Ep. 77 – Checks And Balances

After getting rid of a tyrannical king, our founders wanted to make sure no one could have that much power in America.
So, they split the power into three branches of government, each with a specific job do to. And, if they get out of line, the other branches can check them and balance things out.
Here's how it works.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Now this is the FCB Podcast Network. The greed Us solved the arany,
and they thought so we were America. Hello and welcome back to the Growing

(00:28):
Patriot Podcast. I'm your host AmeliaHamilton. When our founders were creating the
Constitution, they wanted to make surethey didn't make the same mistakes that had
led to the American Revolution. Asyou know, the big problem is that

(00:50):
there was one king who made allthe decisions and there wasn't much that ordinary
people could do about it. Theygot tired of not having their voices heard
and not being represented, so theydesigned America without one person at the top.
They created three parts or branches ofgovernment, and each of those branches
had equal power. They just diddifferent things. We call that checks and

(01:12):
balances because they check each other,which means they could slow down or even
stop something that another branch is tryingto do, and being able to do
that balances out the power. Thatmeans that each branch of government legislative,
executive, and judicial, gets powersto check the other branches and stop them
from becoming too powerful. For example, Congress, which is the legislative branch,

(01:36):
can make laws, but the presidentin the executive branch can veto the
laws, and that same president inthe executive branch has the power to veto,
but Congress, the legislative branch,can override that veto. Now,
Congress, the legislative branch, hasthe power to make laws, but the
courts, which is the judicial branch, can declare those laws unconstitutional. So

(01:59):
the each have different powers and theycan stop the others. That's such a
great idea, right, But whoseidea was it? Our old friend James
Madison. He created that plan todivide the federal government into those three branches,
legislative, executive, and judicial,and give each of them ways to
check and balance the others. Whenhe presented that plan at the seventeen eighty

(02:22):
seven Constitutional Convention, the other foundingfathers agreed it was the best way to
govern America. And that's one ofthe reasons he's known as the Founders of
the Constitution. James Madison wrote,the accumulation of all powers, legislative,
executive, and judicial, in thesame hands, whether of one, a
few, or many, and whetherhereditary, self appointed, or elective,

(02:46):
may justly be pronounced the very definitionof tyranny. That means that one person
or even one group of people.If they had all of the power,
we would have tyranny, which meansthat people in power are cruel or take
away your liberty. Whether they gotthat power by birth like kings and queens
do, or if they took thepower for themselves, or even if they

(03:07):
were elected and then acted that way, it's still tyranny. And remember,
our founding fathers were trying to protectfreedom, which meant preventing tyranny. That
was the main thing the Constitution wassupposed to do. But where did they
get that idea of separating powers?As with so many other things, they
looked to history. As early asthree fifty BC, that's thousands of years

(03:31):
ago, a Greek philosopher named Aristotlewrote that early every government, no matter
what kind, has three different jobsto do. The way that he put
it was the deliberative, the magisterial, and the judiciative. And those line
up with our three branches. Thelegislative which makes the laws, the executive
branch, which enforces the laws,and the judicial branch, which interprets the

(03:54):
laws. But Aristotle didn't say thatthe powers had to be split, just
said that those were the powers.It was a man named Montesquieu who wrote
about that in seventeen forty eight,and James Madison was a big fan of
Montesquieu. Here's what he wrote.When the legislative and executive powers are united

(04:14):
in the same person or in thesame body of magistrates, there can be
no liberty. Again, there isno liberty if the judiciary power not be
separated from the legislative and executive.That's a lot like what Madison wrote that
I read to you a minute ago. You can't be free if one person,
or even one group of people hasall of the power. It's also

(04:35):
important to remember there is another check, and that's the American people. Our
vote is another form of checking powerand keeping all three branches in line.
In the next few episodes, we'regoing to dig into each branch to find
out what they do, how theycheck each other, and how other branches
can check them too. But Iwanted to give you a little background on

(04:57):
how it all works. Until nexttime, thanks for listening to this episode
of the Growing Patriot Podcast. Inthe next few weeks, like I said,
we will be digging into each ofthese branches individually and finding out more.

(05:18):
In the meantime, you can findus at Growing Patriots dot com to
learn more about every episode, aswell as the Growing Patriot books, and
at Growing Patriots on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Thanks see you next
time. They read us all forjeary everything, and they thought so well

(05:45):
America. This has been a presentationof the FCP podcast Network, where Real
Talk Lives visits online FCP Podcasts dotcom