CHECKS & BALANCES: TWO SHORT NOTES

AM | @agumack

"Checks and balances are our only security" — John Adams

[1] If men were angels: Montesquieu and Madison. Federalist No. 51 contains the well-known reference to angels: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary". I had these lines in mind many times during the presidency of Donald Trump. Note that the title of the essay contains an explicit reference to checks and balances: The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments. James Madison is universally credited with this masterful use of words. And that's fine.

A simple exercise in Quellenforschung shows that Madison's idea comes from Esprit des lois: « ... il n'y a qu'un ange qui puisse avoir tant d'attention, tant de lumières, tant de fermeté, tant de connoissances; et on peut à peine se flatter que, d'ici à la dissolution des monarchies, il puisse y avoir un prince et des ministres pareils » (*). Of course, Madison quotes Montesquieu no less than five times in Federalist No. 47: "The oracle who is always consulted and cited on this subject is the celebrated Montesquieu". He wasn't, however, discussing men and angels in No. 47, but the separation of powers. (I have more examples of Madison's borrowings from French sources).

(*) Esprit des Lois, V.11. There are many books with the title If Men were Angels, including Richard K. Matthew's work on Madison If Men Were Angels. James Madison and the Heartless Empire of Reason. University Press of Kansas, 1995.

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[2] The Crown, episode 4, season 1. I'm so bookish that I'm not really into Netflix series. The Crown, however, is (so far) proving to be a shining exception. As I watched espisode No. 4 of Season 1, I was reminded of what Alexander Thiele calls « das monarchische Prinzip » (*). It's December 1952. The so-called 'Deadly Fog' plunges London into a terrible health crisis, with thousands of deaths from respiratory diseases. The ageing PM Winston Churchill seems completely out of touch with the gravity of the situation. Now comes the interesting part. (Although I have read some of WSC's books, I don't know much about his performance in 1952).

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The young queen Elizabeth II faces a constitutional dilemma: should she ask the PM to step down? And if so, on what grounds? Her advisors' main argument is that the PM is plainly incapacitated to hold the reins of government. It is an extraordinary situation—and the monarch has to act. Eventually, the fog dissipates, just as Churchill takes note of the severity of the crisis. The weak, but very important, form of the monarchical principle is at work here. The UK monarch has a role to play in the (unlikely) event of a power vacuum. And people would instinctively trust the king or queen as a consensus-builder, as someone capable of bringing a sense of calm in the midst of chaos. There would be no need for a strong 'popular', demagogic leader.

Critics say that the monarchy is too expensive. But ask yourself the question—would you rather have a Chávez or a Putin deal with a power vacuum? Or would you instead pay attention to what the representative of a well-established monarchy has to say?

(*) Alexander Thiele. Der konstituierte Staat. Eine Verfassungsgeschichte der Neuzeit (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2021).

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