George Washington Quotes
It is important that our delegates confine themselves within their respective Constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create … a real despotism.
George Washington, 1732-1799, 1st President of the United States (VA), Farewell Address, September 17, 1796
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
See Louis Brandeis for a later judicial interpretation of this view.
There was much argument over the desired relative strength and power of the three branches of government. Wilson suggested equality. We argue about it to this day.
This constitution was written 7 years before the national constitutional convention. It shows that there was concern about the separation of powers in United States even before the Constitution was drafted. See {616750} for an even clearer statement of the separation of powers principle.
This letter was written shortly after the Constitution had been signed by the convention delegates. This difference between Adams and Jefferson would be at the heart of the first great partisan struggle in American history. Adams, as the second President, tried to increase and use the power of the Presidency. Jefferson opposed him, especially when Adams tried to run for a second term. The Adams-led Federalists were pitted against Jefferson’s Democratic Republicans in the first, and perhaps still the most bitter partisan struggle in American political history. The Jeffersonians accused Adams and the Federalists of trying to unravel the American Revolution and revert to a monarchy. The people not only sided with the Democratic Republicans, ousting Adams, but also turned out most of the Federalists. It was the end of the Federalist Party, and a new conservative party—without monarchial tendencies—the Whigs became the new opposition party.
George Washington was the first President of the United States (1789-97), the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He presided over the convention that drafted the current United States Constitution and during his lifetime was called the "father of his country".
