The Importance Of The Separation Of Powers

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.

The Separation of Powers was important to our Founders because the mistreatment of the power that the colonists gave to their leader was evident. The colonists preferred to avoid a similar occurrence in their new country, where they felt that their leaders were violating their rights. In one of James Madison’s Federalist Papers, it states that “the accumulation of all powers, legislative, judiciary, in the hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may be justly pronounced the very definition of tyranny…(L)iberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and

distinct.” This prompted the first three articles of the Constitution, stating that all legislative powers rest with the Congress, the executive power is vested in a President, and that the judicial powers are invested in the Supreme Court. The division of authority between these branches allows for the checks and balances system, in which one branch cannot take actions if the other two branches do not consider it to agree with the Constitution. This prevented a repetition of the government in England, where the king made himself judge, jury, and executioner. There was nothing to keep him from doing whatever he wished since there was no “checks and balances” system. Thus, to avoid recreating the tyrannical government of the country they had just left, it was important for our Founders to separate the authority given to the government among three distinct departments.
There are many issues in our country and government today that raise the importance of the Separation of Powers.

One example is the Attorney General’s office was caught spying on reporters, threatening the freedom of the press. This does not necessarily mean that the judicial branch is not sufficiently separated from the executive and judicial branches, but due to the separation of powers, checks and balances can be applied in this situation. Because the judicial branch took actions that violate American citizens’ constitutional rights by threatening the freedom of the press, the executive and legislative branches have the power to prevent the judicial branch from taking such actions again. They have the power to protect the rights of the people, and to protect the abuse of power by one branch of

government.
The “Separation of Powers” is used to prevent tyranny, both today and when the Constitution was written. This gives each branch of government a piece of the power, and prevents one branch from having the ability to take actions that may be unconstitutional.