Founding Fathers sought limits on executive power from president

Editor:

Teaching U. S. History and Government for twenty-nine years left me with an appreciation for what the Founding Fathers were risking with the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution. Added to that was a fair understanding of what they were attempting to achieve later with the Constitution. My guess is that those 16- and 17-year-old high school juniors must have gotten the impression that the federal Constitution was something quite special.

The Founders believed that a republican form of government with strict limits on executive power was possible. Articles 1, 2, and 3 called for three branches of government. Was it mere coincidence that those articles laid out the branches in the order that the Constitution does? Why did the Founders provide so many ways for the executive’s powers to be limited? That executive can even be removed from office peacefully before his, or her, term expires!

Perhaps history and experience told the creators of our representative democracy that an unfettered executive was to be guarded against.

You can be certain that the people who risked their lives to establish our governmental system outlined the branch of government they did in Article One because that branch was to be the first among equals and a cut above the other two.

As citizens of the masterpiece they created in the 18th century, we have a patriotic duty to defend it against all enemies foreign and domestic.

Sincerely yours,

Gary F. Kent

Albion