antage of such an opportunity to destroy a free government: but it would be madness in a legislator to frame his policy upon a supposition that such magnanimity would often appear. It is his business to contrive his plan in such a manner that such unlimited influence, confidence, and power, shall never be obtained by any man.” (Isaak 2004:100) Such worries compelled the framers to find a good way to establish a new government, thus separation of powers and a balanced government became a good choice.
Two political theorists had great influence on the creation of the Constitution. John Locke, an important British political philosopher, had a large impact through his Second Treatise of Government (1690). Locke argued that sovereignty resides in individuals, not rulers. A political state, he theorized, emerged from a social contract among the people, who consent to government in order to preserve their lives, liberties, and property. In the words of the Declaration of Independence, which also drew heavily on Locke, governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Locke also pioneered the idea of the separation of powers, and he separated the powers into an executive and a legislature. The French political philosopher Baron de Montesquieu, another major intellectual influence on the Constitution, further developed the concept of separation of powers in his treatise The Spirit of the Laws (1748), which was highly regarded by the framers of the U.S. Constitution. Montesquieu’s basic contention was that those entrusted with power tend to abuse it; therefore, if governmental power is fragmented, each power will operate as a check on the others. In its usual operational form, one branch of government (the legislative) is entrusted with making laws, a second (the executive) with executing them, and a third (the judiciary) with resolving disputes in accordance with the law.
Based on the theory of Baron de Montesquieu and John Locke, the framers carefully spelled out the independence of the three branc