Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T16:26:25.808Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Efficiency Side of Separated Powers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Louis Fisher
Affiliation:
The Library of Congress

Extract

Considered the cornerstone of the American governmental system and an article of political faith for the Founding Fathers, the concept ‘separation of powers’ nevertheless has few rivals for ambiguity. There are wide differences of opinion as to what the Framers intended by the expression. We are told that they embraced the doctrine of Montesquieu, but there is a good deal of doubt as to what he meant and whether they borrowed from him in the first place. Moreover, the question remains: how should one apply a principle from 1787 to the issues of today?.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Vile, M. J., Constitutionalism and the Separation of Powers (London, 1967), p. 207.Google Scholar

2 Commentaries (5th ed., 1891), vol. I, p. 396.Google Scholar

3 381 U.S. 437, 443 (1965); see also Senate Committee on the Judiciary, hearings on Separation of Powers, 90th Cong., Ist sess. (1967), pt. I, p. 2.

4 Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52, 293 (1926).

5 Donham, Philip and Fahey, Robert J., Congress Needs Help (New York, 1966), p. 6.Google Scholar

6 Guggenheimer, Jay Caesar, ‘The Development of the Executive Departments, 1775–1789’, in Jameson, J. Franklin (ed.), Essays in the Constitutional History of the United States (Boston, 1889)Google Scholar; Thach, Charles C. Jr, ‘The Creation of the Presidency, 1775–1789, A Study in Constitutional History’, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, series 40, no. 4 (1922), reprinted 1969Google Scholar; Sanders, Jennings B., Evolution of Executive Departments of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (Chapel Hill, 1935).Google Scholar

7 Gwyn, W. B., The Meaning of the Separation of Powers (The Hague, 1965), ch. 4.Google Scholar

8 Fisher, Louis, ‘Presidential Tax Discretion and Eighteenth Century Theory’, Western Political Quarterly, 23 (03 1970), 151–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also O'Brien, F. William S.J., ‘The Executive and the Separation Principle at the Constitutional Convention’, Maryland Historical Magazine, 55 (09 1960), 201.Google Scholar

9 Fitzpatrick, (ed.), Writings, vol. 3, pp. 324, 350.Google Scholar

10 Burnett, Edmund Cody (ed.), Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (8 vols., Washington, D.C., 19211936), vol. 3, p. 260.Google Scholar

11 Writings, vol. 16, p. 28.

12 Ibid., vol. 20, p. 117; vol. 21, p. 14; other letters during the winter: vol. 20, pp. 371–4; vol. 21, p. 164.

13 Ibid., vol. 21, p. 248; see vol. 21, p. 181.

14 Ibid., vol. 22, p. 71.

15 Ibid., vol. 26, p. 200.

16 Ibid., vol. 29, p. 153.

17 Ibid., vol. 30, pp. 300–1.

18 Syrett, (ed.), Papers, vol. 2, p. 246 n.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., pp. 404–5; Hamilton also discusses single executives in letters dated 7 February and 30 April 1781, ibid., pp. 554, 604–5.

20 Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 420–1.

21 Ibid., p. 320.

22 Ibid., vol. 5, p. 95.

23 Lodge, (ed.), Works (1802), vol. 8, p. 333.Google Scholar

24 Johnston, (ed.), Correspondence and Public Papers, vol. I, p. 209.Google Scholar

25 Ibid., pp. 440–1.

26 Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 65, 141–2.

27 Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 28, p. 56Google Scholar; vol. 29, p. 562.

28 Bancroft, George, History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States of America, vol. I, p. 479.Google Scholar

29 Correspondence and Public Papers, vol. 3, p. 210.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., p. 223.

31 Ibid., to Washington, Jefferson, and Adams, , at pp. 227, 231–2, 234.Google Scholar

32 Ford, Paul Leicester (ed.), Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States (Brooklyn, N.Y., 1888), p. 75.Google Scholar

33 Ibid., p. 77.

34 Ford, (ed.), Writings, vol. 3, p. 223.Google Scholar

35 For comparison between 1776 and 1783 drafts for a constitution, see Boyd, (ed.), Papers, vol. I, pp. 358–60Google Scholar; vol. 6, pp. 298–302.

