America’s founders, largely distrustful of centralized power, created several checks and balances into the U.S. Constitution to help ensure that one person, or one group of people, would not be able to unilaterally exert his or their will over the American citizenry. First, the federal government itself was divided into three separate and distinct branches–each holding the capability (and responsibility) to check the power of the other. Second, the Bill of Rights was made part of the Constitution for the protection of individual liberties. Third, the “free and independent states” of the nation retained their sovereignty and independence after the...