Where did the founders get the idea of the rule of law?

0:06Aristotle, who lived about 350 years before Christ, was a student of Plato's. He attended Plato's Academy, of course, Plato is in a certain sense the founder of philosophy. He was a student in a certain sense, in an informal sense of the itinerant gadfly Socrates, who was killed for asking too many questions, making a nuisance of himself, asking questions about what is justice, what is truth, what is right, how do you distinguish right from wrong on the streets of Athens. Aristotle was a student of Plato, and when it came to political philosophy, probably the largest contribution that Aristotle made that would have been considered important by the American founders was the importance of the rule of law. That people be ruled by pre-existing rules. That

1:02they'd be governed in line with rules that they had been told about, rules that had been promulgated that were more or less clear and understandable, that were non-retroactive, that were prospective. In other words, not retroactive or retrospective. Laws that were general and not made up for specific cases and it could be manipulated and applied selectively or anything like that. Aristotle really was the first great theorist of the rule of law. Now, as with so many things, he's picking up leads here from his teacher Plato, but we get the first really systematic, I think, a treatment of the rule of law. For Jefferson and the American founders, the rule of law is fundamental.

1:44You do not get Republican government without the rule of law. The rule of law is the precondition of Republican government. Now, what does it mean to have the rule of law, it means not to be ruled by arbitrary eat it. The opposite of the rule of law is arbitrary rule. The king just decides, or whoever the desk spot is, the dictator decides. You know what? I don't like what Jefferson just said. Knock on his door at two in the morning and haul them off, put them in jail. When Jeff says, well, what crime did I commit? Tell them the one that I just designated, the one that I just made up speaking against the king or whatever the offense, whatever it was that offended the King. I think here, Aristotle is a very crucial figure because he's right there at

2:32the beginning when people were first thinking systematically about what are the conditions of just government. There can be different forms of government, monarchy, aristocracy, democracy. But for any system of government to be just, the rule of law has to be in place.