Montesquieu outlined a system of checks and balances that would prevent one branch of goverment from dominating the others?

Montesquieu was the one that coined te term "checks and balances" and applied it but the Ancient Roman Republic used it first, the Roman Senate made up of the wealthy class was checked by the veto power Tribunes, who were charged with protecting the interests of the plebeians. In the Holy Roman Empire, the Church became a moral check against the absolute power of the temporal rulers. The Magna Carta was an agreement by which English Lords were able to check the absolute power of the King. Protestantism served as a check on the monopoly on spiritual power held by the Roman church.

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