Separation of Powers

The purpose of this paper is to show how the separation of powers helps to make the U.S. Constitution work. One of the key principles of the U.S. Constitution that has helped it to endure for two hundred years is the separation of powers of the three branches of government - executive, legislative, and judiciary. The first section of Article I vests "all legislative powers" in Congress, while Articles II and III vest executive and judicial powers in the President and the courts, respectively. Each branch of the federal government has its own area of responsibility and is restrained from encroaching on the power of the other two branches. By separating the functions of executive, judiciary, and legislative branches, the Framers of the Constitution hoped to reduce the abuses of official power and restrain the government from infringing on the rights of the people.

The three branches are separated not only by function - making the law, administering the law, and enforcing the law - but also by the procedures by which their offices are filled. The President and members of Congress are elected by separate electoral processes for terms specified in the Constitution. Thus a President, annoyed at a member of Congress, cannot have that person removed from office or change the term that he or she is to serve. Congress cannot, except by a difficult impeachment process, remove the President from office. The judiciary, while appointed by the President and approved by Congress,

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ned from passing the limits assigned to it" (The Federalist, 1945, p. 331). The Constitution marks the boundaries between the three departments, which Madison called "parchment barriers against the encroaching spirit of power" (The Federalist, p. 331). But, argued Madison, this security is not an adequate defense against the more powerful members of government encroaching on the powers of the weaker members. Madison reminded his critics that in a republican form of government such as the one being proposed by the U.S. Constitution, the dangers from the exercise of legislative power are just as great as the danger from a king or queen in an absolute monarchy. Madison cautioned us that "it is against the enterprising ambition [of the legislature] that the people ought to indulge all their jealousy and exhaust all their precautions" (The Federalist, p. 332). In Federalist Paper No. 51, Madison proposed that this defect could be corrected by "so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places." In a government administered by "men over men," Madison pointed out that "you first must enable the gover

Category: Government - S