Federalism, Bicameralism (House / Senate) & The Iroquois Confederacy.
Iroquois Confederacy & the US Constitution
Part of the discussion at the Constitutional Convention focused on
basic governmental structures. The Declaration of Independence
rejected the
experience of unitary (highly centralized)
government under a king. The Articles of Confederation promoted a
confederation of the states (decentralized power with a weak central
government–committee style). As previously discussed, this was not as
successful as the delegates hoped. Would a third option deliver
positive results?
A federal system (strong central government balanced with strong
independent states)
could be the answer.
The real key to the American federal system is a balance of
horizontal and
( vertical separation of power. )
The federal design divides powers between multiple vertical layers or levels of government—national, state, county, parish, local, special district–allowing for multiple access points for citizens. The governments at each level check and balance one another. As an institutional design, federalism both safeguards state interests and creates a strong union led by a capable central government.
At each level of the US federal structure, power is
further divided horizontally
by branches;
legislative, executive, judicial.
American federalism seeks to balance decentralization and centralization forces. We see decentralization when we cross state lines and encounter different taxation levels, welfare eligibility requirements, and voting regulations. Centralization is apparent with the federal government’s unique authority to print money or to offer money grants and mandates to shape state actions. State border crossings may greet us with colorful billboards, but behind them lies a complex federal design that has structured relationships between states and the national government since the late 1700s.
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-austincc-usgovernment/chapter/introduction-3/
More here
https://immortalista.blogspot.com/2022/08/iroquois-confederacy-us-constitution.html
Iroquois Confederacy and the Great Law of Peace vs United States Constitution
More on the Iroquois Confederacy & US Constitution
https://immortalista.blogspot.com/2022/08/iroquois-confederacy-us-constitution.html
158 Constitutions
Aristotle's Theory - The One, The Few & The Many
In Book 3, [of Politics], Aristotle establishes a famous classification of
(
the few, and the
many.
Good Types: Monarchy - Aristocracy - Polity (the people)
Corrupt Types: Tyranny - Oligarchy - Democracy (mob rule)
Good government rules in the common interest
while corrupt
government rules in the interest
of those who rule.
Tyranny, Democracy, Polity: Aristotle’s Politics
https://fs.blog/aristotles-politics/
Classical Influence in American Government
https://seventhcoalition.org/2016/09/30/classical-western-influence-in-american-government/
Mixed Government - or mixed constitution - a form of government that;
-
Combines Elements of; -democracy, -aristocracy and -monarchy -
Making Impossible;
their respective degenerations - which
are conceived as -anarchy, -oligarchy and -tyranny.
The idea was popularized during classical antiquity in order to describe the stability, the innovation and the success of the republic as a form of government developed under the Roman constitution.
Unlike classical democracy, aristocracy or monarchy, under a mixed government - rulers are elected by citizens - rather than acquiring their positions by inheritance or sortition (at the Greco-Roman time, [sortition or lottery] was conventionally regarded as the principal characteristic of classical democracy).
The concept of a mixed government was studied during the Renaissance and the Age of Reason by Niccolò Machiavelli, Giambattista Vico, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Hobbes and others. It was and still is a very important theory among supporters of republicanism. Various schools have described modern polities, such as the European Union and the United States, as possessing mixed constitutions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_government
POLYBIUS AND THE ORIGINS OF THE
SEPARATION OF POWERS - https://www.libertarianism.org/
The origin of the idea that liberty could be preserved through the separation of powers endures through the arguments of Polybius.
Any American high schooler can tell you that the separation of powers is one of the defining features of American government. The division of political power into the legislative, executive, and judicial branches is a well-known practice in many Western countries. But where did this idea originate? This idea did not derive wholly from Enlightenment or modern thinkers. On the contrary, the division of powers was first proposed by Polybius, a Greek thinker of the second century BC.
ANACYCLOSIS: THE CYCLES OF GOVERNMENT
Polybius stated emphatically “that all existing things are subject to decay and change is a truth that scarcely needs proof; for the course of nature is sufficient to force this conviction on us.” According to Polybius, this maxim of nature can also be applied to political orders. This was not a new idea in Greek political thought. Aristotle believed in a cyclical theory of government in which each order begins pure but rapidly decays to its corrupted form. Polybius, like his fellow‐Greek predecessors, believed in a cycle of governments. For the Greeks, governments came in three varieties: monarchy (rule by one), aristocracy (rule by the few) and democracy (rule by many). These forms of government were distinguished as far back as Herodotus, writing in the fifth century BC.
Polybius believed that, like other animals, humans naturally formed a herd for the purpose of mutual protection. Given the nature of herds, “it is a necessary consequence that the man who excels in bodily strength and in courage will lead and rule over the rest.” Therefore the cycle of political orders–anacyclosis–began with monarchy, the rule of one.
THE GREEK SOLUTION TO THE CYCLE
Each system of government has its own virtues, but each has an inherent vice. Using the analogy a ship, borrowed from Plato, Polybius explains that iron can rust, wood has its worms, and timber is subject to pests. 17 Similarly, “each constitution has a vice engendered in it and inseparable from it.” 18 This theory of decaying cyclical affairs was common amongst Greek thinkers. 19 Aristotle proposed that the solution was to unite and blend the political orders together. 20 By having a mixture of all of the orders, the vices inherent in each are nullified. Aristotle and Plato aimed to eliminate disagreement and conflict while promoting harmony and unanimity. The idea that a mixed constitution would yield a peaceful society was an idea that dominated political thought in the ancient Greek world. 21 Polybius, however, departed from this consensus drastically.
POLYBIUS’S SOLUTION
For Polybius, the function of politics is not to create unanimity, but rather to preserve liberty through stability. This idea is evident in his praise of the Spartan constitution, where Polybius notes that Sparta enjoyed a “lasting heritage of freedom.” 22 Polybius asserted that anacyclosis, with its constant gravitation towards despotism, is detrimental to liberty. Thus it is necessary that the cycle be halted and stability maintained.
How did the Romans preserve their liberty? One might argue that the Romans were made great by their leaders who displayed great personal and civic virtue. There are many examples throughout Roman history of selflessly dedicated and brave leaders, such as Cincinnatus, who gave up absolute power for a simple agrarian life. 23 However, this was not the reason that Rome succeeded. Polybius did not believe that virtue alone was enough to engender a stable and free society. 24 He disregards Athens, rejecting it as an unhelpful model to follow precisely because its moments of greatness were achieved by great men. 25 Shortly after these great men perished or were ousted, Athens, according to Polybius, collapsed back into mediocrity, confusion and destitution. 26
Another issue for Polybius was that human nature is not particularly malleable. Political theory has to adapt to human nature, not vice versa. 27 Rather than hoping blindly for virtuous leadership which was not guaranteed, Polybius firmly believed in reliance upon good rules and institutions to preserve an orderly liberty.
If humans are, as Polybius theorized, self‐interested animals driven by both fear and sympathy, the solution must be to institutionalize fear in order to promote sympathy. Instead of attempting to eliminate social conflict altogether, Polybius proposed that humans should aim to make conflict productive and useful. Fear can be institutionalized and conflict can be made productive by the combination of the three simple forms of government, i.e. monarchy, aristocracy and democracy.
In another radical move for his time, Polybius rejected the solution of a mixed constitution. Polybius never uses the word “mixed.” Instead, he uses the words “composition,” “arrangement,” “balance” and “equilibrium.” Polybius’s ideal political order is not mixed like the ingredients in a cake are mixed into a single homogenous entity. On the contrary; each piece is separate and distinct and has a different role. 28 This concept of the separation of power is the key to the success of Rome, which Polybius describes as having dominion over almost the entire world. 29
INNOVATION IN THE ROMAN GOVERNMENT
Polybius identifies and discusses three institutions of the Roman government: the Consuls, the Senate, and the Popular Assemblies. Each embodied one of the three orders of government.
Monarchy was represented by the two Consuls. The Consuls had the power to command armies and presided over the Senate and the Popular Assembly. The Senate filled the role of the aristocracy. This was an advisory council of ex‐magistrates who were members for life. In theory, the Senate was merely an advisory body, but in practice, its authority extended to a variety of public policy issues. Domestically, the Senate presided over courts, had power over tax revenue, and provided the main arena for political debate. On matters of foreign policy, the Senate was responsible for declaring war and negotiating with foreign ambassadors. Finally, democracy was represented by the Popular Assembly, which had the sole power to pass legislation, elect magistrates, and even ratify or reject foreign policy treaties.
Unlike his predecessors, including Plato and Aristotle, Polybius did not aim to establish harmony and unanimity. Rather than eliminate conflict entirely, he wished instead to make it useful. 30 By molding politics around human nature, Polybius’s account of the Roman constitution demonstrates how conflict, since it cannot be avoided, should instead be utilized in the most productive manner possible for the common good.
