Checks and Balances

Posted by Roger Saunders May 27, 2008

Checks and Balances are an aspect of political science that promotes fairness for the majority of people. It had its beginning with the Magna Carta where the nobility (or Aristocrats) became a balance of power to the king. The idea was to make sure that not one person could become too powerful. This European Kingdom used the Magna Carta as a foundation to develop into the constitutional monarchy under which England was run. This consisted of the King, House of Lord's and the House of Commons.

The American Revolution provided Americans a chance to apply this theory and practice to a very old form of government which had not been used extensively in any country for almost 2000 years. It was called "republican". This was not the political party but it simply meant that the government would be run for the good of the public by being represented by the public. Its initial experiment in America was performed as 13 separate colonies each created their own constitution.

These documents were influenced heavily by John Adam's instructions from the Continental Congress. Each of the Constitutions were republican in nature and most of them were explicitely so. It was the pride of each of these representatives governents to call themselves republican. The theory of checks and balances was not applied to the federal government until 1789 when the constitution was created. It put three branches of government into play which were the Executive (President), the Judicial (Supreme Court) and the Legislative (Congress, including the Senate and the House of representatives).