Where did the Framers go wrong?

One of the continuing puzzles I come back to is the separation of powers: Where did the Framers go wrong? Political scientists often claim that it is norms that undergird the Constitution, but this is not at all the view of the Framers. If anything, the idea that norms underpin the Constitution, and maintaining its delicate balance of separated and limited powers, is an almost pre-Founders, naive, view of things. If you read Madison—whom nobody would accuse of having a rosy view of human nature—in the Federalist Papers, he makes it clear that what preserves liberty and constitutionalism more generally is the separation of powers, and what preserves the separation of powers is…the ambition of individual politicians. Madison makes constant, […]