A review of “The War of 1812” (audiobook)

How did the War of 1812 begin? Why did we fight it? Was it worth fighting?

These are questions that people have asked ever since the war happened. These questions are not new, and people will continue to ask them for generations. But this audiobook is the best introduction to this subject that I have ever heard (or expect to hear). In particular, it explores the causes behind this controversial War of 1812. This is a complicated subject, but they help to make it a bit more understandable in their two and a half hours of presentation. The war has roots going back to the previous war, which was the American Revolution.

(Note: The picture above is somewhat inaccurate, as it shows images from the later Civil War, rather than the War of 1812.)

A review of “The Bill of Rights and Other Amendments” (audiobook)

“The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this constitution, or on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress … ”

– The United States Constitution (signed 1787), Article 5

The United States Constitution included a process by which the original document could be amended (quoted above). It was designed to allow some flexibility within the Constitution, while at the same time protecting the Constitution from voluminous (and excessively rapid) changes. At the time that I write this, there have been 27 amendments to the United States Constitution, in accordance with this process. The first ten of them were the ones that make up our Bill of Rights. These ten amendments were ratified simultaneously with each other on December 15th, 1791. But obviously, they are not the only amendments to the Constitution. There have been 17 others at the time that I write this, and this audiobook covers most of them in some detail.

A review of “The Federalist Papers” (audiobook)

“I propose, in a series of papers, to discuss the following interesting particulars: The utility of the Union to your political prosperity; the insufficiency of the present Confederation to preserve that Union; the necessity of a government at least equally energetic with the one proposed, to the attainment of this object; the conformity of the proposed Constitution to the true principles of republican government; its analogy to your own state constitution; and lastly, the additional security which its adoption will afford to the preservation of that species of government, to liberty, and to property.”

– Alexander Hamilton, in the Federalist Papers (Federalist No. 1)

“The Federalist Papers” has long been one of my favorite books. More than any other book, it helped to get the Constitution ratified by the thirteen states. But the importance of the Federalist Papers transcends the ratification debates. It is a timeless work, because it explains the intended purposes of virtually every clause in the Constitution, which is still the law of the land today. It is the most important work written by the Founding Fathers about the Constitution, and is used to interpret the intended meaning of the document today. Since this is an area of major controversy, this debate is one of the most practical in all of American politics.

A review of “The Constitutional Convention” (audiobook)

“Resolved. that the right of suffrage in the first branch of the national Legislature ought not to be according to the rule established in the articles of confederation: but according to some equitable ratio of representation — namely, in proportion to the whole number of white and other free citizens and inhabitants of every age, sex, and condition including those bound to servitude for a term of years, and three fifths of all other persons not comprehended in the foregoing description, except Indians, not paying taxes in each State.”

“Resolved. that the right of suffrage in the second branch of the national Legislature ought to be according to the rule established for the first.”

– Articles 7 and 8 of the “Virginia Plan” (1787), the first draft of the United States Constitution (written by James Madison)

I had already seen a fine docudrama about the Constitutional Convention, before I ever listened to this audiobook. This was “A More Perfect Union: America Becomes A Nation” (which I review here). Obviously, there are advantages to a docudrama over any audiobook, such as the entertainment value of the powerful visuals that it includes. The docudrama may also be better at covering the greatest issue of the Convention, which was the controversy over representation. But this audiobook is better at covering pretty much everything else about the Convention. It covers issues not touched upon in the docudrama, such as the debates over the executive and judicial branches. These debates were quite important for the final document.

A review of “The United States Constitution” (audiobook)

“[The Congress shall have the power] To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.”

– The United States Constitution (signed 1787), Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 18

If one wants to understand the Constitution, there is no substitute for actually reading the document itself, of course. But this audiobook gives historical context that is not available within the document itself. It helps to place the original Constitution into the context of its times, and leaves it to another audiobook to cover the amendments to the Constitution (a subject that I have covered elsewhere).

A review of “The Ratification Debates” (audiobook)

“And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.”

