Making Government Control Itself: Checks and Balances

The American Revolutionaries were understandably distrustful of government. They were familiar with both ancient and recent history, and believed that governments were prone to abuse their powers and deprive citizens of their freedom. After successfully rebelling from British tyranny, they confronted the task of creating a form of government that would not degenerate into a tyranny. Although they foresaw this as a difficult task, they also considered it an opportunity to create a new type of society, one in which citizens' freedoms would be protected. If they could somehow devise a form of government that could be prevented from abusing its authority, they might create a society truly new in human history.

James Madison, the principal author of the American Constitution, knew that creating a strong, successful government that would not become too strong at citizens' expense was an extremely difficult balance to strike. As he put it, "The chief difficulty lies in this: one must first enable the government to control the governed. Secondly, one must also oblige the government to control itself." Madison, like most of the Framers, believed that citizens must provide the most important check on government's abuse of power, but he also sought to create a form of government that would actually regulate and limit itself. In order to prevent their new government from becoming too strong, the Framers built several mechanisms to limit government's power into their new Constitution, creating a government with three branches, each of which had a distinct role to play. This is the idea of separation of powers. Each branch also had some power to limit the actions of the other two. This is the idea of checks and balances. In response to the Framers' fears of government, the government of the United States is actually designed to be inefficient, so that it is less likely to become too powerful or be able to deprive citizens of their liberties.