Skip to main content

Where in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence does it talk about separation of powers or government with branches?

Separation of powers is not a concept that is discussed in the Preamble to the Declaration, (or elsewhere in the document.) Generally, the Declaration is an assertion of principles and a list of grievances against King George. Their focus is on the alleged abuses they have suffered as British subjects, not how government might be structured in such a way as to avoid these abuses. Their complaints were related to the imperial relationship between the colonies and the Crown and Parliament. They argued that the King (after spending years arguing against the usurpations of Parliament) had violated their rights as Englishmen. The idea of separation of powers was well-established in the Anglo-American world--the famous French philosopher Montesquieu had based his defense of the concept on the English constitution--but Jefferson and the authors of the Declaration did not assert it as a principle in the Preamble or elsewhere. To see what late eighteenth-century Americans thought about the importance of separation of powers, one might turn to the various state constitutions, which established the principle after the Declaration, or the Federalist Papers, specifically Federalist 51, which discusses and defends the system separation of powers in the Constitution. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.