The basis of 3 branches of government/What they didn't tell you in school The Fourth Branch of Government

Divided power and the essence of liberty

 The basis of 3 branches of government

The Founders understood law itself as falling into three categories of power: the power of making laws, the power of enforcing laws and the power of applying or interpreting laws when there is a conflict.

The Founders’ solution was simple, yet revolutionary: divide power – do not let any single party or branch of government have a monopoly on power; otherwise, as history had exhibited without fail, liberty would die. From this reality, the Founders derived the need for what is commonly called “separation of powers” into three distinct branches, so power could be properly divided and distributed between the one, the few, and the many. This was not because they saw one as more naturally righteous than the other. On the contrary, because of their thorough knowledge of human nature and history, they were equally skeptical of them all: If any of these had absolute power, or even preponderant power, they would abuse it; they already had. And since the difference between parties was often a question of wealth, they also believed there was no inherent virtue which resulted from either riches or poverty or being right in the middle. All were equally prone to the ravages of human nature. All were equally entitled to the protection of their rights by the laws, and all were equally prone to award themselves to the detriment of the others if possessed of too much power.This forms the basis of the three branches of government we are all familiar with today: a legislative, executive and judicial branch. In the same way, whether all power is gathered into the hands of the one, the few, or the many, the Founders knew that if the power to make, enforce and interpret laws were all consolidated into one branch of government, or completely consolidated in the federal government at the expense of the state governments, it would likewise be far more subject to abuse. It was for these reasons that Madison wrote in Federalist No. 47 that “the accumulation of all powers of legislation, 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.”

This is the foundation of the system of “checks and balances,” the idea that each party needed to be monitored by every other party – each must have powers by which to affirm its own rights, as well as powers by which to maintain the equilibrium of the others. Adams articulated it this way:

The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries. The executive and the legislative powers are natural rivals; and if each has not an effectual control over the other, the weaker will ever be the lamb in the paws of the wolf. The nation which will not adopt an equilibrium of power must adopt a despotism. There is no other alternative. Rivalries must be controlled or they will throw all things into confusion, and there is nothing but despotism or a balance of power which can control them.

For the Founders, the only alternative to such a balance of powers was not the rule of law and liberty, but force and power. In his magisterial Defense, written just before the Constitution was ratified, Adams had written:

But it is of great importance [for the United States] to begin well. Misarrangements [sic] now made will have great, extensive, and distant consequences, and we are now employed, how little soever we may think of it, in making establishments which will affect the happiness of a hundred millions of inhabitants at a time in a period not very distant. All nations, under all governments, must have parties. The great secret is to control them. There are but two ways, either by a monarchy and standing army or by a balance in the constitution. Where the people have a voice and there is no balance, there will be everlasting fluctuations, revolutions, and horrors, until a standing army with a general at its head commands the peace, or the necessity of an equilibrium is made apparent to all and is adopted by all.

Notice here that Adams does not seem particularly deferential to the idea of the people having unlimited power. Indeed, this attitude was shared by many of the Founders, who were horrified by “democracy,” which for them was the rule of the many. “The power of the people has been confused with the liberty of the people,” Montesquieu had noted, an assumption which is all too often made today as well. On the contrary, the Founders asserted that “the people,” or the majority of a society, with no checks and balances, had been just as tyrannical as their aristocratic and monarchical counterparts. Adams explained:

An excellent writer has said, somewhat incautiously, that a people will never oppress themselves or invade their own rights. This compliment, if applied to human nature, or to mankind, or to any nation or people in being or in memory, is more than has been merited. … All kinds of experience show that great numbers of individuals do oppress great numbers of other individuals, that parties often, if not always, oppress other parties, and majorities almost universally minorities. … But if one party agrees to oppress another, or the majority the minority, the people still oppress themselves, for one part of them oppress another. … But if the people never, jointly nor severally, think of usurping the rights of others, what occasion can there be for any government at all?

The Fourth Branch of Government
is the People 

What they didn't tell you in school 
In school you were taught that the Government has three branches, the Legislative branch, the Executive branch, and the Judicial branch. The Legislative branch is the Congress and they make the laws. The Executive branch is the President, who runs the daily business of government. The Judicial branch is the Courts who interpret the law and determine of laws are constitutional. These are the three branches of government you were taught in the government-controlled schools. But there is a fourth branch of government, and that's the People. 

Some would argue that the People are not a branch of the Government. They would argue that we have a government that is of the People, by the People, and for the People. They would argue that through voting that the Government represents the People and that the Government is the People. In theory, and in an ideal world, this would be true. And for the most part it is true. But there are time when the Government does not represent the People and that the interests of the Government are not the interests of the People. There are times when the People have to assert their will directly and overrule the Government and assert the supremacy of the will of the People over the will of the Government. 


The Government Exists for the Sole Purpose of Serving the People, not Ruling the People 

The supremacy of the People is preserved throughout all the documents and papers used in the formation of the Government by the People. The preamble to the United States Constitution states, "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." Clearly the Constitution was created to form a government who's sole purpose was to serve the People and for no other purpose. The founding fathers went to great pains to ensure, through the separation of powers and the balance of power that no branch of government would ever become dominate and become a force that rules the People rather than serves the People.