According to Polybius’s account of human nature, we are fundamentally self‐interested beings who aim to increase our power. However, we are also responsive to fear. Each part of the government has a separate and distinct function. Given the separate nature of each facet of the government’s jurisdiction, each part will naturally fear the encroachment of the others beyond their proper limits. This fear generated a surprisingly beneficial type of conflict. Each of Polybius’s institutions would compete against the others in order to protect its own realm of authority. Their mutual fear of losing their respective powers would thereby produce the stability Polybius valued.
The Roman constitution also made it difficult for one particular group or individual to seize power. Each part of the government controlled a different area of life and each was interdependent on the others, so none could wholly dominate. In spreading power out and giving each office a particular function, the Romans instituted checks and balances that guaranteed an orderly liberty by preventing government overreach and decentralizing power.
POLYBIUS AFTER ROME
Polybius’s work was widely referenced and employed by a variety of thinkers throughout history, including the Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero, the Renaissance writer Nicólo Machiavelli, and, most importantly, Charles‐Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède–better known as Montesquieu. In his seminal work On The Spirit of Laws, Montesquieu drew heavily from Polybius’s analysis in book six of The Histories.
On the Spirit of Laws was constantly cited by the Founders, who were aware of Montesquieu’s debt to Polybius. The Founders could hardly ignore the ancient influence on Montesquieu’s thought as they were fully immersed in a culture of Classicism. From a young age, males were educated in a curriculum filled to the brim with classical authors including Homer, Virgil, Horace, Plutarch, Cicero, Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus, to name just a small sample. 31 As Noah Webster put it, “the minds of the youth are perpetually led to the history of Greece and Rome.” 32
A knowledge of classical authors was possessed by every educated male in the Early American Republic. The idealized image of Republican Rome was constantly evoked as a model to follow by the Founders, who agreed with Polybius’s premise that the key to Rome’s triumph was its masterful implementation of the separation of powers.
In John Adams’s A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, he cites Polybius numerous times and even dedicates an entire chapter to his theories. Praising the Roman constitution’s separation of powers, Adams writes:
The Roman constitution formed the noblest people and the greatest power that has ever existed. But if all the powers of the consuls, senate, and people had centered in a single assembly of the people, collectively or representatively, will any man pretend to believe that they would have been long free, or ever great? 33
James Madison, discussing the separation of powers, stated that “no political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value.” 34 In Federalist 63, Madison cites Polybius, and he dedicates Federalist 47 entirely to the separation of powers. The influence of Polybius can be keenly felt when Madison writes: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands whether of one, a few or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” 35
Polybius’s account of the Roman Republican constitution was a widely appreciated work, gaining praise from thinkers including as Machiavelli, James Harrington, Algernon Sidney, Montesquieu, John Adams, and James Madison. Polybius demonstrated that virtue alone was not enough to preserve liberty. An orderly set of rules that distribute and limit power is essential for a free republic to endure the test of time.
https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/polybius-origins-separation-powers
Mixed Government
Polybius popularized the idea of combined governance, arguing that the Roman Republic was a manifestation of Aristotle’s notion of presidency as a complete (Millar, 2002). The consuls represented the monarchy, the Senate represented the the Aristocracy, and the elections and enormous public gatherings of the meeting represented democracy, respectively. Consequently, every establishment enhances and likewise balances the others, so guaranteeing stability and prosperity, in accordance with the premise. Cicero admired Polybius and his concepts, and he included them into his personal work (Millar, 2002).
Center Ages (also called the Center Ages of Europe)
In his letter On Kingship, St. Thomas Aquinas maintained that a monarchy, with some constraints imposed by an aristocracy and democratic points, was the best and most simply type of authorities, and that it was probably the most simple of all. He additionally highlighted the monarch’s duty to keep up divine and pure legislation, in addition to the monarch’s obligation to abide by the constraints imposed on him by customized and present legislation.
The Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment had been all intervals of historical past through which individuals sought to enhance their lives.
Through the Renaissance, Cicero’s fame grew tremendously, and plenty of of his concepts had been accepted and applied. Moreover, Polybius was rediscoveried, and the constructive perspective of combined governments emerged as a significant a part of Renaissance political science that was built-in into the rising notion of republicanism. With a purpose to scale back the potential of political authority being abused, John Calvin proposed a mixture of aristocracy and democracy as the simplest sort of governance. Amongst his praises for democracy had been the next: “It’s a priceless present if God permits individuals to elect their overlords and magistrates,” he stated. The dispersion of authority amongst numerous political establishments was additionally supported by Calvin as a method of defending the rights and liberties of ... women and men (separation of powers). In relation to combined governance theories, they had been immensely in style throughout the Enlightenment and had been studied in depth by thinkers resembling Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Giambattista Vico, Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. Other than his contemporaries, solely Montesquieu gained widespread recognition because the originator of the notion of separation of powers within the 17th century (though he wrote relatively on their “distribution”).
Within the opinion of [some] researchers, resembling Heinrich August Winkler, the traditional concept had an affect on the writers of the USA Structure, who based the idea of checks and balances partly on the traditional concept of checks and balances.
For instance, the monarchy-democracy structure of the UK throughout the Victorian Period, which consisted of a Sovereign (monarchy), Home of Lords (aristocracy), and a Home of Commons (democracy), serves as a wonderful instance of a combined structure within the nineteenth century.
The origins of this political system could also be traced again to 2 carefully linked modifications that occurred in seventeenth-century England. After it, there was a collection of political upheavals, together with the Civil Battle (Puritan Revolution), the exclusion disaster of 1679–1681, and the Wonderful Revolution of 1688, amongst others. Second, there must be a vigorous public debate over the simplest, liberal, and steady type of authorities. John Milton, John Locke, Algernon Sidney, and James Harrington had been among the many most distinguished members. Their concepts turned the inspiration of the intense Whig ideology of the time. It is a truth “He distinguished between two varieties of threats to political liberty: a normal decay of the individuals, which might invite the invasion of evil and despotic rulers, and the encroachment of govt authority upon the legislature, which was the try that energy made regularly to subdue the freedom protected by a combined authorities. The American Revolution proved that this radical Whig idea of politics had been firmly ingrained within the minds of the individuals of the USA. […] Radical Whig political views gained appreciable acceptance in America as a result of they resurrected the historic worries of a Protestant tradition that has all the time teetered on the point of turning into too Puritanic. Those that emigrated from England to flee sin couldn’t have been shocked that ethical deterioration jeopardized their freedom of self-determination and authorities “….. … [7] 18th-century Whigs, or commonwealthmen, resembling John Trenchard, Thomas Gordon, and Benjamin Hoadly “praised the combined structure of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, they usually attributed English liberty to it; and, like Locke, they postulated a state of nature out of which rights arose, which the civil polity, created by mutual consent, assured; they argued that a contract fashioned authorities and that sovereignty Combination of governance is subsequently on the coronary heart of modern-era democracy in each the UK, which is ruled by constitutional monarchy, and the USA, which is ruled by republicanism.
“Father” of the American structure, James Madison, declared in Federalist Paper No. 40 that the Constitutional Conference of 1787 resulted in a “combined Structure.” In Federalist Paper No. 63, Madison made a reference to Polybius. [11] Nonetheless, it was rather more important as “most” of the ideas that the American Revolutionaries included into their political system “had been part of the grand custom of the eighteenth-century commonwealthmen, the intense Whig ideology,” in accordance with the authors.
United States of America within the fashionable age
One faculty of scholarship based mostly primarily in the USA believes that combined authorities is a very powerful attribute of a republic, and that the USA is ruled by the one (the President; monarchy), the few (the Senate; aristocracy), and the various (the individuals) on the similar time (Home of Representatives; democracy).
Based on one other faculty of pondering in the USA, over the previous few many years, the Supreme Courtroom has assumed the function of “The Finest,” sustaining a continued separation of powers by offsetting the direct election of senators and retaining the mix of democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy.
The European Union (EU)
The Fee President, in accordance with one viewpoint, represents the rule of legislation within the European Union setting, whereas the Fee represents the aristocratic dimension and the Parliament represents the democratic dimension.
https://www.studyproessay.com/2022/02/04/mixed-government/
Separation of Powers with Checks and Balances
http://billofrightsinstitute.org
“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judicia[l] in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self–appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny” (James Madison, Federalist No. 51, 1788).
James Madison theorized that as it is the Constitution that grants each branch its power, honorable ambition that ultimately serves the highest interests of the people could work to maintain the separation.
The Founding Fathers were well-acquainted with a long-held tenet of government: the accumulation of power by a single person or body of government is the greatest threat to liberty. In fact, a celebrated feature of the Constitution, the separation of powers doctrine, developed over the course of many centuries.
As early as 350 B.C., Greek philosopher Aristotle observed in the Politics that every government, no matter its form, performed three distinct functions: “the deliberative, the magisterial, and the judicative.” In modern terminology these activities correlate, respectively, to the legislative (law-making), executive (law-enforcing) and judicial (law interpretation) functions of government. While Aristotle identified these basic powers common to all governments, he did not necessarily suggest that they should be exercised by entirely different branches.
