Writing an essay on the three branches was the first idea that popped into my head because in school we always hear about how Montesquieu was responsible for the idea of “separation of powers” and “checks and balances” but I was curious about the other factors that influenced the United States of America into deciding it was how we should run our government too. I realized just this year that we didn’t always have three branches and it led me to wonder more about them. Why does it have to be three branches? When did our country make the switch? Why did our country make the switch? This paper discusses what type of government uses this kind of organization, when the idea of the three branches was introduced to our country, Montesquieu and his …show more content…
Preventing a government that it hard to regain back for the people is a major part of that. Implementing the three branches ensures that our country stays free and democratically free to the people. John Adams wrote a letter to Henry Lee (a delegate to the Second Continental Congress from Virginia) to help convince the state of Virginia to join in the fight for independence against Great Britain in 1775. He said this, “A Legislative, an eExecutive and a judicial Power, comprehend the whole of what is meant and understood by Government. It is by balancing each of these Powers against the other two, that the Effort in human Nature toward Tyranny can alone be checked and restrained and any degree of Freedom preserved in the Constitution.”. For example, if we had a president with unchecked powers, he could bend all the current laws and completely change the layout of the country. He would control all aspects of citizen’s lives and that much power shouldn’t belong in anyone’s hands. That goes for a court system as well, where it would be a terrible thing if none of the courts had a uniform national interpretation of the law from the Supreme Court, or there weren’t courts at all to settle disputes from people. Or imagine if Congress not only made laws but had the right to pass any bill with no one else’s approval. In the US government, every branch has its own role and job but can be checked and limited by the other two. All to prevent them from being the sole people in charge of governing the country. Clear cut roles help the system work smoothly so there
doc C. -. So they made three branches to balance the power out. One branch does not have all the power. Legislative branch can approve things from the other two branches. That rule goes with the other two branches.
In conclusion this is why tyranny and federalism, separation of power, checks and balances and big and small states all mean that they are important to know also the branches are a big part especially in the separation of
To start out with, the constitution divided power so no one branch or person had complete power over the nation or others. In document B it states, ¨Liberty requires that the three departments of power are distinct and separate.¨ This means that in order to prevent and guard against tyranny we must have different and separate branches holding power if there is only one or they are too similar that could create a small group with close to complete power creating a tyranny. Power must be separated into three branches so that they may check and limit each other so that no laws are passed that will harm the nation and are unconstitutional. The three branches are very separate but can
The separation of powers keeps any one branch from gaining too much power by creating 3 separate, distinct branches power can be shared equally among. According to Madison, “Liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct.”(Document B) In other words, to avoid tyranny and achieve liberty, the three branches of government (executive, legislative, and judicial) must be separate and diverse. The purpose of a separation of powers is to divide the powers of the government so there is not only one central source of power. The three branches must be as distinct as possible to avoid falling into the hands of one individual leader. There are also checks and balances between these three branches. Checks and balances are a system of each branch monitoring an...
separation of powers, which means that the government is separated into separate branches so that they can spread out the power so that one branch of government can have more pull in what happen in the decisions made for the well-being of the country. One way that the documents show the way that the constitution uses the separation of powers to guard against tyranny is when it has the people in the government that make the largest decisions able to serve for a term of only a few years. The separation of powers protects against tyranny because it makes sure that one branch of government can be more powerful and have more say than another so that there can 't be any tyranny. This means that the Legislative Branch should be completely different from the Executive or the Judicial Branch. This would separate all the powers needed into three separate parties. The different branches could have different viewpoints to make sure that almost everyone is pleased with the government. This may prevent tyranny by making people not want to try to take over the government because they think it is in good hands and the three branches of government are hard to take over, since there are three whole branches. In conclusion, the Constitution, may protect us from tyranny in this
The three branches of the federal government is the Legislative, Judicial, and the Executive branch. According to the federalist papers, the Legislative branch is the strongest branch since they enact laws, therefore, by cutting the legislative branch in half by creating a Senate and a House of representatives, it makes the separation of powers more of a level playing field. Furthermore, the Judicial branch is considered the weakest out of the three since it has "...no influence over either the sword or the purse... can take no active resolution whatever... neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must... depend upon the aid of the executive arm... for... judgments” (Hamilton, Federalist 78) This means that it has no monetary or military power and that it relies directly on the legislative and executive branches to follow their rulings which makes sure that the government does not have too much power individually. Therefore, since it is the weakest branch, the court has the power of judicial review, which is the ability to decide whether acts by the other branches are constitutional or not (Hamilton, Federalist 78). Furthermore, one should not be concerned about the use of excess of power since according to Hamilton these are good people who aren’t influenced by outside sources other than the constitution. The separation of these three branches creates a system of checks and balances in which each individual form of government is independent of one another and is able to ensure that each other do not step out of line (Hamilton, Federalist
Montesquieu states “government should be set up so that no man need be afraid of another”. From this doctrine American Political Philosophers derived the separation of powers into the Executive, Judicial, and Legislative branches. Montesquieu’s presentation of the branches of government were adopted into American political documents upon their creation. The idea that there wasn’t one governing body, but three was unheard of. Most occupants of the new “America” came from England a country ruled by a King. Therefore making it a Monarchy where a single family is seen as divine and ordained by God to be the ruler over that country. The power is passed down generation to generation and each firstborn son is then placed in power after his father. So, the idea of having a government that does not just depend on one family, but many different persons to run it was not a common philosophy. But, the writers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights thought that this would be a new and honorable way to run their fledgling country. So thus, the Democratic Republic of the United States was born. Designating the three branches with their own roles in society guaranteed that no one branch would have more power that the others, but it would just have different powers. The three branches are like a triangle. They balance eachother out and support each
When the framers of our revered Constitution came together to produce our governing system, they wanted to avoid the precedent of an all powerful entity that could control its citizens. They broke governments role into three important phases, which were the power to make laws, the power to interpret laws, and the ability to enforce them. To further decentralize these authority holding organizations, they created a system that allowed each of the three sections to have a say in each of the others ability to exercise said authority. This organization of overlapping power is referred to as a checks and balances system and was intended to create three equal powers to govern the United States. Over the years since its creation the initially equal powers have become unbalanced, but to understand how the scales have been tipped, one must understand each branches powers that allow them to carry out their mission, the powers that they have to balance out the other two branches, and the circumstances that have led to a change in the power equation.