– The Constitution’s most immediate predecessor, which was the “Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union” (ratified 1781), Section XIII, Paragraph 1

This audiobook may be the finest overview of the ratification debates that I have ever heard. I haven’t found any equally good coverage of this subject in the television world, so I’m quite content to get this from an audiobook. In some ways, this audiobook may be even better. This covers the fiery debates over whether or not to ratify our current Constitution.

The document that changed everything in America …

When the Founding Fathers wrote the original Constitution in 1787, they were creating a document that would change everything in America, keeping a fragile union of thirteen states from descending into war debts, bankruptcy, and even armed rebellions. One uprising in particular came from a disgruntled Revolutionary War veteran named Daniel Shays, whose uprising against the government of Massachusetts had been an impetus for holding the Constitutional Convention in the first place. It did not start out as a popular document, and was opposed openly even by some of the men who had been present at the Convention. Thus, the particulars of this document were debated fiercely from one end of the thirteen former colonies to the other.

George Mason

Luther Martin

What were the particulars of this document, and why did they create such an uproar when they were first written? What relevance might its passages have today, when our world is so different from the one they inhabited 200 years ago? What was it about this document that caused it to be so successful, and which made the country that adopted it into the greatest superpower that the world has ever known? And why is this most essential ingredient to the country's remarkable success story such an obscure and forgotten secret?

In this series, I will try to answer these questions, as I talk about everything from the people that influenced the Constitution (such as John Locke, and Baron de Montesquieu) to the men that commented on it (such as William Lloyd Garrison, and Abraham Lincoln). I will try to be informative, but I will not shy away from inserting persuasive commentary at times as well. I will lay out the case for why the Constitution of the United States is the greatest success story that human politics has ever known.

Some of the credit for “separation of powers” should go to Polybius

“It is well known that in the Roman republic the legislative authority, in the last resort, resided for ages in two different political bodies not as branches of the same legislature, but as distinct and independent legislatures, in each of which an opposite interest prevailed: in one the patrician; in the other, the plebian. Many arguments might have been adduced to prove the unfitness of two such seemingly contradictory authorities, each having power to ANNUL or REPEAL the acts of the other. … And yet these two legislatures coexisted for ages, and the Roman republic attained to the utmost height of human greatness.”

– Alexander Hamilton, in the Federalist Papers (Federalist No. 34)

In the second century BC, there was an armed uprising against the rule of the “Roman Republic,” by an alliance of Greek states known as the “Achaean League.” There had been close military and religious ties between the two groups before this time; but they were soon cast aside in a conflict known as the “Achaean War.” This was a bitter conflict, in which the Romans quickly crushed the Achaean League; to make sure that all of Greece would soon be under their control. Greece was quickly annexed by the Roman Republic in 146 BC, the same year that Rome was laying siege to the city of Carthage in faraway North Africa. When the city of Carthage was finally sacked in the spring of that same year (after three long years of siege), the last of the three Roman wars with Carthage finally ended. The Roman Republic now controlled much of the Mediterranean.

Roman villas built on the site of Carthage

Polybius was present at the Fall of Carthage in 146 BC

One of the men present at the Sack of Carthage was a Greek historian named Polybius, who would later write an influential work called the Ἱστορίαι (“Historiai”), or “The Histories.” This famous work would cover the history of the Roman Republic from 264 BC to 146 BC, and conclude with his eyewitness account of the fall of Carthage in 146 BC. This work was originally written in his native Koine Greek as 40 different “books,” but only the first five of these “books” have survived in their entirety. The rest of these books survive only in bits and pieces, and it is the surviving portion of the sixth book that I will be focusing on today. (This is the book in which he talked about separation of powers in the Roman Republic.) His analysis of checks and balances in this republic that had conquered his homeland would have a powerful influence on men like Montesquieu and Madison. By extension, it would thus eventually influence the United States Constitution as well.

Polybius

How to prevent tyranny: Separation of powers and checks & balances

"The political liberty of the [citizen] is a tranquillity of mind, arising from the opinion each person has of his safety. In order to have this liberty, it is requisite the government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of another."