The principle that major governmental functions should be divided into different branches would be advanced centuries later. The French philosopher Baron de Montesquieu, “[t]he oracle…the celebrated Montesquieu,” as James Madison referred to him, advocated three distinct and separate branches in which the general powers of government should be lodged. While John Locke made the case for separating the legislative and executive powers, Montesquieu provided the Founders with a convincing defense for an independent judiciary:
“When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty… Again, there is no liberty, if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive. Were it 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 violence and oppression. There would be an end to everything, were the same man, or the same body, whether of the nobles or of the people, to exercise those three powers, that of enacting laws, that of executing the public resolutions, and of trying the causes of individuals” (Baron de Montesquieu, Spirit of Laws, 1748).
It was Montesquieu’s vision of a truly separated, tripartite system that the Founding Fathers would come to adopt at the Constitutional Convention. Article I, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution vests legislative powers in a Congress of the United States, itself separated into a House of Representatives and a Senate. Article II, Section 1 vests executive authority in a President of the United States. Article III, Section 1 vests judicial authority in a single Supreme Court of the United States and “in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.”
During the ratification debates from 1787 to 1788, some critics charged that upon close inspection the separation of powers in Articles I-III of the Constitution were not as complete as Montesquieu appeared to advocate and would tend toward an accumulation of power in one branch or another over time. The president, for example, has the power to accept or reject a bill duly passed by Congress, a seemingly legislative power. For its part, the Senate may approve or reject a presidential appointment to his own branch, a seemingly executive power.
The Constitution’s critics were right; the Framers did not propose a “pure” separation of powers. Madison retorted that a “pure” separation of powers was neither what Montesquieu intended nor practical:
“[Montesquieu] did not mean that these [branches] ought to have no partial agency in, or no control over, the acts of each other. His meaning…can amount to no more than this, that where the whole power of one [branch] is exercised by the hands that hold the whole power of another, the fundamental principles of a free constitution are subverted. [T]here is not a single instance in which the several [branches] of power have been kept absolutely separate and distinct” (James Madison, Federalist No. 47, 1788).
The French philosopher Baron de Montesquieu advocated three distinct and separate branches in which the general powers of government should be lodged.
Implicit in Madison’s argument was an interesting challenge to the very doctrine of separation of powers: what will prevent the accumulation of power in the absence of pure separation? The answer was to be found in a unique feature of the Constitution: the pairing of separated powers with an intricate system of checks and balances designed to give each branch fortifications against encroachments by the others. The “Madisonian Model,” as it is now generally called, gave genuine and practical life to both the observation of Aristotle and the vision of Montesquieu.
At the heart of the Madisonian Model is ambition. A desire for power, influence, and authority is embedded deeply in human nature. For many people, the very word “ambition” smacks of greed, corruption, or a win-at-all-cost mentality.
Madison saw it differently. Ambition, if properly harnessed by good judgment and rooted in an appreciation for the benefits of constitutional republicanism, could work to advance the public good. It could be beneficial not only to the effective separation of powers but to limited government and liberty itself. In Federalist No. 51, James Madison stated:
“The great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same [branch], consists in giving to those who administer each [branch], the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives, to resist encroachments of the others…Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place” (James Madison, Federalist No. 51, 1788).
In our system of separated powers, each branch of government is not only given a finite amount of power and authority but arrives at it through entirely different modes of election. Madison theorized that as it is the Constitution that grants each branch its power, honorable ambition that ultimately serves the highest interests of the people could work to maintain the separation. In other words, since Congress is not dependent on the presidency or the courts for either its authority or its election to office, members will jealously guard its power from encroachments by the other two branches and vice versa. For Madison, this organization of powers answered the great challenge of framing a limited government of separated powers: “first enabl[ing] the government to control the governed…and in the next place, obling[ing] it to control itself” (James Madison, Federalist No. 51, 1788).
What does Madison’s theory look like in practice? While it is the legislative branch that makes law, the president may check Congress by vetoing bills Congress has passed, preventing them from being enacted. In turn, Congress may enact a law over the president’s objection by overriding his veto with a vote of two-thirds of both the House and Senate. The Supreme Court can then check both branches by declaring a law unconstitutional (known as judicial review), but the Supreme Court itself is checked by virtue of the fact the president and Senate appoint and approve, respectively, members of the Court. Furthermore, both the president and federal judges are subject to impeachment by Congress for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” (United States Constitution: Article II, Section 4).
The President may check Congress by vetoing bills Congress has passed. Congress may override the president’s veto with a vote of two-thirds of both Houses. The Supreme Court can then check both branches by declaring a law unconstitutional.
By and large, Madison’s model remains constitutionally intact, but many people wonder if our system still balances power, in reality and in practice, to the extent that he envisioned. Our checks and balances system reflects an understanding about republican government, held by many Founders, that the legislative branch should be the superior branch and, therefore, most in need of restraint. They reasoned that this is the case because “We the People” govern ourselves through the laws we give ourselves through our elected representatives in the legislative branch.
“The legislative [branch] derives superiority… [i]ts constitutional powers [are] more extensive, and less susceptible to precise limits… [it] is not possible to give each [branch] an equal [number of checks on the other branches]” (James Madison, Federalist No. 48, 1788).
Some observers maintain that this conception of the legislative as the predominant branch is obsolete in modern times. The executive and judicial branches have expanded their powers beyond the Founders’ expectations over time (i.e. executive orders, the role of the Supreme Court as the arbiter of laws at every level, not just the federal level.) Is Madison’s assumption of legislative superiority true today? If you were asked to pick a branch to describe as “most powerful” would your answer mirror Madison’s?
Despite disagreement as to how well it has worked, one characteristic of the checks and balances system cannot be denied: it encourages constant tension and conflict between the branches. That conflict, however, is frequently beneficial, and our Constitution smiles upon it.
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/separation-of-powers-with-checks-and-balances
Polybius and the Founding Fathers: the separation of powers
1999 Donald E. Glover Award, outstanding final project
© Marshall Davies Lloyd
St. Margaret’s School
Sept. 22, 1998; Rev: 02/14/2016 21:00:13
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title
Dedication
Intro
Ch 1
Ch 2
Ch 3
Conclusion
Bibliography
DEDICATION
This paper is presented to Dr. Linda J. Piper, my beloved Ancient History Professor, on the occasion of her retirement from the Classics and History departments at the University of Georgia. Five years or so ago, she first introduced our class to the Greek historian Polybius and the wonders of anacyclosis...
INTRODUCTION
The separation of powers, the concept that the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government ought to be separate and distinct, is a central feature of the United States Constitution. Through this separation, each branch works according to its own authority, forming a check or balance against any abuse of power by the remaining two branches.1 James Madison, the Founding Father most often credited with including this feature in the constitution, declares, “no political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value” (Federalist Papers No. 47).
Most consider the French philosopher Charles Louis de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu the author of this system of checks and balances.2 The Founding Fathers repeatedly cite his work Spirit of the Laws as the authority on the issue.3 Madison himself proclaims, “the oracle who is always consulted and cited on this subject is the celebrated Montesquieu” (ibid.). Nevertheless, this paper proposes that--while Montesquieu may have presented the framers of the Constitution with the most modern incarnation of that principle--he borrows too heavily from Polybius and the ancient theory of the mixed constitution (mikth/) to be credited accurately as its originator.
The arguments for this position will be presented in three chapters. The first will trace the origins of the theory of mixed constitution to antiquity and especially Polybius’ Histories,4 while underscoring similarities between Polybius’ system and that of the American Constitution. Other sources will include Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, his pupil Dicaearchus of Messana, Diogenes Laertius, and Cicero.
The second chapter will explore the availability of the Histories to the Founding Fathers, addressing whether they were aware of Polybius’ teachings on the separation of powers. In particular, a survey of the works of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Otis, Adams, and Hamilton will serve as representative of what was available to the framers of the constitution generally. Note that while Jefferson was not present at the convention himself (he was representing the United States in Paris at the time), he was in correspondence with many who did attend and had presented them with books, material, and ideas from Europe.
The third chapter will focus on Montesquieu himself, exploring the extent to which his own work is based on that of Polybius and the classical tradition of the mixed constitution. Particular attention will be given to the fact that several of his recent predecessors had already touted the efficacy of separation of powers long before the publication of Montesquieu’s works. Key sources for this chapter will include Harrington, King Charles I of England, Locke, Bolingbroke, and Blackstone, as well as the criticism of several modern scholars who call into question the indispensability of Montesquieu in America’s adopting the separation of powers.
