Through a quick google, this is best summary I could find.
https://leftishruminating.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/does-size-matter-montesquieu-and-the-american-republic/
Here's Monte's words explaining (from
here)
There are three species of government; republican, monarchical, and despotic. In order to discover their nature, it is sufficient to recollect the common notion, which supposes three definitions, or rather three facts: “That a republican government is that in which the body or only a part of the people is possessed of the supreme power: monarchy, that in which a single person governs by fixed and established laws: a despotic government, that in which a single person directs every thing by his own will and caprice.”
and
The more extensive the empire, the larger the seraglio; and consequently the more voluptuous the prince. Hence the more nations such a sovereign has to rule, the less he attends to the cares of government; the more important his affairs, the less he makes them the subject of his deliberations.
and
Institutions of this kind {that promote simple, free lives for citizens} may be proper in republics, because they have virtue for their principle: but, to excite men to honour, in monarchies, or to imprint fear, in despotic governments, less pains are necessary.
Besides, they cannot take place but in a small state, in which there is a possibility of a general education, and of training up the body of the people like a single family.
The laws of Minos, of Lycurgus, and of Plato, suppose a particular attention and care which the citizens ought to have over one another’s conduct. But an attention of this kind cannot be expected in the confusion and multitude of affairs in which a large nation is intangled.
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