- Baron de Montesquieu's "De l'esprit des lois" ("The Spirit of Laws") [published 1748], Book XI, Chapter 6

Montesquieu had some important ideas about how to prevent tyranny (and they're still relevant today)

The U. S. Declaration of Independence owed much to the work of John Locke, the English political philosopher. But the political scientist Donald Lutz said that "If there was one man read and reacted to by American political writers of all factions during all the stages of the founding era, it was probably not Locke but Montesquieu." (Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 78, No. 1, March 1984, p. 190) This is not to deny the importance of Locke, as he was also an enormous influence on the Founding Fathers (see my blog post for evidence of this). Nonetheless, Montesquieu is definitely the author that had the greatest influence on both sides of the ratification debates, and perhaps even on the finished product of the United States Constitution itself. He's almost like a Founding Grandfather of the United States, his influence is so strong. This is why I recently finished reading his most famous work "De l'esprit des lois" ("The Spirit of Laws") in the original French. He was a Frenchman, who wrote his most famous work in 1748 - a book written over a quarter of a century before the American Revolution. This book was one of the most important influences on the Founding Fathers.

Baron de Montesquieu

How to prevent bad government: Keep any one group from getting too much power

Montesquieu is probably best known today for his important theory of a separation of powers in government. Put briefly, this theory is the idea that bad government is best prevented by keeping any one group from getting too much power over the others. James Madison referenced this danger in the Federalist Papers by saying that "the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." (Source: Federalist No. 47) Hence, the need for a system of government that divides up these powers as much as possible. This is something that the United States Constitution does by dividing up this power into three branches of government - the legislative, executive, and judiciary. The legislative branch makes the laws, the executive branch enforces the laws, and the judiciary branch judges and interprets the laws, with as little overlap between these three kinds of power as possible. (More on that in a separate post - for now, I will confine myself to talking about the specifics of the theory, at least in basic form.)

What's the difference between a “democracy” and a “republic”?

"The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union, a republican form of government ... "

- Article 4, Section 4 of the United States Constitution

Is there a difference between a "democracy" and a "republic"?

The meaning of words tends to change over time, and the words "democracy" and "republic" are no different in this respect. For example, if you were to ask Americans on the streets today whether there's a difference between the two words, many would reply that they are the same (or, at least, close to the same), and some dictionaries even define them as synonymous today. Among them is the website of Princeton University, which offers multiple definitions for each word. One of these definitions is even the same for both words, and their website lists the two words as accepted synonyms for each other in this context. Their shared definition, in case you're wondering, is that they are "a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them" (Source: entry on "democracy" and entry on "republic") The contemporary use of these words is thus somewhat interchangeable, and the common meaning of these words would admit few (if any) distinctions between them.

James Madison

The Founding Fathers thought there actually was ...

Yet there is a historical distinction between the two that our Founding Fathers recognized. One of them even offered these definitions explicitly in the Federalist Papers. These definitions show a distinction between the two in the mind of this particular Founding Father. This distinction existed in his mind long before the Constitutional Convention, even if he had not yet included it in the Federalist Papers. The Founding Father was James Madison, and he essentially said that a democracy was a direct democracy - or in other words, where people vote on everything directly in person. His phrase for a direct democracy was a "pure democracy," and he defined it as "a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person" (Source: Federalist No. 10). A good example of this system might be Ancient Athens, the most successful city-state within the lost world of Ancient Greece. Madison's definition of a republic, by contrast, was that it was "a government in which the scheme of representation takes place" (Source: Federalist No. 10). In other words, he said, the definition of a republic is where the people elect others to make those decisions for them. Which is better, you might ask? Are there greater dangers in delegating these powers to our elected representatives, or do the greatest dangers come from other sources, like the "tyranny of the majority"?

James Madison

“Publius”: The secret pen name of three Founding Fathers

"As the perusal of the political papers under the signature of Publius has afforded me great satisfaction, I shall certainly consider them as claiming a most distinguished place in my library. I have read every performance which has been printed on one side or the other of the great question lately agitated (so far as I have been able to obtain them) and, without an unmeaning compliment, I will say that I have seen no other so well calculated (in my judgment) to produce conviction on an unbiased mind, as the Production of your Triumvirate. When the transient circumstances & fugitive performances which attended this crisis shall have disappeared, that work will merit the notice of Posterity; because in it are candidly discussed the principles of freedom & the topics of government, which will be always interesting to mankind so long as they shall be connected in Civil Society."

