Last Best Hope of Earth

Tag: Executive Branch

  • Constitution Sunday: “Publius,” The Federalist XLVIII [James Madison]

    New-York Packet

    February 1, 1788

    James Madison, under the pseudonym Publius, wrote about the system of checks and balances housed in the draft Constitution—and how fragile they are. Those checks and balances are “a mere demarkation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments”—those departments being the legislative, executive, and judicial. And the demarkation of those limits was “not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.”

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  • Constitution Sunday: Answers to Mason’s “Objections”: “Marcus” [James Iredell] II

    Answers to Mason’s “Objections”: “Marcus” [James Iredell] II

    Norfolk and Portsmouth Journal (Virginia), February 27, 1788

    Following are excerpts from James Iredell’s responses to George Mason’s “Objections” to the Constitution:

    “IVth. Objection. The Judiciary of the United States is so constructed and extended, as to absorb and destroy the Judiciaries of the several States (more…)