance was concluded. Spirit of the Laws .

1. Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws , 8.16.

2. This and the next five paragraphs are based on Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, 9.1.

3. This paragraph is based on Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, 9.2.

4. This paragraph and the next two are taken from Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, 9.3.

5. “Small things grow in harmony and vanish in discord.” The passage is based on Sallust, Jugurthine War , 10.6, where the latter phrase reads discordiâ maximae dilabuntur , “the greatest things vanish in discord.” It seems to have been an official motto for the state of Zeeland from the late sixteenth century and was used by the Dutch East Indies Company in the seventeenth.

6. The events occurred in the 340s b.c.e.; a less elaborate version of the anecdote can be found in Plutarch, “Precepts of Statecraft,” in Moralia , 804b.