Separation Of Powers Dbq Analysis

Before the Constitution was drafted, the United States’ budding government, now independent from Great Britain, acted under a dysfunctional constitution called the Articles of Confederation. Although this constitution kept the new nation running, there were still flaws that needed to be fixed. The Articles of Confederation lacked a developed executive or judicial branch and a method for the main government to collect taxes from state governments, according to the background essay of the DBQ Packet. An assembly of fifty-five men eventually gathered for a Constitutional Convention in order to write a new constitution that would better satisfy the people’s needs. The trouble of creating another constitution lied behind creating a document

that would run efficiently and benefit the people without turning the government into any form of tyranny.

According to James Madison, a tyranny is a government where single person or group owns an “accumulation of all power.” In response to the nation’s demanding need of a new constitution, the people of the Constitutional Convention worked rigorously in order to lead the nation in the direction of a nearly perfect government. Finally, in the year of 1787, a new constitution was ratified. As a result, the United States ran more effectively without becoming a tyranny, but a democracy. The question is, how did the Constitution prevent one person or group from owning too much power? The Constitution guarded against tyranny by listing, clarifying, and enforcing the ideas of federalism, separation of powers, checks and balances, and a large state-small state compromise.
Federalism is one principle mentioned in the Constitution that helps prevent tyranny. Federalism is another word for America’s compound government. James Madison quoted in Document A of the DBQ Packet, “’the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two separate governments…. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will each control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.’” Madison is explaining that the United States’ government is divided in two, which leads to the ideal of federalism. America’s government is split into a central government and state governments, each given their own powers. The two governments exist in order to provide, as Madison quoted, “double security.” There is no sole, all-powerful government, but two governments that share power and work side-by-side to benefit the people. As said before, each government owns its own set of powers, which he other can not interfere with, and a list of shared powers. For example, the central government prints money and regulates trade, while the state governments set up schools and hold elections. Both governments tax the people and provide them with a police force. Federalism guards against tyranny by splitting the United States’ government in two. Each government supports the other, and at the same time, works independently to carry out specific duties. Federalism ensures that a single government does not own complete authority over the country by splitting power among two groups.
Also mentioned in the Constitution in order to prevent tyranny is the idea of separation of powers.

Separation of powers means what it says. Power id distributed among the three branches of government: the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch. In Document B of the DBQ Packet, James Madison quotes, “’the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands… may be justly pronounced the very definition of tyranny…. (L)iberty requires that the three great departments should be separate and distinct.’” In other words, if one person or group owns too much power in a government, then they are considered a tyrant, whether the person (or group) who gained the power was elected into power, born into it, or declared themselves ruler. If the government was not divided into three branches and was only a single department, then too much power would be granted to that government, defying Madison’s ideals of a tyranny-free country. With the government split into different departments, each branch owns its own set of powers. The legislative branch creates laws, the executive branch administers the laws, and the judicial branch interprets laws. Separation of powers guards against tyranny because it helps prevent the development of a branch of government that may ratify, carry out, and portray laws as they wish. Power is distributed among branches ensuring that all offices play a role in the United States’

government.
A third safeguard against tyranny are checks and balances.