CHAPTER ONE
In order to discuss the concept of the mixed constitution in antiquity,5 it is important first to understand what is meant by a simple constitution. In Book VI of his Histories (6.4.6-11; cf. 6.3.5), the ancient Greek historian Polybius outlines three simple forms of constitution--each categorized according to the number of its ruling body: monarchy (rule by the one), aristocracy (rule by the few), and democracy (rule by the many).6 According to the historian, these three simple constitutions each degenerate, over time, into their respective corrupt forms (tyranny, oligarchy, and mob-rule) by a cycle of gradual decline which he calls anacyclosis or “political revolution” (6.9.10: politeiw=n a)naku/klwsij; 6.4.7-11; cf. 6.3.9). 7
For monarchy, he claims, inevitably degrades into tyranny. Tyranny is then replaced by aristocracy, which in turn degrades into oligarchy. Oligarchy then is overthrown by democracy, which ultimately falls into its own corresponding distortion, mob-rule (or ochlocracy). In Polybius’ analysis, the cycle then starts up again (monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy) since anarchy inevitably creates a void that some new demagogue will fill.8 'Anaku/klwsij, the sliding from one form of constitution into another, is unavoidable because of the inherent weakness of each simple form of constitution.9
The catalyst for the decay in each simple form, Polybius says (6.7.7), is hereditary succession--the automatic handing down of the privileges of a particular form of government to future generations without their ever having to internalize for themselves the discipline necessary to maintain those privileges.
Each of the three simple forms of constitution serves well enough at its inception, since founder kings arise out of their very excellence of character, aristocracies (by definition at least) form from the noblest of society, and democracies too embrace the highest ideals at the outset. The problem lies not with the initial impetus that forms these governments but with the fact that they each suffer entropy, or internal decay.
Polybius explains his theory in fuller detail, describing the mechanism by which hereditary succession weakens the state. When the crown is inherited generation upon generation, kings are no longer then chosen by excellence of leadership but by accident of birth. When monarchs are born to privilege, they no longer have any incentive to serve the state (since their privileges are no longer tied to their performance as leaders). They eventually expend their daily energies in merely fulfilling the desires of their own appetites. Having become arrogant and self-serving, the last in the line of tyrants is pushed aside by those who are close enough to the throne to notice his corruption, namely the members of the aristocracy (Polyb. 6.8.1).
They, in turn, serve the state well initially. After all, these were the nobles so offended by the king’s excesses that principle drove them to take action against him. Unfortunately, here again, when the grandchildren of these nobles inherit position, they are ill equipped to handle the power of rule (since they were born to privilege and identify less and less with the problems of the common man). The aristocracy then degrades proportionally by each generation into an oligarchy, just as the kings degenerated into tyrants (6.8.5). The oligarchs then are banished or killed by the people, who finally assume the responsibility of ruling themselves.
The people also govern well, at first. As long as there are any living who remember the days of oppression, they guard their liberties with a jealous vigor. Nevertheless, as future generations inherit the same privileges of democracy as their ancestors, yet without effort, they cease to cherish those benefits (6.9.5). Eventually individuals arise among them who, seeking pre-eminence, cater to the creature comforts of the masses, thereby hoping to win their favor. People sell cheap those liberties that have cost them nothing personally. Once the masses accept these demagogues, the cycle of tyranny begins again. This is the cycle Polybius calls a)naku/klwsij.
Polybius believes that Republican Rome has avoided this endless cycle by establishing a mixed constitution, a single state with elements of all three forms of government at once: monarchy (in the form of its elected executives, the consuls), aristocracy (as represented by the Senate), and democracy (in the form of the popular assemblies, such as the Comitia Centuriata).10 In a mixed constitution, each of the three branches of government checks the strengths and balances the weaknesses of the other two. Since absolute rule rests in no single body but rather is shared among the three, the corrupting influence of unchecked power is abated and stasis is achieved.11
Polybius is not alone in his praise of mixed government. Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, and Cicero all stress the supremacy of a mixed constitution and the need for separation of powers within the government.12
Plato (Laws 693e, cf. 756e) advises that a state balance both its monarchic and democratic elements, for “a State which does not partake of these can never be rightly constituted” (w(j ou)k aÃn pote tou/twn po/lij aÃmoiroj genome/nh politeuqh=nai du/nait' aÄn kalw=j). He also warns (Laws 691c) against placing too much power in the hands of a single body:
If one neglects the rule of due measure, and gives things too great in power to things too small—sails to ships, food to bodies, offices of rule to souls—then everything is upset, and they run through excess of insolence, some to bodily disorders, others to that offspring of insolence, injustice.
)Ea/n tij mei/zona did%= toi=j e)la/ttosi du/namin parei\j to\ me/trion, ploi/oj te i(sti/a kai\ sw/masi trofh\n kai\ yuxai=j a)rxa/j, a)natre/petai/ pou pa/nta kai\ e)cubri/zonta ta\ me\n ei)j no/souj qei=, ta\ d )ei)j eãkgonon uàbrewj a)diki/an.
Citing as example the Spartan constitution, with its two kings, council of elders (gerousi/a), and ephors, Plato (Laws 692) praises not only the blended form of government but those of tripartite construction.
Aristotle agrees, “the better the constitution is mixed, the more permanent it is” (Pol. 1297a: oÀs% d )aÄn aÃmeinon h( politei/a mixq"=, tosou/t% monimwte/ra). For him the well-ordered constitution results from the proper ordering of three factors: the deliberative body, the magistracies, and the judiciary.13
Polybius (6.3.8) also cites Sparta as the first to draw upon this principle. He elsewhere (6.18.1; cf. below, note 49) concludes:
Such being the power that each part has of hampering the others or co-operating with them, their union is adequate to all emergencies, so that it is impossible to find a better political system than this.
Toiau/thj d )ou)/shj th=j e(ka/stou tw=n merw=n duna/mewj ei)j to\ kai\ bla/ptein kai\ sunergei=n a)llh/loij, pro\j pa/saj sumbai/nei ta\j perista/seij deo/ntwj e)/xein th\n a(rmogh\n au)tw=n, w(/ste mh\ oiÂo/n t ) eiÅnai tau/thj eu(rei=n a)mei/nw politei/aj su/stasin.
Referring again to the power of the three branches, “if they wish, to counteract or co-operate with the others” (6.15.1: a)ntipra/ttein boulhqe/nta kai\ sunergei=n a)llh/loij ), Polybius (6.18.7-8) elaborates:
For when one part having grown out of proportion to the others aims at supremacy and tends to become too predominant, it is evident that, as for the reasons above given none of the three is absolute, but the purpose of the one can be counterworked and thwarted by the others, none of them will excessively outgrow the others or treat them with contempt. All in fact remains in statu quo, on the one hand, because any aggressive impulse is sure to be checked and from the outset each estate stands in dread of being interfered with by the others.
e)peida\n ga\r e)coidou=n ti tw=n merw=n filoneik"= kai\ ple/on tou= de/ontoj e)pikrat"=, dh=lon w(j ou)deno\j au)totelou=j oÃntoj kata\ to\n aÃrti lo/gon, a)ntispa=sqai de\ kai\ parapodi/zesqai duname/nhj th=j e(ka/stou proqe/sewj u(p' a)llh/lwn, ou)de\n e)coidei= tw=n merw=n ou)d' u(perfronei=. pa/nta ga\r e)mme/nei toi=j u(pokeime/noij ta\ me\n kwluo/mena th=j o(rmh=j, ta\ d' e)c a)rxh=j dedio/ta th\n e)k tou= pe/laj e)pi/stasin.
In short, Polybius insists “it is evident we must regard as the best constitution a combination of all these three varieties” (6.3.7: dh=lon ga\r w(j a)ri/sthn me\n h(ghte/on politei/an th\n e)k pa/ntwn tw=n proeirhme/nwn i)diwma/twn sunestw=san).
Cicero (Rep. 1.69) also attests to the stability of a mixed constitution against the ravages of a)naku/klwsij:
For the primary forms already mentioned degenerate easily into the corresponding perverted forms, the king being replaced by a despot, the aristocracy by an oligarchical faction, and the people by a mob and anarchy; but whereas these forms are frequently changed into new ones, this does not usually happen in the case of the mixed and evenly balanced constitution, except through great faults in the governing class.
Quod et illa prima facile in contraria vitia convertuntur, ut existat ex rege dominus, ex optimatibus factio, ex populo turba et confusio, quodque ipsa genera generibus saepe conmutantur novis, hoc in hac iuncta moderateque permixta conformatione rei publicae non ferme sine magnis principum vitiis evenit.
Cicero too declares the mixed constitution the best form of government (Rep. 2.41), “the most splendid conceivable” (Rep. 2.42: quo nihil possit esse praeclarius). He concludes, “a form of government which is an equal mixture of the three good forms is superior to any of them by itself ” (Rep. 2.66: sed id praestare singulis, quod e tribus primis esset modice temperatum).14
The result of Polybius’ analysis of the Roman Constitution, the theory of a system of checks and balances among three branches of the same government, is ostensibly the same principle as that of the American Constitution with its executive, legislative, and judicial branches. As Paul A. Rahe admits, “the American regime bears a certain resemblance to Polybius’ depiction of Rome, for the American Constitution deploys institutional checks.”15 Aristotle anticipates the American Constitution as well, when he divides the elements of government into three parts (Pol. 1297b), calling them the legislative (to\ bouleuo/menon), the executive (to\ peri\ a)rxa/j), and the judicial (to\ dikastiko/n).16 The lesson was not missed by the Founding Fathers, as R. M. Gummere notes:17
A careful search in law-makers like Nathaniel Ward or in the studies of Wilson and Madison preparatory to the debates on the Constitution indicates a first-hand knowledge, on the part of the twenty-four college-bred delegates, of the Aristotelian arguments for a “mixed” type of government.
