PUBLIUS
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FEDERALIST No. 48
These Departments Should Not Be So Far Separated as to Have No
Constitutional Control Over Each Other
From the New York Packet.
Friday, February 1, 1788.
MADISON
To the People of the State of New York:
IT WAS shown in the last paper that the political apothegm there
examined does not require that the legislative, executive, and judiciary
departments should be wholly unconnected with each other. I shall
undertake, in the next place, to show that unless these departments be
so far connected and blended as to give to each a constitutional control
over the others, the degree of separation which the maxim requires, as
essential to a free government, can never in practice be duly
maintained.
It is agreed on all sides, that the powers properly belonging to one of
the departments ought not to be directly and completely administered by
either of the other departments. It is equally evident, that none of
them ought to possess, directly or indirectly, an overruling influence
over the others, in the administration of their respective powers. It
will not be denied, that power is of an encroaching nature, and that it
ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to
it.
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