The Separation of Powers and Representative Government

C urrent controversies over presidential power suggest. that significant separation of powers depends on the existence of some effective counterweight to the executive ruler, which in turn presupposes a disposition to restrain the ruler that does not come from the ruler himself. One might conclude that schemes for separation of powers grow out of either a fundamental opposition to ruling or at least a preference for recourse against the ruler.' Such was James Madison's opinion: "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, 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." 2 This opinion has been questioned by defenders of parliamentary government, who support the fusion of powers in the cabinet,' and by critics of the American Constitution, who find its checks and balances unnecessary and productive of undemocratic and ineffective government. 4 More recently students of American constitutionalism have