"Throughout the carefully ordered separation of powers with checks and balances, deliberately restraining a more unified operation of government, we see a reflection of the Calvinist doctrine of the fallenness of human nature, with its inevitable tendency of an ascendant arm of government to abuse power in a tyrannical direction."
"Americans in 1776 wanted governors limited and their powers divvied up. The reason for this rested in mans untrustworthiness. Had Americans believed in the innate goodness of man, the Declaration would have looked substantially different than it did growing in a Calvinistic garden."
Bump!