Topic: Checks and Balances, Matches 3 quotes.

The problem was not new. It was as old as history, but no one had ever found the answer. The Greeks had been unable to solve it. The Romans had been unable to solve it. Various experiments had been tried, and all had failed.

No one had ever found the solution. But it is doubtful that, in the entire history of mankind, so unusual a group had ever come together for so important a purpose—realistic frontiersmen, practical builders, jurists, statesmen, students of history, analysts of Old World government from the perspective of a New World in the making. Their counterparts are rare in this modern age of specialization and so-called “progressive” education.

Democracy was not the answer. The word democracy means rule by the masses, and mass rule means mob rule. As James Madison pointed out in The Federalist:

A pure democracy . . . can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will . . . be felt by a majority . . . and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party . . . . Hence it is that such democracies have ever been . . . found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.

Obviously, there can be no individual freedom unless the rights of the minority are protected; and in an unrestrained democracy, it’s too easy for the organized pressure groups to infringe on the rights of others.

A Republic

America was to be set up as a republic—which means that the laws would be made and administered by representatives chosen, directly or indirectly, by the people to protect the interests of all the people.

The word republic means rule for the people, and as Isabel Paterson points out:

A Republic signifies an organization dealing with affairs which concern the public, thus implying that there are also private affairs, a sphere of social and personal life, with which government is not and should not be concerned; it sets a limit to the political power.

In the last analysis, any government, regardless of what it may be called, must be one man or a small group of men in power over many men. That being the case, how is it possible to transfer the power of the ruler to each man in the multitude?

The answer is that it is not possible. The only solution lies in the direction of destroying power itself. The only way in which men can remain free and be left in control of their individual energies is to cut the power of government to an irreducible minimum.

But how can that be done without the danger of out-and-out anarchy? The answer is quite simple—once it is found. But until the time of the American Revolution, no one had found it.

The head of a state is a human being; and a human being’s thinking, deciding, acting, and judging are inseparable. But in this new American republic, no top official would ever be permitted to act as a whole human being. The functions of government would be divided into three parts:

1. The first part was to think and decide. It would be called the Congress.

2. The second part was to be responsible for getting action. It would be headed by the chief executive—the President.

3. The third part was to serve as judge or referee and would be known as the Supreme Court.

Each of these three parts was to act as a check on the other two; and over the three was set a written statement of political principles, intended to be the strongest check on them all. There was to be government by law—with clearly defined rules of the game—rather than government by whim. Thus, the Constitution was to serve as an impersonal restraint upon the fallible human beings who must be allowed to use their fragments of authority over the multitudes of free individuals.

The dangers of dictatorship must be avoided for all time to come. No one person nor small group of persons must ever be permitted to get too much power; and the minority—even down to the last individual citizen—must be protected against oppression by the majority or by any organized pressure group.

Source: Henry Grady Weaver
The Mainspring of Human Progress
Chapter 15 - The New Model

Topics: Checks and Balances; Government; Republic

Local Self-Government

Under this plan which the Lord established, we have a dual jurisdiction—State and Federal. The Federal Government may do only what we the people have authorized it to do; if it does more, it is guilty of usurpation. The people have reserved to themselves or to their State governments every right and power they have not delegated to the Federal government, which must always look to the Constitution and its amendments to find its rights, for it has none other. This system puts the great bulk of our daily life activities in the hands of our own neighbors who know us and our surroundings, and not in the hands of a bureaucrat in a far-away national capitol, who, to all intents and purposes, is an alien to us and our affairs. This plan gives us the largest possible measure of local self-government. Liberty will never depart from us while we have local self-government controlling and directing matters pertaining to our personal liberties and to the security of our private property; it will not abide with us if we shall lose this local self-government.

Source: J. Reuben Clark
Stand Fast by the Constitution, p. 187-188.

Topics: Checks and Balances

Provision Made For Three Branches Of Government

Wisely did our forefathers organize our national institution with three different, distinct departments, each one to be entirely separate from and independent of the other two. These three departments are the Legislative, the Executive and the Judicial. These able and farseeing patriots and statesmen thus made these three separate and distinct departments the cornerstone of our republic and the guarantee that in our land there shall never be a dictator.

Source: Elder Richard R. Lyman
General Conference, October 1940

Topics: Checks and Balances; Dictatorships; Government, Power

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