- George Washington, in a letter to Alexander Hamilton (August 28, 1788)

It was common at this time for Americans to write under pen names named after great Romans

During the debates over whether or not to ratify the Constitution, authors on both sides of the debate wrote a series of anonymous "letters to the editor[s]" of newspapers under various pen names. There were advantages to writing these articles anonymously, of course, when one wished to say controversial things in these debates that could offend one's friends if they were known publicly. Among these authors were many who had actually named their alter egos after people in Roman history, whose accomplishments they thus wished to invoke in their arguments. The Constitution's opponents, for example, included "Brutus" (possibly Melancton Smith or Robert Yates or even John Williams), and "Cato" (possibly New York governor George Clinton). These were both names of people who had opposed the Roman monarchy (or at least, a particular manifestation of that monarchy). Thus, this would imply that they were opposed to a repeat of such monarchy in America.

George Clinton, a possible identity of the author that called himself "Cato"

Alexander Hamilton considered Gouverneur Morris and William Duer to write as "Publius"

The Constitution's supporters wrote under classical pen names, too; and theirs were equally indebted to Greek and Roman history. Alexander Hamilton made the unfortunate mistake once of using the pen name "Caesar." The condescending tone that he used when writing under this pen name made him almost as many enemies as the ill-chosen pen name itself. When he finally learned his lesson (and it fortunately didn't take him long to learn it), he returned to another pen name that he had used before, which was the pen name of "Publius." (Hamilton's prior use of this pen name, incidentally, was to attack fellow Federalist Samuel Chase for using some inside knowledge from Congress to try and dominate the flour market. Specifically, Hamilton used three letters under this name to question Chase's patriotism in 1778.) When he began recruiting collaborators for the now-famous Federalist Papers in 1787, Hamilton apparently approached Gouverneur Morris and William Duer about becoming contributors, before finally settling on James Madison and John Jay instead. Gouverneur Morris apparently turned down the invitation to work on the "Publius" papers, and Hamilton actually rejected three essays later written by William Duer, despite having invited him to participate in the first place. (William Duer would later write under the alternative pen name of "Philo-Publius," or "Friend of Publius," instead.)

Gouverneur Morris, who turned down the opportunity to write a portion of the Federalist Papers

William Duer, who wrote three essays that Hamilton later rejected as part of the Federalist Papers

The amendment that never made it into the Bill of Rights

"The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States."

- Article 1, Section 6, Paragraph 1 of the original Constitution

The Bill of Rights was the first ten amendments to the Constitution ...

So most people in this country today have heard of the Bill of Rights, and how it consisted of the first ten amendments to the Constitution - although many who once knew this have since forgotten in the years since they left high school. Here's the part of the story that your history classes might not have taught you, about the amendment that never made it into the Bill of Rights.

United States Bill of Rights

A review of PBS's “Dolley Madison” movie

Most women who marry heads-of-state seem forever destined to languish in obscurity. They are usually known by those who study their husbands' lives, but few are ever fortunate enough to escape the shadows of their husbands. They seem relegated to some kind of second-class status in the history books, unfortunately, and the role that they play in the success of their husbands' administrations is too often forgotten by history. Dolley Madison is a fortunate exception to this pattern, and one surmises that if PBS did something about her life without a comparable film about her husband's life, they must consider her pretty important (and rightly so). Their neglect of her husband James Madison strikes one as somewhat strange, I must admit, since he is the Father of the Constitution and a prominent Founding Father. Nonetheless, it is fortunate that they did not treat his wife with the same neglect that they treated him, and there is enough in this film (I think) about both individuals to satisfy fans of either one.

Dolley Madison

So what exactly are the “Federalist Papers,” anyway?

"It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force."

- Alexander Hamilton, in the Federalist Papers (Federalist No. 1)

Frequently Asked Questions about the “Federalist Papers”

How the Constitution was almost not ratified

"The ratification of the conventions of nine states, shall be sufficient for the establishment of this constitution between the states so ratifying the same."