The Roman Constitution parallels the American Constitution in historical context as well as content.18 The Roman Republic was founded after the expulsion of the Tarquin Kings. Like the Americans, the Romans had ridded themselves of a tyrant and were contemplating the best form of constitution. Rome sent a delegation of three men to Greece to study the laws of Solon, Lycurgus, and Greek institutions (Livy 3.32-33). The opinion of the Romans was that laws should be codified and inscribed onto 12 tables that would be publicly displayed.19 Influenced by the Greeks, their government embraced a mixed constitution.20 In like manner the Founding Fathers, having expelled the tyrant George III,21 consulted the history books to find the best that foreign lands had to offer in constitutional theory.22 They found separation of powers within a mixed constitution.
CHAPTER TWO
The fact that Polybius’ theories and the American system share similarities will not suffice to prove, more than circumstantially, that the U.S. Constitution is founded upon ancient theories. The second focus of this paper, therefore, will be to establish whether the Founding Fathers actually knew and read Polybius.
Steeped as they were in the classics, “the Founding Fathers,” Saul K. Padover asserts, “were educationally and spiritually the children of the antiquity.”23 Bernard Bailyn too proclaims, “knowledge of classical authors was universal among colonists with any degree of education.”24 Gummere adds, “there was seldom an epoch when the leading men were so imbued with the classical tradition.”25 In recognition of this fact, Richard (130) concludes,
The founders had access to every level of this western tradition of mixed government theory. Hence it was only natural that, when confronted by unprecedented parliamentary taxation during the 1760s and 1770s, they should turn to the most ancient and revered of political theories to explain this perplexing phenomenon. Patriot leaders such as Richard Henry Lee, Samuel Adams, and John Adams ascribed the new tyranny to a degeneration of the mixture of the English constitution.
Clearly the Founding Fathers were familiar with the classics generally, but did they know about Polybius specifically?26 That the text of Polybius’ Histories itself was available to the Founders is of no doubt, as M. N. S. Sellers attests,27
Americans understood the Roman constitution primarily through the writings of Polybius, readily available in four recent printings, and after [January of] 1787 in excerpts from Spelman’s translation, reproduced in John Adam’s Defense of the Constitutions of the United States of America.
Richard (24) also notes,
after the Stamp Act of 1765, many [Bachelor’s and Master’s] theses applied the political principles of Aristotle, Cicero, and Polybius to the debates concerning independence and the Constitution.
The best way to prove a direct connection between Polybius and the Fathers is to search for references to him in their own writings. Therefore, a brief survey of the papers of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Benjamin Franklin, James Otis, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton will show that many of the Founding Fathers indeed knew Polybius, especially his passages on the Roman Constitution, a)naku/klwsij, and the separation of powers.
Thomas Jefferson, a fervent supporter of mixed government,28 had numerous editions of Polybius’ Histories in his personal library.29 Several private letters reveal that he was buying copies of the Histories for himself and his friends.30 Jefferson sent many of these letters from Paris in 1787, the same year as the Federal Convention that drafted the Constitution. In February of that year, he wrote to Philip Mazzei for an Italian translation of Polybius.31 By August Jefferson had sent an edition of the Histories to his friend Peter Carr (Papers, 18). A month later he wrote George Wythe that he had procured for him “a copy of Polybius, the best edition” and was sending it to him in Williamsburg (ibid., 127).
In March of the following year, Jefferson sent Vann Damme a letter requesting the 1548 Dutch edition (ibid., 688). Then two months later he wrote John Trumbul asking him to purchase copies of Hampton’s Polybius from “Lackington bookseller Chriswell Street” (ibid. 179). In January of 1789, Jefferson again wrote to Van Damme for another 1584 Polybius (ibid., 490) which the vendor sent him two months later (ibid., 707).32
James Madison also knew Polybius’ work. He cites the historian in The Federalist Papers No. 63 and devotes nearly the entirety of No. 47 to the separation of powers:33
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands whether of one, a few or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
Here Madison reveals a Greek influence in his use of such terms as one, few, many, and tyranny. On December 25, 1773, William Bradford wrote him: “Scipio used daily to thank the Gods that they had introduced him to the Acquaintance [sic] of Polybius; nor have I less reason to be thankful that I once enjoyed your company and now you[r] correspondence.”34 Madison himself cites Polybius in a letter to Jefferson dated October 24, 1787 (Papers, 10.210).
Other Founding Fathers had no less knowledge of Polybius. During the Virginia state convention on ratification of the Federal Constitution, James Monroe “read several passages in Polybius” from the floor.35 In a letter of May 1779, William Jones sent Benjamin Franklin a “translation of a curious fragment of Polybius.”36 Actually, the pretended fragment was simply a device to draw Franklin’s attention to some ideas on conciliation with the British. Nonetheless, the false fragment attests not only to a familiarity with Polybius, but also to Jones’ estimation that Franklin would consider the historian an authority worth reading.37
James Otis also read Polybius. He praised the constitution of Rome, observing that the city had been most durable when its powers were separate but fell when it failed to maintain a balance among the three branches.38 Citing Otis (Rights, 14), Mullet (100) comments on Polybius’ contribution as one of the philosophic sources for separation of powers:
The very few colonists who knew him found his history more useful for illustrative than for philosophic materials. In this respect, however, his description of the Roman constitution at the time of the battle of Cannae aroused some homage and in all likelihood contributed to the high value placed on separation of powers as a basis of stable government.
One should note that Mullet’s reference to the relative obscurity of Polybius is in regards to the population generally.39 Indeed well-educated colonists were in the minority.40 Nevertheless, those who were educated received a decidedly classical training--the framers of the Constitution disproportionately so (see above, page 15). Polybius’ work was by no means unknown to them nor does Mullet claim so. Note too that the one exception to Mullet dismissal of Polybius as an ideological source for the Founding Fathers is the doctrine of the separation of powers.
At the time of the Convention, John Adams was away in London. He was, as Rossiter (83) describes it, “represented in Philadelphia” by his writings nonetheless. Adams’ own library contained several editions of Polybius.41 The subject of the Greek historian also finds its way into Adams’ private correspondence with his wife.42 Gilbert Chinard even credits Adams for many of the classical references cited during debates of the Federal Convention of 1787:43
To a certain extent, their really surprising knowledge of classical analogies and precedents may be explained by the fact that John Adams had published, early in January 1787, his A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America. The first part of the work, dealing exclusively with ancient governments and writers, had reached America in March, long before the opening of the Federal Convention. It was immediately reprinted in Boston, New York and Philadelphia.44
Adams (Works, 4.328) fully embraces the classical division of simple constitutions into monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy.45 In the introduction to chapter six of his A Defense of the Constitutions, Adams (Works, 4.435) clearly links Polybius with his purpose:46
I wish to assemble together the opinions and reasonings of philosophers, politicians, and historians, who have taken the most extensive views of men and societies, whose characters are deservedly revered, and whose writings were in the contemplation of those who framed the American constitutions. It will not be contested that all these characters are united in Polybius.
Note that the constitutions Adams refers to in the title A Defense of the Constitutions are the state constitutions already adopted prior to January of 1787, well before the adoption of the Federal Constitution.47 As McDonald (84) notes, many of these state constitutions (six out of the original thirteen) had already adopted some degree of separation of powers.48
In his A Defense of the Constitutions, Adams devotes an entire chapter to Polybius’ doctrine of the mixed constitution, a)naku/klwsij, and the Polybian assessment of the Roman system of checks and balances.49 Adams, like Polybius, credits Rome’s greatness to its constitutional separation of powers (Works, 4.439-440):50
The Roman constitution formed the noblest people and the greatest power that has ever existed. But if all the powers of the consuls, senate, and people had centered in a single assembly of the people, collectively or representatively, will any man pretend to believe that they would have been long free, or ever great?
In effect, any Federal Convention delegate who read Adams’ A Defense of the Constitutions had indirectly read Polybius.51
The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, edited by Max Farrand (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1911), are filled with classical references too numerous to cover here.52 Nevertheless, both Gummere and Chinard make important observations about the proceedings. Chinard (“Polybius and the American Constitution,” 221) notes:
the delegates called upon Montesquieu as an authority in support of their views; but a careful study of the Records and the Federalist would show that more frequently they went back to the ancient sources from which Montesquieu himself had derived his information, and that they had apparently a first-hand acquaintance with ancient historians and ancient history.
