Letters From The Editor
More Than Meets the Eye
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary,” observed James Madison, “the father of the Constitution.” Of course, men are not angels — and that includes those officials who are entrusted with the powers of government, including the police powers. So, what can be done — what must be done — to ensure that a government composed of flawed human beings protects the rights of the people it serves, as opposed to trampling the rights it is supposed to protect?
The American Founding Fathers’ approach to achieving good governance was not only to craft a written Constitution specifying those few powers the new national government may exercise, but to also provide a system of “checks and balances” among three branches.
Moreover, in our American system of government, powers were divided between the national government and state governments. As the 10th Amendment to the Constitution later explained, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” In fact, the government powers that were delegated to the U.S. government were those that could not be adequately handled at a lower level of government, such as national defense.
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