Legal experts across the political spectrum expressed alarm when the U.S. Supreme Court, ruling on Donald Trump’s claims to “absolute immunity,” granted immunity to past and future presidents for “official acts,” broadly defined. For voters, this means that the moral character of presidential candidates is now, more than ever, an essential qualification. If they face no legal consequences for criminal overreach, only the ballot box results will constrain them—we hope.
This is not new, but it is problematic. In the 18th century, as democratic revolutions undergirded by Enlightenment principles allowed newly-empowered citizens to introduce democratic principles, they worried about the character of their rulers and emphasized the importance of public virtue—political leaders who put the public good before personal gain.
However, they soon discovered that relying on the integrity of their leaders, unconstrained by effective laws, was a dangerous thing. Unchecked power allows even leaders of good character to cross legal boundaries in pursuit of outcomes they favor, sometimes with damaging or even devastating results. Convinced that their motives are pure, they see the means as justified.
The French grappled with this issue in the wake of revolution in 1789 as they worked on a new constitution, based on principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Steeped in the language of philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, their new polity’s founding document, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, touted a government whose sovereignty resided in the nation and whose laws represented the “general will”—that is, the common good. How best to determine the general will was an open question, but most agreed that only men willing to set aside their private interests and rule in the interest of all could effectively implement it.
Read More: Supreme Court Rules Trump and Former Presidents Have Some Immunity for Official Acts
The first iteration of the French constitution, ratified in 1791, was a constitutional monarchy rather than a republic, leaving the king, Louis XVI, as the chief executive. However, French citizens and members of the Legislative Assembly suspected he was undercutting the constitution and deemed him not sufficiently committed to the good of the nation. And so, the people of Paris—represented by the Paris Commune—overthrew the monarchy on Aug. 10, 1792 and legislators created the French Republic a month later.
Faced with internal dissent and war with other European nations, the new government, the National Convention, vested broad governing authority in the Committee of Public Safety, which was charged with protecting the new republic against domestic and foreign enemies. Newly created laws conferred more power and less accountability for this work. The Law of 14 Frimaire (Dec. 4, 1793) assigned executive power to the Committee of Public Safety in matters of internal administration and police, which created a dictatorship. The Law of 22 Prairial (June 10, 1794) removed all legal safeguards for those accused of being “enemies of the people.”
Their efforts resulted in the bloody year of revolutionary tribunals and executions known as the Terror, led by men like Maximilien Robespierre. A member of the Committee of Public Safety, Robespierre was considered so virtuous that he was nicknamed “The Incorruptible.” Robespierre believed that the new republic must be based on the general will as discerned by righteous leaders like him. Convinced of his own probity and the purity of his motives, Robespierre believed that he represented the will of the virtuous French people; he was closely allied with the working-class people of the Paris Commune.
But this led to a dangerous dynamic because Robespierre and other members of the Committee of Public Safety were empowered to determine how best to govern and purify the republic of those they deemed insufficiently virtuous. Because they were largely unrestrained by laws, they could remove challenges to their authority with chilling efficiency.
This unconstrained power and willingness to use it eventually turned inward. Tensions between Robespierre and his allies and other members of the National Convention boiled over as it became clear that he planned to eliminate them next. This group of representatives came together to arrest Robespierre and his allies on 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794) and guillotined them the next day.
The experience of the Terror led French legislators to construct a new government in which it would be impossible for a “virtuous” dictatorship backed by the Parisian Commune—or, in their view, a “mob”—to regain control.
However, rather than a system with strong legal institutions and constraints on executive power, the Constitution of Year III relied on the probity of its voters and representatives. It restricted the franchise so that only well-to-do men could vote or hold office, thus making sure that the “mob,” the low-paid workers who had supported Robespierre, did not have a political voice. It also vested significant power in its five executive Directors. Those writing the new constitution determined that men of substance, the wealthy, could be counted on to vote for men of good character who would end the chaos in the country and protect the interests of the propertied classes.
Read More: In Bid for Immunity, Trump Distorts the History of His Second Impeachment
However, the new government proved that elite class status is no guarantee of public virtue. Known as the Directory, it is widely considered one of the most corrupt governments in French history. And with neither effective legal safeguards on the Directory’s authority nor consequences for abusing it, the Directory was willing to act extra-judicially to maintain its power. When the legislative elections of spring 1797 favored resurgent monarchists, three members of the Directory annulled the results and arrested those opposing their actions in what was called the coup of Fructidor (Sept. 1797). They meddled with election results again in April 1798 in the coup of Floréal.
They justified such democratic abuses in the name of protecting the young republic against both reactionary royalists and radical Jacobins. But their behavior demonstrated to a young general Napoleon Bonaparte that neither the law nor respect for the constitution would impede his own overthrow of the government, which took place on Nov. 9, 1799.
Writing for the majority in Trump’s immunity case, Chief Justice John Roberts privileged a bold executive, unhampered by concern for future legal consequences, afforded “maximum ability to deal fearlessly and impartially” with his duties. Roberts seems to envision a president of high moral character, who will act in the best interests of the country. However, the Supreme Court has set us on a dangerous path, even if future presidents demonstrate the public virtue Trump lacks. As the case of the French Revolution demonstrates, even individuals of integrity with a desire to govern in accordance with the common good can go astray. The ability to exercise and maintain raw power is dangerously seductive, and future American presidents will pay little price for criminal overreach. We now lack the legal tools to do anything about it, which means that our options for holding a corrupt president accountable are bleak.
Christine Adams, a former American Council for Learned Societies and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation fellow at the Newberry Library, is professor of history at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and author of The Creation of the French Royal Mistress with Tracy Adams.
Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.
