“Can we possibly suppose that if Governments had originated in a right principal, and had not an interest in pursuing a wrong one, the world could have been in the wretched and quarrelsome condition we have seen it?”
Thomas Paine believed in the tendency of concentrated power to corrupt and that the power of any government should be derived from those governed.
In his day, more revolutionary than the war between the American colonies and Britain was the government born out of that conflict. A government for the people, by the people was eventually hammered out at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in order to form a more perfect Union
It can be argued, I believe, that herein lies the true American Revolution. But of course, the devil is in the details.
It was a long, hot summer, and what came out of the Philadelphia State House was a document that, as close as any produced by Mankind, brings the high ideals set forth eleven years earlier in Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence down to brass tacks. Okay, this is how we’re going to do this
The cornerstone of reigning in unchecked power is the concept of spreading it around, through a three-pronged government built on the concept of checks and balances.
It is not only the right, but the duty, of each branch of government to check the power of the other two. Otherwise, we can but remember the words of Thomas Paine.
The President is Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces (and, incidentally, only of the armed forces, and not of the citizenry in general), and executes the laws of the United States. Congress writes those laws, holds the purse strings and conducts oversight on the executive. The judiciary interprets the law and insures that the Constitution is at all times upheld.
It is only through diligent adherence to the idea and practice of checks and balances that any government can stay true to the principals of the American Experiment. When any one branch of government flags in their duty, or strives to reinterpret the law to serve their own grasp for more power, then the experiment is in jeopardy
And what of the people? This is, after all, a government for and by the people. It is incumbent upon every citizen, therefore, to do their part in assuring the balance of power.
Apathy and distraction from a citizenry too complacent to bother are sure to find themselves one day under the thumb of oppression, incompetence, and unresponsive rule for which they can do little but wish they had paid closer attention while they still had a chance.