36 Papers, vol. 6, p. 388Google Scholar; other letters at pp. 419, 432, 437, 469, 569.

37 Ibid., vol. 7, p. 293.

38 Ibid., vol. 6, pp. 516–29.

39 Burnett, Edmund, ‘The Committee of the States, 1784’, American Historical Association, Report, I (1913), 158.Google Scholar

40 Papers, vol. 10, p. 603.Google Scholar

41 Ibid., vol. II, p. 679; see vol. II, p. 480, and vol. 12, p. 34.

42 Ibid., vol. 12, p. 189.

43 Ibid., p. 440; vol. 14, p. 650.

44 Writings, vol. 6, pp. 102, 108, 143Google Scholar; vol. 7, pp. 108, 170.

45 Ibid., vol. 6, p. 168; vol. 7, p. 289.

46 Ibid., vol. 8, pp. 275n, 333, 403n, 424; vol. 9, pp. 69, 190 n.

47 Burnett, , Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, vol. I, pp. 47, 67.Google Scholar

48 Ibid., p. 81; see no. 134 at p. 95 and no. 150 at p. 107.

49 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 260.

50 Adams, (ed.), Works, vol. 4, p. 196Google Scholar; see pp. 186, 205–6.

51 Ibid., vol. 9, p. 506.

52 Ibid., vol. 4, pp. 230–1.

53 Ibid., p. 230.

54 Ibid., vol. 9, p. 623.

55 See descriptions by Haraszti, Zoltán, John Adams & The Prophets of Progress (Cambridge, Mass., 1952), pp. 155–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Smith, Page, John Adams (2 vols., New York, 1962), vol. 2, pp. 690702.Google Scholar

56 Works, vol. 6, p. 128Google Scholar; Walsh, Correa Moylan, The Political Science of John Adams (New York, 1915), p. 15.Google Scholar

57 Works. vol. 4, p. 579.Google Scholar

58 Ibid., vol. 9, pp. 572–3.

59 Ibid., vol. 4, pp. 290, 585.

60 Ibid., vol. 7, pp. 343, 510, 660.

61 Ibid., vol. 6, pp. 432–3.

62 Ibid., vol. 9, p. 302.

63 Hutchison-Rachal, (eds.), Papers, vol. 2, pp. 6, 1920Google Scholar; vol. 3, p. 179; vol. 4, p. 313; instead of the word ‘specious’ cited in the last of these references Madison actually used ‘suspicious’ in his letter to Randolph, Edmund, 4 June 1782, Papers of James Madison, The Library of Congress.Google Scholar

64 Hunt, (ed.), Writings, vol. 2, pp. 127–8.Google Scholar

65 Ibid., p. 169.

66 Ibid., pp. 327–8, 338–40, 348–9.

67 Farrand, , Records of the Federal Convention in 1787, vol. I, pp. 2022Google Scholar; vol. 2, pp. 138, 177.

68 Ibid., vol. I, p. 108; see p. 139.

69 Writings, vol. 5, p. 26.Google Scholar

70 Vile, , op. cit., p. 153.Google Scholar

71 Virginia and North Carolina debates in Elliot, , Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, vol. 3, p. 280Google Scholar; vol. 4, p. 116; Pennsylvania speeches in McMaster, John Bach and Stone, Frederick D. (eds.), Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution, 1787–1788 (Lancaster, 1888), pp. 475–7.Google Scholar

72 Dumbauld, Edward, The Bill of Rights and What it Means Today (Norman, Oklahoma, 1957), pp. 174–5, 183, 199.Google Scholar

73 U.S. Congress. Annals, Proceedings and Debates, vol. I, p. 453.

74 Ibid., pp. 480–1, 515–9.

75 Ibid., pp. 604–5.

76 U.S. Senate, Journals, 1789–1794 (5 vols., Washington, D.C., 1820), vol. I, pp. 64, 73–4.Google Scholar