Gummere (“The Classical Ancestry of the Constitution,” 175) adds:
The debates before, during, and after the Convention of 1787 can be better understood if the doctrine of three ancient authorities--Aristotle, Cicero, and Polybius--are first clarified in relation to the establishment of the federal government. Their testimony underlies all the suggested patterns for the new republic.
During the Federal Convention, Hamilton expressed the concern that “if we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy” (June 26th, Records, 1.432). His fear is obviously based on his acceptance of Polybius and the inevitability of a)naku/klwsij--namely that democracy in excess paves the way for tyranny.53 Hamilton frequently used Roman names in the publications of The Federalist Papers and confessed knowing more about the Roman Constitution than that of the British.54
T. L. Simmons (“Greek Ruins,” 43), the author of the forthcoming book Climbing Parnassus: A Defense of Classical Education, regarding the Founding Fathers concludes,
It is no accident, then, that so many who gathered at Philadelphia to declare independence and a decade later to draft a constitution were men who had apprenticed themselves to Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, and Cicero, and who could debate at length on the various constitutional forms of the classical world before they chose one for the new American nation. We owe our very existence as a people in great part to classical learning.
In fact, so prevalent were the references to antiquity during the Convention that on June 28th, as Chinard relates, “Franklin rose in despair. The Convention threatened to degenerate into a classical meeting.”55
CHAPTER THREE
The third focus of this paper will deal directly with Montesquieu himself. If he relied heavily on Polybius, then even those who cite Montesquieu as their source for the doctrine of separation of powers are indirectly citing ancient authority. In fact, Montesquieu had not only read Polybius but also produced summaries of his work, as R. Shackleton attests:56
It was his practice to make extracts or synopses of books which he had read, and the accident of mention in the Pensées or elsewhere discloses that he had made extracts from . . . [among others] . . . Polybius.
M. Hulliung admits that “more often than not, Montesquieu derived his inspiration from works of Aristotle, Polybius, or some other classical author.”57 Shackleton adds that the doctrine of separation of powers was “a theory of considerable antiquity . . . Montesquieu made an attempt to bring it into line with the advances in the study of science.”58 Chinard is more blunt, charging that Montesquieu “did nothing but generalize and modernize the lessons of ancient history.”59 M. E. G. Duff ultimately wonders, “if Polybius had not led the way, . . . [whether] Montesquieu’s study of the greatness and decadence of the Romans would ever have been written.”60
In Chapter 11 of Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu proposes balance of power between “the legislative, the executive in respect to things dependent on the law of nations, and the executive in regard to matters that depend on civil law”61 (11.6.1: la puissance législative, la puissance exécutrice des choses qui dépendent du droit des gens, et la puissance exécutrice de celles qui dépendent du droit civil). These powers are essentially the same as Aristotle’s three portions of the state: the deliberative, the executive, and the judicial (Pol. 1298a-b);62 however, as Gummere (“Heritage of the Classics,” 75) notes, “the doctrines of Aristotle were well known to the Colonials long before Montesquieu lifted the sixth book of the Politics into his Esprit de Lois.”
An important study of the classical foundation of Montesquieu’s work is Lawrence M. Levin’s dissertation, The Political Doctrine of Montesquieu’s Esprit Des Lois: Its Classical Background (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1936; reprint, 1973).63 In his introduction, Levin points out (VIII-IX):
Montesquieu cites certain historical instances of the manner in which the balance of powers functioned in antiquity . . . it is hardly likely that he was not aware of any of the ancient texts that stress the idea, and it is unlikely that these ancient texts were not partially instrumental at least in bringing to his attention a fundamental aspect of his theory: the system of checks or balances as a means of promoting the welfare of the state.
Of course, one of the ancient texts Montesquieu read was Polybius’ Histories. For, paraphrasing the ancient historian, Montesquieu describes the government of Rome in the time of the kings (Spirit, 11.12; cf. Polybius 6.11.11):
the constitution was a mixture of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy; and such was the harmony of power, that there was no instance of jealousy or dispute.
la constitution étoit monarchique, aristocratique et populaire; et telle fut l’harmonie du pouvoir, qu’on ne vit ni jalousie, ni dipute.
When Montesquieu (Spirit, 11.17) turns to describe the balance of power in Rome during the Republic, he explicitly cites the Histories:
so great was the share the senate took in the executive power, that, as Polybius (Book VI) informs us, foreign nations imagined that Rome was an aristocracy.
la part que le sénat prenoit à la puissance exécutrice étoit si grande, que Polybe dit que les étrangers pensoient tous que Rome étoit une aristocratie.
The passage in question is 6.13.8-9, in which Polybius himself states:
So that again to one residing in Rome during the absence of the consuls the constitution appears to be entirely aristocratic; and this is the conviction of many Greek states and many of the kings, as the senate manages all business connected with them.
e)c wÂn pa/lin o(po/te tij e)pidhmh/sai mh\ paro/ntoj u(pa/tou, telei/wj a)ristokratikh\ fai/neq ) h( politei/a. oÁ dh\ kai\ polloi\ tw=n ((Ellh/nwn, o(moi/wj de\ kai\ tw=n basile/wn, pepeisme/noi tugxa/nousi, dia\ to\ ta\ sfw=n pra/gmata sxedo\n pa/nta th\n su/gklhton kurou=n.
Even more significant than Montesquieu’s direct reference to Polybius are the locations of the two passages, both the citing passage and the one cited. Montesquieu’s citing passage falls in the middle of Chapter 11 of Spirit of the Laws, the same chapter which sets forth his principles of separation of powers and the system of checks and balances. The passage cited from Polybius is taken from the middle of his description of the Roman Constitution. The significance of this is twofold. First, that Montesquieu, when composing his theory of checks and balances, turned to the ancient historian. Second, that any careful reader of Montesquieu’s Chapter 11, after coming upon Polybius’ name, would check the reference and in doing so would find Polybius’ entire theory of a)naku/klwsij and the mixed constitution.
Was Montesquieu indispensable to the Founding Fathers? B. Wright (171) is inclined to believe that “had Montesquieu never published his treatise, the [state] constitutions . . . would not have been [different].”64 He argues that discussions on the separation of powers had been a long tradition among English political scientists--e.g., Harrington, Locke, and Blackstone--well before Montesquieu.65 Harrington, a friend of King Charles I, had incorporated elements of checks and balances into his utopian work Oceana.66 It was perhaps this association that spurred Charles I (some 50 years before Montesquieu was born) to claim that England enjoyed separation of powers. For, in a proclamation that Corinne C. Weston (23-24) terms “one of the most influential ever made on the nature of the English government,” and Anderson (24) readily identifies as “based on the old Polybian balance of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy,” King Charles (Answer to the XIX Propositions, 1642) declares:
The experience and wisdom of your Ancestors hath so moulded this government out of a mixture of these monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, as to give this Kingdom the conveniences of all three, without the inconveniences of any one so long as the balance hangs even between the three Estates, the King, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons, and they run jointly on in their proper channel.67
If Montesquieu described the English as having a mixed constitution a full generation after Charles I had done so, can Montesquieu be credited as the author of the balance of powers?68
Gummere (“Heritage of the Classics,” 75) admonishes:
It should also be remembered that the idea of representation as well as the theory of checks and balances was not only correlated with the current studies of the Colonials, but traced back to the ancient sources.
Bailyn specifies a Polybian lineage for the theory, when he states:69
No one set of ideas was more deeply embedded in the British and the British-American mind than the notion, whose genealogy could be traced back to Polybius, that liberty could survive in a world of innately ambitious . . . men only where a balance of the contending forces was so institutionalized that no one contestant could monopolize the power of the state without effective opposition.70
Indeed, the entire Declaration of Independence is predicated upon the notion that the people share equally with the crown the powers of government.71
Even among the Founding Fathers, there is some ambiguity concerning the role Montesquieu played. This is understandable, since Montesquieu not only was against an elected executive but also was opposed to the power of the legislative to impeach him (Spirit 11.18; cf. B. Wright 170). Reflecting on John Adams’ A Defense of the Constitutions, B. Wright (178) notices, “Montesquieu is quoted, but without comment. Harrington and Polybius he apparently found better suited to his needs.” Concerning the Convention itself, B. Wright (184) adds:
Although Montesquieu was referred to seven or eight times during the debates in the Convention, only once was his authority appealed to in support of the separation principle, and then by Madison.72
Even when James Madison does cite Montesquieu as the oracle of the doctrine of separation of powers, he falls short of calling him its originator when he says (Federalist Papers, 47):
If he be not the author of this invaluable precept in the science of politics, he has the merit at least of displaying and recommending it most effectually to the attention of mankind.
