# CHAPTER 50 — No One Council or Magistrate Should Be Capable of Blocking Legal Actions in Cities

When Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus and Cnaeus Julius Mento were consuls * in Rome, they blocked all the legal actions of that republic by being disunited. Realizing this, the senate supported the creation of a dictator to do what their disagreements prevented them from doing. But the consuls, disagreeing over everything else, were in agreement only in not wishing to create a dictator. Thus, finding no other remedy, the senate solicited the help of the tribunes, who with the authority of the senate forced the consuls to obey. Here it is necessary to note, first of all, the usefulness of the tribunate, which was useful not only in checking the ambition that the powerful displayed against the plebeians, but also the ambition they displayed among themselves; the second thing to be noted is that one should never create an institution that allows the few to make decisions concerning the laws that are normally necessary to maintain the republic. For example, if you give authority to a council to distribute honours and rewards, or to a magistrate to administer an affair, it is necessary either to force them to take action under all circumstances or to organize things so that, if they do not wish to act, someone else can and must do so; otherwise, this institution would be defective and dangerous, as it clearly was in Rome, had the stubbornness of those consuls not been opposed by the authority of the tribunes.

In the Venetian republic the Grand Council distributes honours and rewards. On occasion it has happened that the majority, either through contempt or some false belief, have failed to appoint successors for the magistrates of the city and for those who administer the city’s foreign dominions. This caused great disorder, because all at once both the subject territories and the city itself were without their legitimate judges; nor could anything be done about it if the majority of the council was either dissatisfied or deceived. This difficulty would have brought that city to a bad end had prudent citizens not made some provision for it; once they found the proper occasion, they passed a law which stipulated that all magistrates who served or had served inside the city or abroad could never vacate their offices until new appointments were made and their successors named. And so that council was deprived of the possibility of blocking with great danger the legal actions of the republic.