that keeps a check on power within the federal government by balancing power throughout the three branches of the federal government. Another measure that is used to achieve the same type of control of power is the multiple levels of relationship between the states and the federal government. One such element was the fact that a president could receive no compensation from the U.S. other than his salary, “The delegates could not resist tinkering with the document. The power to appoint the treasurer, for instance, was taken from Congress and given to the president, which neatened up the separation of powers. And a clause was inserted forbidding the president to receive any emolument other than his salary from the United States, which foreclosed the possibility of individual states vying with each other to buy the chief executive’s favor,” (Mee, 1987: 272).
The combined efforts of John Hay, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison were responsible for the ratification of the constitution, in part from their efforts of lobbying for support through a group of newspaper articles called The Federalist. In The Federalist Papers, No. 47, we see the founding father’s fear of the abuse of power and worried over the tyranny which it resulted in (tyranny they had been familiar with under Kingship), “the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny…the preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct,” (Cigler and Loomis, 1992: 36).
The separation of powers is necessary because it protects the people from abusive power by the people elected to represent their interests. It does this because of a two-fold system of checks and balances within the design of the constitution. At the same tim...