CONCLUSION
Polybius’ work on the separation of powers antedates Montesquieu’s considerably. His system includes checks and balances, some of which are the same as the American Constitution’s. Many of the Founding Fathers had read Polybius and even quote him on this issue during the Federal Convention of 1787 and the subsequent State Conventions on ratification.73 Those who did not read him directly in Greek still had available to them translations in French, Italian, Latin, and English.74 Others had available the summaries of Polybius in John Adams’ A Defense of the Constitutions, released in the same year as the Federal Convention. Montesquieu himself borrowed heavily from Polybius and other ancient authorities. Therefore, if Madison’s comment regarding separation of powers is right, that “the oracle who is always consulted and cited on this subject is the celebrated Montesquieu” (Federalist Papers 47), surely then it is only fair to consider Polybius its very god.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
[MDL 09/13/00: Many of these works are available online as e-texts through the... - https://mlloyd.org/mdl-indx/polybius/polybius.htm
Mixed Government Aristotle
The diverging systems of government are tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy, which are those systems that diverged from the three straight systems of government which are kingship, aristocracy, and polity.
Passages: Defining the System of Government
1323a: 14-16: To seek out what is the best system of government, it is first necessary to define what is the most desirable life.
1323b: 1-4: Living happily, whether for human beings it comes from enjoyment or from excellence or from both, exists for those persons excessively adorned with character and purpose but moderate in the acquisition of external goods.
1295a: 25-1295b: Like the best life, the best system of government is conducted in accordance with excellence. If excellence is the mean, as argued in the Nicomachean Ethics [for example, at 1101a: 14-16], then a life and a system of government that is “in the middle” is best. A city-state has three elements in its population: the rich, the poor, and those in the middle. The political partnership that is constituted from those in the middle is the best.
1293a: 35-42: In addition to the four systems of government that [other] people usually bring up in discussing systems of government (namely, monarchy, oligarchy, democracy, and aristocracy), there is a fifth one called polity (politeia), which is also the term used to mean “system of government” in general or in a generic sense. This fifth system of government is sometimes overlooked in discussions of the types of systems of government since it does not come into existence very often.
1289a: 26-28: As was established previously in the first book of the Politics, there are three “straight” or “upright” [and therefore correct and good] systems of government (orthai politeiai): kingship, aristocracy, and polity.
1265b: 26-28: The system of government called polity is midway between democracy and oligarchy.
1293b: 33-37: Polity is, to put it simply, a mixture of oligarchy and democracy. The kinds of polities that tend towards democracy are customarily referred to by the name of polity, while those that tend towards oligarchy are called aristocracies.
1307a: 15-16: The systems of government inclining more toward oligarchy are called aristocracies, while those inclining more toward the multitude (plethos) [which can also mean “democracy”] are called polities.
1297b: 22-25: As city-states increased in size and grew stronger in the heavy-infantry [hoplite] section of the citizen body, more men gained a share in the system of government. For this reason what are now called polities were previously called democracies.
1279a: 37-39: When the multitude governs according to the common advantage, then this system of government is called by the term also used to designate systems of government in general, namely, polity.
1288a: 12-15: The multitude suitable for a polity is one capable of military service that has the natural ability to rule and be ruled in accordance with law that distributes offices to wealthier citizens on the basis of merit.
1307a: 5-8: Polities and aristocracies are undone by diverging from that which constitutes justice in the two different systems of government, [which is not necessarily the same thing in each system]. The starting point in a polity is when democracy and oligarchy have been not mixed appropriately [literally, “finely”].
1275b: 1-3: Diverging and erroneous systems of government are necessarily subsequent, not prior to correct [straight] systems.
1279b: 4-10: There are three systems of government diverging from the three “straight” systems: tyranny diverging from kingship, oligarchy diverging from aristocracy, and democracy diverging from polity. Each diverging system (parekbasis) is structured to operate to the advantage of the ruler(s); for example, democracy is rule to the advantage of the poor. None of the diverging systems aims at the profit of every type of citizen in common.
1289a: 28-1289b5: Of these three diverging systems of government, tyranny is the worst (which is to say the furthest from polity), oligarchy the next worst, and democracy the most moderate.
1279a: 17-21: While straight systems of government are concerned with the common advantage according to what is quite simply just, diverging forms of government are those that in error serve the interest of the ruler(s). Diverging forms of government tend to have an element of despotism, because a city-state is a partnership of the free.
1290a: 13-29: Some people claim that, just as there are two main kinds of wind or of musical harmonies, and the other winds and harmonies are regarded as divergences from these, there are also two sorts of systems of government, rule by the people and oligarchy. On this view, the, polity diverges from democracy and aristocracy diverges from oligarchy. But it is better to postulate instead that there are “straight” systems of government and systems of government diverging from them.
1259a: 39-1259b10: The rule that a husband has over his wife, a free person, is the same sort of rule that exists over free persons in a polity. Since the male is more fit to rule by nature, he will rule continuously in the household, unless he is somehow unnatural. In contrast, when citizens are equals and do not differ, then the roles of ruler and ruled will alternate.
1325b: 7-8: For those who are alike, the fine and the just is [to rule and be ruled] in turn, for this is equal and alike.
1282b: 10-13: Since laws align with the system of government, the laws of straight systems of government are necessarily just, but those of diverging systems are necessarily not just.
1309a: 36-39: Justice and the excellence associated with it are not the same in different systems of government.
1309b: 19-35: Diverging types of government fail to pay attention to the middle. Institutions suitable to a certain type of government can be the downfall of that type of government if they become too extreme. Just as a nose [on a statue] can still be appealing to look at if it diverges from the straightness that is beautiful but can become not even a nose if an artist pushes it too far in the direction of the extremes, so, too, a system of government such as democracy that diverges from the best system can still be adequate if it is not pushed to an extreme.
1287b: 39-41: There is no such thing as a person being naturally fitted for any of the diverging systems of governments, for they have come into being contrary to nature (physis).
http://www.stoa.org/demos/article_aristotle_democracy@page=7&greekEncoding=UnicodeC.html
DEMOCRACY AND REPUBLIC
The Republic and Mixed Government
Polybius spent some seventeen years in Rome as a hostage. This experience inspired his interest in the growth of Roman power, which Polybius saw as part of a cycle of the rise and fall of great powers. Every powerful empire or country is doomed to decline, Polybius said, for both history and nature tell us that no human creation lasts forever. Still, some hold their power far longer than others, and Polybius thought the example of Rome helped to explain why this is so.
The key to Rome’s success, Polybius argued in his Histories, was its mixed government. This was not an entirely new idea—Plato had hinted at it, as had Aristotle in his discussion of the polity—but Polybius developed it more clearly than his predecessors. The Roman Republic was a mixed government, he said, because neither one person (monarchy), nor the few (aristocracy), nor the many (democracy), held all the power. Instead, the republic mixed or balanced these three regimes in a way that provided the benefits of each form while avoiding its defects. Rather than give all power to one person, or a few people, or the common people, in other words, the Roman Republic divided power among the three. Thus, the people as a whole exercised some control over policy-making through their assemblies—at least the free, adult males did—but so, too, did the aristocrats, who controlled the Senate. Then, in place of a monarch, the republic relied on consuls to put the policies into effect. In this way, Polybius said, no group was able to pursue its own interest at the expense of the common good. Each kept watch over the others, and the result was a form of government that was free, stable, and long-lasting. Like an alloy that is stronger than any one of the metals that make it up, a mixed government, Polybius believed, will prove more durable than any “pure” or unmixed form of rule.
A republic, then, was a form of popular government, but its defenders insisted that it not be confused with a democracy. Democracy promoted vice—the self-interested rule of the common people—while a republic promoted virtue. Republican virtue (in Latin, virtus) was the ability of an individual to rise above personal or class interest to place the good of the whole community above one’s own. Only active citizens could achieve and exercise this virtue, republicans argued. Such citizens would be eager to exercise their liberty, yet wary of any person or group who might try to seize power. Mixed government served both these purposes by encouraging some degree of popular participation in government while making it difficult for anyone to acquire enough power to threaten liberty and the common good.
Within 100 years of Polybius’s death, however, the Roman Republic had given way to the Roman Empire. Beginning with Julius Caesar (100–44 BCE), a series of emperors drained the power from Rome’s republican institutions and concentrated it in their own hands. Almost 1500 years would pass before the republican ideal was fully revived in the city-states of northern Italy during the Renaissance. Another 400 years would pass before the democratic ideal itself was revived.
Christianity and Democracy
There were, of course, many significant developments in the intervening years, perhaps the most significant being the rise of Christianity. In some respects Christianity seems a natural ally of democracy, for it proclaims that every person, regardless of gender, nationality, or status, is a child of God. By the standards of the ancient world, certainly, Christianity stood for radical equality. Rich or poor, slave or free, citizen or alien, Greek, Jew, or Roman, woman or man—none of these differences really mattered, the Christians preached, because all are equal in the eyes of God.
We might expect, then, that the early Christians would argue that everyone should have an equal voice in government. But they did not. This was not because the early Christians were antidemocratic but because they were antipolitical. Christians believed that life on earth is a preparation for the coming kingdom of God, an often painful pilgrimage to the Christian’s true home in heaven; so by themselves the affairs of this world have no true value or lasting significance. Many early Christians also believed that the end of the world was near. These beliefs led some to take a lawless attitude. The common or orthodox position with regard to the law, however, was that Christians are obligated to obey human laws and earthly rulers. As St. Paul stated, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”7 Where politics was concerned, in other words, the Christian message was simply to obey those in power and seek no power yourself.
