The system of checks and balances in the Constitution is perhaps its most magnificent yet unappreciated feature. James Madison wrote in The Federalist:
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition…It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls of government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
Those noble men, whom Constitutional Convention delegate William Pierce called “the wisest Council in all the World,” understood man’s capacity for good and his propensity to do evil. One man alone is limited in the harm he can do. But give that same man political power and entire nations can be destroyed. Thus the Founders had greater trust in individual freedom than in centralized government.
