Montesquieu in Philadelphia: Enlightenment Ideas and the American Founding

The leaders of the American Revolution and the authors of the US Constitution were steeped in Enlightenment writing. Pamphlets like Thomas Paine's Common Sense (January 1776) used plain language to argue for independence and republican government. When the Constitution was drafted in 1787, its separation of powers into legislative, executive and judicial branches, with checks and balances, drew heavily on Montesquieu, whom James Madison in Federalist No. 47 (1788) called 'the oracle who is always consulted'.

A 1984 study by political scientist Donald Lutz found that Montesquieu was the most frequently cited secular thinker in American political writings from 1760 to 1805, ahead of Blackstone and Locke, though the Bible was cited more often than any of them. The founders also drew on English common law, classical republicanism and Protestant traditions. Historians thus debate how much the founding was specifically 'Enlightenment' and how much it blended several intellectual traditions.