Matters could not remain so simple, however, particularly when various Roman emperors sought to destroy this new and (to their eyes) dangerous religion. Matters became even more complicated when, in the fourth century AD, Christianity survived the persecutions to become the official religion of the Roman Empire. Then, following the collapse of the Roman Empire around AD 500, the Christian Church became the dominant institution in Europe. It remained so throughout the period we know as the Middle Ages—roughly AD 500 to AD 1400. With the disintegration of the empire, the church itself gradually divided into two wings: the Eastern Orthodox Church, led by the Byzantine Emperor, who ruled from Constantinople (now Istanbul); and the Roman Catholic Church, headed by the Bishop of Rome, who came to be known as the Pope. The rise and rapid spread of the Islamic faith throughout the Middle East, across Northern Africa, and into Spain in the seventh and eighth centuries also meant that much of the Mediterranean world was lost to Christianity. Yet the Roman Church saw itself as the one true church—“catholic” means “universal”—and it preached its message and enforced its doctrines wherever possible.
The Roman Church provided the spiritual bond that united most of Western and Central Europe throughout the Middle Ages. Yet there was no comparable political bond. The collapse of the Roman Empire had brought a return to localism, although not of the Greek city-state variety. There were some independent city-states in the Middle Ages—Rome, for instance, where the Pope ruled—but more common varieties of local rule developed around tribal loyalties or the old military regions of the fallen empire. This happened, in the latter case, as some regional commanders of the Roman army managed to keep their forces together and their regions secure even as the empire crumbled. From these duces and comites, who found themselves governing their territories as best they could, came the “dukes” and “counts” of the Middle Ages.
There were occasional attempts to revive a more nearly universal political bond in the form of a new empire, the most notable beginning on Christmas Day in the year 800, when Pope Leo III placed a crown on Charlemagne, king of the Franks, and proclaimed him emperor. Despite repeated efforts over the centuries, however, the new Holy Roman Empire never achieved the power and stature of the old; as the philosopher Voltaire later quipped, it was “neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.” Local ties and loyalties simply proved stronger than the desire for a politically united Christendom.
These local ties and loyalties also encouraged feudalism. This form of social organization, rooted in the need for protection from marauding Vikings and Magyars, led to a great emphasis on “status,” that is, one’s station or position in society. A few people were aristocrats or nobles, some were free, and a great many more were serfs— peasants who lived and worked in bondage to an aristocrat in exchange for protection. According to the medieval ideal, every person occupied a rank or station in society and was expected to perform the duties and enjoy the privileges of that rank or station. In this way everyone supposedly contributed to the common good, just as every bee in a hive does what is best for all by performing its own strictly defined duties. In such a society, there was little room for the democratic ideal. The outlook began to shift with the Renaissance, however, as a renewed concern for human achievement led to a revival of republicanism.
Renaissance and Republicanism
In the late Middle Ages, particularly in the thirteenth century, several developments prepared the way for the Renaissance (or “rebirth”). One of these was Western civilization’s renewed contact with the East. This contact came about partly through the Crusades—that is, the attempts to recapture the Christian holy land of the Middle East from the “infidel” Muslims—and partly through dealings with Islamic Spain, which Muslims had conquered in the early 700s. As so often happens, contact with strange people and different cultures stimulated many in the West to examine their own customs and beliefs. The discovery that other people live quite satisfactorily in ways very different from what one has always assumed to be the natural and only reasonable way to live is often unsettling and disturbing. But it can also encourage creativity, as people begin to see that it is possible to live in different, and perhaps better, ways. This happened most directly as Christian scholars rediscovered, through Spain, many works of ancient scholarship that had been lost to the West since the collapse of the Roman Empire. The most significant of these in political terms was Aristotle’s Politics, which was translated into Latin in 1260—but only after the Church convened a committee of scholars to determine whether the “pagan” philosopher’s ideas were compatible with Christianity.
A second development preparing the way for the Renaissance was the revival of the self-governing city-state in Italy.8 Many Italian cities enjoyed a measure of independence before the thirteenth century, but they remained subject to the Germanic head of the Holy Roman Empire. After years of struggle, they seized the opportunity presented by the death of Emperor Frederick II in 1250 to become self-governing city-states. Even as empire and monarchy were the predominant forms of rule, the citizens of these city-states looked for a way to justify their “new” form of government. They found this justification in the ancient theorists of republicanism
These and other developments led to the flowering of Western culture in the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries that scholars of that time took to be a renaissance— a rebirth or revival that began in the Italian city-states. Under the inspiration of the ancient philosophers, they concluded that life on earth is not simply a vale of tears, a wearisome journey that the Christian must take on his or her way to the kingdom of God in heaven. On the contrary, life on earth, so rich and diverse, is not only worth living but worth living freely and fully. For human beings are capable of many wondrous things—not the least of which is self-government.
Drawing on the writings of Aristotle and Polybius and the examples of the ancient republics of Rome and Sparta, the Renaissance republicans argued for a revival of civic life in which public-spirited citizens could take an active part in the governance of their independent city or country. The key concepts in this republican discourse were liberty, virtue, and corruption. Nowhere were these concepts deployed more sharply and effectively than in the writings of Niccolò Machiavelli.
Machiavelli (1469–1527) was a prominent official in the republic of Florence in 1512 when the Medici family overthrew the republican government and installed themselves as rulers of the city-state. Implicated in a plot to overthrow the Medici and restore the republic, Machiavelli was arrested, tortured, and banished to his family estate in the countryside. While in exile, he wrote two books. The better known of the two is The Prince, the small book in which Machiavelli apparently instructs princes and petty tyrants to put conscience aside and do whatever it takes—lie, steal, even murder—to stay in power. Indeed, Machiavelli became so notorious that Shakespeare later referred to him as “the murderous Machiavel.”9 Even today we sometimes call a cunning and unscrupulous person “machiavellian.”
Whether this is a fair reading of Machiavelli’s purposes in The Prince is something scholars continue to debate.10 But it definitely does not capture Machiavelli’s purposes in his second, longer book, the Discourses. In this book Machiavelli makes clear his distrust of princes as he analyzes the factors that promote the longevity of a vital, virtuous, and free form of government—the republic.
For Machiavelli, a republic is a mixed government in which no single class rules. Instead, all classes share power as each checks the potential excesses of the others. It is a system of government in which vigilant citizens jealously guard their liberties against the threat of domination by would-be tyrants in their midst. For liberty, as Machiavelli understands it, is self-government; it is something found not in private life but in public action. But why must citizens be vigilant? Because as soon as they become complacent and indifferent to public affairs they will find a tyrant waiting to relieve them of the burden of self-government and deprive them of their liberty. Thus, Machiavelli insists that the greatest enemies of free government are complacent and self-interested citizens.
Such citizens care more for money and luxury than for the
commonwealth. The love of wealth, luxury, and ease, together with a
corresponding indifference to public affairs, is what Machiavelli
calls “corruption.” To keep corruption at bay, citizens must possess
and exercise “civic virtue.” That is, they must be attentive and
alert to public affairs, always striving to do what is best not for
themselves as private persons but as public-spirited citizens acting
in the best interest of their republic. If citizens are to be
“virtuous,” then, they must be free—free to assemble, to argue among
themselves, to expose corruption, and to criticize their leaders and
one another. If citizens neither enjoy nor exercise these essential
liberties, their republic is doomed to an early death and to be
replaced by a tyranny.
According to Machiavelli, the greatest danger a republic faces is that it will be destroyed from within by corruption. But because foreign enemies are also likely to threaten republics, a genuinely free republic must also require all able-bodied males—and only males could be citizens—to be members of a citizen militia, prepared to take up arms against any external threat to their liberty.
Above all, Machiavelli maintained that a free government must be ruled not by the whim or caprice of any person or persons, or even of the majority of citizens, but by law. A truly free government is a government of laws, not of men. A government of laws is more consistent, more concerned with fairness, than a government of men. More important, laws are impersonal. We can depend on the laws without losing our independence. When we depend upon individual people or even a majority of men, we are subject to their will—and this can hardly be called liberty. This is why Machiavelli, like Aristotle long before him, considered pure democracy a bad form of government while regarding a mixed constitutional republic as the best form.
A mixed government, a virtuous citizenry, the rule of law—these were the republican ideals of Machiavelli’s Discourses. If much of this sounds familiar, it is because this vision inspired the Atlantic republican tradition—a way of thinking about politics that spread from Italy to Great Britain in the seventeenth century, and from there to Britain’s American colonies in the eighteenth.11
Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal (9th Edition) 9th
Ed
by Terence Ball (Author), Richard
Dagger (Author), & 1 more...
https://www.amazon.com/Political-Ideologies-Democratic-Ideal-9th/dp/0205962556
