The American experiment: Separation of powers

As America prepares for its 250^th birthday, it’s important to remember why we celebrate. The United States has a remarkable history of persevering, fighting for its ideals, and constantly pushing forward. But this wasn’t just by happenstance. The founders of this country had completely novel governing ideas. They experienced the oppression of British rule and looked to free their people from a tyrannical government.

One way to protect citizens from authoritarian rule is the constitutional concept of the separation of powers. This idea is widely considered to originate from the political thought of the Englishman John Locke, and was further developed by the French thinker Montesquieu.

In the U.S. Constitution, Article 1 creates the legislative branch, Article 2 creates the executive branch, and Article 3 creates the judicial branch.

The legislative branch includes 435 representatives and 100 senators from every corner of the country. From every state, there are two Senators and the proportionate number of representatives in relation to the state’s population. This is where the majority of the lawmaking action was intended to take place. The legislative branch holds the government’s purse strings, has the power to declare war, and has the duty of creating and passing legislation to further the flourishing of its citizens.

The executive branch is made up of the President and the cabinet members whom they choose. The President appoints judges and federal officers, commands the military, and conducts foreign policy. Its cabinet members include the heads of departments such as the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and the Secretary of Energy. They run their respective agencies and advise the President on policy decisions.

The judicial branch has the critical task of interpreting the law. It’s headed by the U.S. Supreme Court but also includes lower federal courts like the district and appellate levels. Marbury v. Madison confirmed the duty of judicial review and checking government power. It also resolves disputes between states. While the executive and legislative memberships can swing ideologically from election to election, the judicial branch is charged to stay neutral and interpret the law, regardless of the current political ramifications.

These three branches work together and in tandem with each other, but they also have the obligation to keep the others in line. The system of checks and balances establishes that no one branch has an edge over the others. The executive branch can veto laws made by the legislative, the legislative can override vetoes made by the executive, and the judiciary can strike down laws made by either. This model forces and promotes debate, oversight, and a strong justification of decisions. It may seem inefficient and slow, but that’s actually a feature of our form of government, not a bug.

The framers had a vision of limited government. James Madison famously wrote in Federalist 51:

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government that is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

This is exactly the genius that is the separation of powers and checks and balances placed into our greatest government document, the U.S. Constitution. These central ideas of the U.S. founding were novel at the time. The United States was the first national governmental system to implement a fully structured, enforceable concept of three coequal branches that check each other.

After America’s founding, Latin American countries followed suit in the 1800s, like Mexico and Brazil. France eventually came to a similar conclusion. Also notable, after World War 2, Germany built a constitutional system similar to the U.S. While they look slightly different in various countries, this system is now the standard in the modern developed world.

America’s founding was unique and distinctive in a plethora of ways. While other countries were ruled by kings and queens, the revolutionary founders chose a government by the people and for the people, with no authoritarian rule. It may now seem like the U.S is actually not all that different from other countries, but in reality, we trailblazed the way.

This is one of the many reasons why we celebrate our constitutional republic and its potential to be an inspirational example for all to see as a shining city on a hill.