Is responsibility a new commitment of the power ?

Today a paper says:

"The word that seems to matter most to Obama is "responsibility."(TWP).

Congratulations Mr. B.O. !, but it is not new:

In a Republic it is a natural consequence of the acts of the members of the power, since the Roman Republic, at least, but much more since 1789.

Otherwise, we´d be living in the times of the Absolutism: "The State is me", according to a famous quotation of a big king of France(*).

In the last times we have seen that not all the acts of the power, even the most trascendent for the people -as war and business regulations-, were a trouble for the men who should be asked: "Why?" and "What for?" were done such acts of the power in a republic as the US are.

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(*) Louis XIV, King of France, 1638-1715.