The men who established the new form of government created after the expulsion of Tarquinius adopted the theory of political checks and balances which we afterwards find exerting such a strong influence upon the framers of our American Constitution. It was necessary that at least a part of the powers formerly exercised by the king should be intrusted to some official under the new régime. The greatest efforts, however, were made to render it impossible for any Roman official to use the governmental powers granted him in such a manner as to secure for himself the kingly office. The mere provision that the highest official in the government should be elected, rather than succeed to the office by right of descent, was rightly judged to be by itself an insufficient protection against the seizure of supreme power by some Roman tyrant. A stronger safeguard was found in the division of the highest power in the state between two officials, who later came to be known as consuls. (The officers afterwards known as consuls were for a considerable period known as prætors; after the term consul came into use the name prætor at a still later period was given to the possessor of a new office created shortly after the passage of the Licinian Act.) The kingly power, or that part of it not absolutely abolished or given to the religious officials, was vested jointly in the two consuls, each possessing the full right to exercise all the functions of the office. Under this division of power each consul was considered a most effective check upon any ambition for a crown which might be possessed by the other. Another safeguard, a safeguard which unfortunately has recently been too much disregarded in the United States, consisted in the short term of office prescribed by the new law, the consuls and other Roman officials being elected for a term of one year only. While, as has been said, the consuls retained in general all the former powers of the king, still in some respects these powers were curtailed: 1. By the Valerian Law of 509 B.C. each person condemned by the consul to capital or corporal punishment was entitled to an appeal as a matter of right. It had previously been optional with the king whether to grant an appeal. 2. The consuls never possessed the various pecuniary rights of the kings, such as that of having the fields cultivated by the citizens. 3. The quæstors, who had previously been appointed or not by the king himself, as he saw fit, now became regular state officials.