- Article 7 of the United States Constitution

The Constitutional Convention

Our national debate over the Constitution is as old as the Constitution itself, with origins to be found in the events of the Constitutional Convention, where its particulars were first debated by the men present at the convention. The framers of the Constitution disagreed with each other vehemently on exactly what the document should say and do, and how it should say and do it. Moreover, a number of the men present at the convention refused to even sign the document after the debates at the convention. As many of them well knew, though, the national debate over what they had written was just beginning. With the strict secrecy of the convention's proceedings at the time that it was still going on, the nation didn't know what was in the document until after the finished product of the convention was presented to the nation. Many of them weren't all that happy over the things they found in it, to put it mildly.

A replica of Independence Hall, which is not surrounded by
high-rise buildings (that don't belong in the period) the way the real one is today

Why did so many people suspect the Constitution was "dangerous"?

Part of this may have been that they got all their surprises about the document at virtually the same time. They had not been witness to the deals and compromises that had taken place so gradually during the events of the convention. A gradual revelation of the document's contents thus was simply not possible after the nation's curiosity had been whetted by the "secrecy rule." (Which is not a criticism of the "secrecy rule," I should make clear; but it was only natural for the people to wonder about it. Many of them assumed that the convention had something to hide in this regard, after the secret proceedings had been continuing for some four months without news.) The supporters of the Constitution all knew that they faced an uphill battle when they presented the final document to the people. This uphill battle is today known as the debates over ratification (or the ratification debates) - arguably the most important debates in the nation's history, because of the sheer number of issues that it affected, then and now. If I might point this out, it affected the very same democratic process by which all future political issues would be debated in America - and by extension, in a number of other places as well.

Newspaper advertisement for the Federalist Papers, 1787 (a part of the ratification debates)

A review of “The War of 1812” (PBS program)

"No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave."

- Excerpt from a lesser-known verse of "The Star-Spangled Banner," written by Francis Scott Key in 1814

This war would be unthinkable today ...

It's hard to imagine today that there could have been a war between America, Britain, and Canada - and in those rare times when we do imagine such a war, the war that Americans usually think of is the American War of Independence (or the "American Revolution," as we in America usually call it). Most Americans have some vague recollection from their middle school history class that there was a war in 1812, but they couldn't give you much information at all about where it was fought, or whom it was fought against. Even the "when" of the war is somewhat unknown, since the term "War of 1812" is actually something of a misnomer. "The War That Began in 1812" would be a more accurate term, since the war actually lasted until the year 1815. This is not communicated by the phrase "War of 1812," which makes it sound like it lasted only a single year (when in fact, it lasted for nearly three).

The death of British General Sir Isaac Brock at the Battle of Queenston Heights - Canada, 1812

James Madison: The most underrated Founder

"[The Americans] accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society. They reared the fabrics of governments which have no model on the face of the globe."

- James Madison, in the Federalist Papers (Federalist No. 14)

The Founding Fathers, as a group, are an underrated lot. Even Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Franklin sometimes don't get the respect they deserve; and many have never even heard of John Adams or James Madison. John Adams has been somewhat better-known since the HBO miniseries about him with Paul Giamatti, but even he is still unknown to many; and there has been virtually nothing made about James Madison. PBS has done documentaries about all five of the other Founders that I mentioned, but they didn't do a single documentary about James Madison. They did one about his wife Dolley, which was quite good; but nothing about him that I can find (and I've looked). More than the other major Founders, James Madison doesn't get the respect he deserves.

Another measure of how overlooked Madison is can be found in the History Channel's "Founding Brothers" documentary, based on Joseph Ellis's Pulitzer-Prize-winning book of the same name. The documentary covers the presidencies of our first three presidents, which were Washington, Adams, and Jefferson; and they give some mention of Madison's role in these times. But they do not cover the administration of Madison, who was the only other Founding Father president. Perhaps they didn't want to get into the War of 1812 issue, since that's a subject for a documentary in and of itself; but for whatever reason, they neglected Mr. Madison's presidency. Thus, I am of the opinion that James Madison is the most underrated of the Founding Fathers; and I decided I'd write a little bit about this unknown genius.