"This inquiry will naturally divide itself into three branches- the objects to be provided for by a federal government, the quantity of power necessary to the accomplishment of those objects, the persons whom that power ought to operate," writes Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist #23 in reference to the separation of powers. The basic concept here is the idea of the federal government being divided into three separate branches that would balance excessive democracy through a system of checks on each other. The three branches, respectively known as the legislature (Article I), the executive (Article II), and the judiciary (Article III), were designed to entice the opponents of the Co...
The founding fathers of the American Constitution divided the government up into the following three branches to prevent the majority from ruling with an iron fist; legislative, judicial, and executive. The three braches were created by the Constitution: Article 1, Legislative branch made up of the House and the Senate, collectively known as Congress; Article 2, Executive branch, or President; Article 3, Judicial branch, made up of the federal courts and the Supreme Court. This was done in efforts to distribute power amongst the three so that one would not have more power than the other. Each branch has the ability to check the power of the other branches. This power check of the other branches is referred to as the checks and balances, better known as the Separation of Powers. This was to prevent tyriny.
At the Constitutional Convention, the framers set out to develop a form of government stronger than a confederation; it could not be unitary though, otherwise the states would not ratify it. They borrowed ideas from both of these forms of government to form a federal republic. Once federalism was decided upon to unify the states without constraining them, the next step in developing a lasting constitution was creating a separation of powers. James Madison wrote in The Federalist, No. 47, "No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty, than that ... the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands ... may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."2 The framers ingeniously wove into the Constitution three ways to ensure a clear separation of powers among the three branches of government. First, the leaders in the different branches come to power in
Within the Federal Government there are three main branches; “the Legislative, the Judicial, and Executive” (Phaedra Trethan, 2013). They have the same basic shape and the same basic roles were written in the Constitution in 1787.
The basic idea between the creation of the three branches is based upon “checks and balances.” No branch should become so powerful that it over-takes either of the other branches. This also brings out the point that neither one of these branches, nor any person holding office in one of them, can exercise power belonging to either of the others. The legislative branch creates the laws, the judicial branch reviews the law, and then the executive branch enforces the laws. All three branches are interrelated, each branch overlaps but serves separate purposes.
Prior to this, Montesquieu published his most famous piece of literature, The Spirit of the Laws, in 1748 which first introduced this idea. Montesquieu declared, “In every government there are three sorts of power; the legislative; the executive, in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive, in regard to things that depend on the civil law.” (Halsall). His focal point in creating these three branches were to create a society that would defend citizens’ rights and not lead to oppression. Not only were these branches created to prevent overpowering authorities, but also to ease the management of a country. Just like quoted above, each branch has a specific task to follow, by dividing the duties into the executive, legislative and judicial bodies, governance becomes more efficient. The American government utilized this concept into the Constitution which is still practiced today. Moreover, the separation of powers allows each branch to accomplish their tasks that would help the nation as a whole. According to the article, “Montesquieu”, the author argues “Montesquieu asserted that, in the state that most effectively promotes liberty, these three powers must be confided to different individuals or bodies, acting independently.” (Shackleton). Performing duties independently allows the
One of the biggest threats to a thriving country is a tyrannical government. To prevent this, the Founders declared that the power of the government must be separated. This principle, the Separation of Powers, states that, to prevent tyranny, one governmental branch cannot have supremacy over the country. The power must be divided among three branches. These are the executive, judicial, and legislative branches. The Separation of Powers is of equal importance now as when the Constitution was written because it prevents tyranny.