“The doctrine of the separation of powers was adopted by the Convention of 1787, not to promote efficiency,” wrote Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in 1926, “but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power. The purpose was not to avoid friction, but, by means of the inevitable friction incident to the distribution of the governmental powers among three departments, to save the people from autocracy.”29 If future generations could maintain the system, that would protect the values encased in it.
