You probably learned in elementary school that the Founding Fathers just sat down in a sweaty room in Philadelphia and invented the American government from scratch. It’s a nice story. It makes for great oil paintings. But honestly, it’s not exactly true. If you’re asking who came up with checks and balances, you aren’t looking for one name, but rather a long, messy chain of thinkers who were terrified of one thing: human nature.
People are greedy. We want power. James Madison knew it, and he wasn't the first.
The concept didn’t just pop into existence in 1787. It was a slow-motion car crash of political experiments spanning over two thousand years. From the dusty streets of Rome to the rainy libraries of France, the idea that "ambition must be made to counteract ambition" was built brick by brick.
The Ancient Roots: Polybius and the Roman "Mixed" Government
Long before the United States was even a glimmer in a colonist's eye, a Greek historian named Polybius was obsessed with why some empires fell while others thrived. He looked at Rome. At the time, Rome wasn't an empire yet; it was a Republic. Polybius noticed that they had basically combined three different types of government into one weird, functioning machine.
They had the Consuls (who acted like kings), the Senate (the aristocrats), and the Assemblies (the regular people).
Polybius realized that if you only have a king, he becomes a tyrant. If you only have the rich in charge, they become a corrupt oligarchy. If the mob rules, you get chaos. By smashing them together, Rome created a system where each group stayed in its lane because the other two were watching them like hawks. This is the earliest recognizable version of who came up with checks and balances in a practical, state-wide sense.
It wasn't perfect. Rome eventually collapsed into an empire anyway, but the blueprint was filed away in the archives of history for centuries.
Montesquieu: The French Baron Who Changed Everything
Fast forward to 1748. A French philosopher named Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu—let’s just call him Montesquieu—published The Spirit of the Laws. This is the big one. This is the book that the American Founders basically treated like a Bible.
Montesquieu was obsessed with the British system, or at least his idealized version of it. He argued that "constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it."
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Basically, he thought humans were incapable of handling absolute authority without becoming jerks.
His solution was the "tripartite" system. He was the guy who explicitly said you need three branches: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. He believed these three powers had to be separate and independent. If the person making the laws is also the person enforcing the laws, you’re toast. Liberty dies.
When people ask who came up with checks and balances, Montesquieu is the answer that earns you the most points on a history exam. He didn't just suggest it; he codified it into a political philosophy that justified why it was necessary for freedom.
Why the Founders Were So Paranoid
So, why did the American Founders care so much? You have to remember they had just finished a messy divorce with King George III. They were traumatized. They didn't want a king, but they also didn't want a "tyranny of the majority" where 51% of the people could just vote to take away the property of the other 49%.
James Madison is the MVP here. In Federalist No. 51, he laid out the logic that still governs the U.S. today.
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary," Madison wrote. But we aren't. We’re selfish. So, Madison and the other delegates at the Constitutional Convention took Montesquieu’s ideas and turned them into a high-stakes game of Rock-Paper-Scissors.
- The President can veto a law passed by Congress.
- Congress can override that veto if they get enough votes.
- The Supreme Court can declare that law unconstitutional.
- The President appoints the judges, but the Senate has to approve them.
It’s a circle of constant frustration. And that’s the point. The system was designed to be slow. It was designed to make it hard to get anything done unless there was a massive consensus. If you’ve ever been annoyed that the government seems stuck in gridlock, congratulations—you’re experiencing the system working exactly how Madison intended.
The British Influence and the Magna Carta
We can't ignore the British. Even though the Americans were fighting them, they stole most of their best ideas from them. The Magna Carta in 1215 was a huge step. It was basically a bunch of angry barons telling King John, "Hey, you can't just throw us in jail because you're having a bad day." It established that the King was not above the law.
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By the time the 1689 Bill of Rights rolled around in England, the idea of a Constitutional Monarchy was in full swing. The King had to share power with Parliament. This "balanced" government was the environment the American Founders grew up in. They didn't invent the wheel; they just took the British wheel and added more spokes so it wouldn't wobble so much.
Misconceptions: It’s Not Just "Separation of Powers"
People often use "separation of powers" and "checks and balances" interchangeably. They aren't the same thing.
Separation of powers is just the act of dividing the government into branches. Checks and balances are the specific tools those branches use to mess with each other. For example, the fact that the President is the Commander-in-Chief of the military is "separation of powers." The fact that only Congress can actually declare war and fund the military is a "check."
Without the "check," the "separation" is just a polite suggestion.
The Iroquois Confederacy: A Surprising Influence?
There is a long-standing and often heated debate about how much the Iroquois Confederacy (the Haudenosaunee) influenced the American system. In 1988, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution acknowledging that the confederation of the original five Iroquois nations served as a model for the U.S. Constitution.
The Iroquois had a sophisticated system where different tribes handled different responsibilities, and there were clear processes for removing leaders who weren't doing their jobs. While most historians agree that Montesquieu and British law were the primary sources, the "Great Law of Peace" of the Iroquois certainly provided a living example of a functional democratic confederacy right in the Founders' backyard.
Real-World Examples of the System in Action
Think about the Watergate scandal. President Nixon tried to use executive privilege to hide tapes that incriminated him. The Supreme Court stepped in and said, "No, you can't do that." Then Congress started the impeachment process. Nixon resigned because he knew the "checks" were about to crush him.
Or look at more recent history with executive orders. A President might sign an order to change immigration policy, but a federal judge in a different state can issue an injunction to stop it immediately. Then the Supreme Court eventually has to settle the tie-break.
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It's messy. It's loud. It involves a lot of lawyers.
How to Apply These Principles Today
Understanding who came up with checks and balances isn't just a history lesson. It’s a framework for how to manage any organization. If you run a business or a non-profit, you can apply these same "Madisonian" principles to prevent fraud and burnout.
Audit your own life or business:
- Split the money and the oversight: Never let the person who writes the checks be the same person who audits the books. This is a classic "separation of powers" move.
- Encourage "Productive Friction": In meetings, assign someone to be the "Devil's Advocate." Their sole job is to check the power of the majority opinion.
- Transparency as a Check: The Founders believed an informed public was the ultimate check on government power. In a company, open-book management serves as a check on executive overreach.
The world is full of people who think they have the best ideas and should be allowed to implement them without any pushback. But history—and the people like Montesquieu and Madison who studied it—tells us that even the best intentions turn sour without a little bit of healthy opposition.
Checks and balances aren't about stopping progress. They're about making sure that when we do move forward, we don't accidentally walk off a cliff.
Moving Forward: Digging Deeper
If you want to really understand the DNA of our modern world, don't stop here. Pick up a copy of The Federalist Papers, specifically No. 10 and No. 51. They are surprisingly readable if you ignore the 18th-century "thees" and "thous."
You should also look into the works of John Locke. While Montesquieu gave us the structure, Locke gave us the reason—the idea that government only exists to protect our natural rights of life, liberty, and property.
When you see a government shutdown or a Supreme Court ruling that makes you angry, try to see the gears turning. It’s a 2,000-year-old machine designed to keep us free by keeping us frustrated with one another. It’s not a bug; it’s the feature.
Next Steps for the History Buff:
- Read Montesquieu’s "The Spirit of the Laws" (Book XI is where the gold is).
- Research the Virginia Plan vs. the New Jersey Plan to see how the Great Compromise created the ultimate check: the bicameral legislature.
- Track a current Supreme Court case to see which branch is currently "checking" the others.