on all sides, that the powers properly belonging to one of
the departments ought not to be directly and completely administered
by either of the other departments. It is equally evident, that none of
them ought to possess, directly or indirectly, an overruling influence
over the others, in the administration of their respective powers. It
will not be denied, that power is of an encroaching nature, and that it
ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to
it. After discriminating, therefore, in theory, the several classes
of power, as they may in their nature be legislative, executive, or
judiciary, the next and most difficult task is to provide some practical
security for each, against the invasion of the others. What this
security ought to be, is the great problem to be solved.

Will it be sufficient to mark, with precision, the boundaries of these
departments, in the constitution of the government, and to trust to
these parchment barriers against the encroaching spirit of power? This
is the security which appears to have been principally relied on by the
compilers of most of the American constitutions. But experience assures
us, that the efficacy of the provision has been greatly overrated; and
that some more adequate defense is indispensably necessary for the
more feeble, against the more powerful, members of the government.
The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its
activity, and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.

The founders of our republics have so much merit for the wisdom which
they have displayed, that no task can be less pleasing than that of
pointing out the errors into which they have fallen. A respect for
truth, however, obliges us to remark, that they seem never for a moment
to have turned their eyes from the danger to liberty from the overgrown
and all-grasping prerogative of an hereditary magistrate, supported and
fortified by an hereditary branch of the legislative authority. They
seem never to have recollected the danger from legislative usurpations,
which, by assembling all power in the same hands, must lead to the same
tyranny as is threatened by executive usurpations.

In a government where numerous and extensive prerogatives are placed
in the hands of an hereditary monarch, the executive department is
very justly regarded as the source of danger, and watched with all the
jealousy which a zeal for liberty ought to inspire. In a democrac