The Bill of Rights: historical context and strict construction

"The enumeration [or "listing"] in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

- Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution (ratified 1791), a sometimes-forgotten amendment in the Bill of Rights

It's the most familiar part of the Constitution - the one that the most people can quote. It's the most disputed part of the Constitution - the one whose meaning is most debated. And it's the most tangible part of the Constitution - the one that writes into stone the rights we use every day, and which is thus easiest to apply to everyday life.

The Constitutional Convention

The original Constitution didn't have a Bill of Rights

The portion is, of course, the Bill of Rights; but it was not a part of the original Constitution at all. The United States Bill of Rights was the first ten amendments to the Constitution. For those who don't know, an amendment is just another word for a change. The Constitution has been amended (or changed) 27 times since its adoption, and the first ten amendments written into it were the ones we today call our "Bill of Rights." They can today be seen in the context of the ratification debates, or the debates over whether or not to ratify the Constitution as the "supreme law of the land". The Constitution did not become law until it was approved by nine of the original thirteen states, and the states fiercely debated about whether or not we should have this Constitution.

A review of “A More Perfect Union: America Becomes A Nation”

"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

- Preamble to the United States Constitution, written in 1787

It created the oldest Constitution that is still being used today, but which was a radical departure from virtually everything that came before it. It created a new form of government, but it was only authorized to modify the one that already existed - not to replace it. And it has been celebrated as the best form of government ever devised by man, but was not seen as anything close to ideal by any of the men who were there.

The Constitutional Convention

Why a Constitutional Convention was necessary

The event was the Constitutional Convention, held in Philadelphia in 1787 to improve upon the existing system of government. The government of that time was more like the United Nations than the modern United States. This was because all of the states remained sovereign, acting more like independent nations than portions of a whole. The federal government had no power to regulate trade, no executive branch to enforce laws, and no power to tax - with the latter flaw being the most crippling one. I'm not saying taxes can't be too high (or aren't too high now), but a government must have the power to tax to be able to perform its needful functions. Unfortunately, the government of that time simply was not able to do so. Thus, it was not able to pay the massive debts accumulated during the Revolution; and the massive war debts of the federal government were in risk of default. Thus, a stronger central government was required than the completely toothless one of that time. Thus, a Constitutional Convention was sorely needed.

Interior of Independence Hall

Do checks and balances conflict with separation of powers?

"The great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place."

- James Madison, in the Federalist Papers (Federalist No. 51)

Some accused the Constitution itself of violating the "separation of powers" doctrine

It might seem strange to hear it today; but during the debates over whether or not to ratify the Constitution as the "supreme law of the land," it was said by the Constitution's opponents that it violated the doctrine of separation of powers - or the idea that power should be separated among multiple branches of government. (For more on the basics of what this is, see this other blog post of mine. This post will focus more on the idea that the Constitution violates it, and how the Father of the Constitution responded to this charge.)

United States Capitol

Why did they think this?

How could this be, you might be asking? We have three branches of government - a legislature, executive, and judiciary - which are separate from each other. The power in our nation is divided between three branches of government, thus maintaining a proper separation of powers between them. Yet there is one aspect in which the Constitution's opponents were correct, which was that there was a system of checks and balances between the branches. This might not seem to conflict at all with separation of powers, but consider an example to illustrate: The president has the power of nominating judges to the Supreme Court, but he cannot actually appoint them unless the legislature approves his choices. Thus, both the executive and legislative branches share in the judicial power by deciding together who gets to wield it. Thus, it cannot truly be said that the powers are totally separate. A similar analogy could be made for every check and balance that the Framers gave us; showing that in practice, the legislative, executive, and judicial powers are shared amongst the three branches.

James Madison

Response from the Father of the Constitution

So is it true that the Constitution violates the separation of powers doctrine? Well, perhaps not - James Madison said that some deviations from the letter of the doctrine are necessary to preserve the spirit of it. He doesn't use those words exactly; but he does address it in some important writings about the Constitution, which are the Federalist Papers. He describes in some detail how checks and balances are necessary to have a separation of powers. His arguments are instructive to those of us who've ever wondered whether checks and balances conflict with a separation of powers. Thus, I will now turn to his words to explain how they are not only consistent with separation of powers, but necessary to preserve a separation of powers in practice.