While there is debate over how literally to take each utterance from the men who crafted the founding instructions, it is clear from the spirit of their debates that they were obsessed with balance. A government in which power was wrongly distributed could create a president who was at once too powerful and yet not powerful enough to bring the system back into balance. It would also make bad laws. Nowadays, instead of looking to bolster Congress’s powers and expect less from the president, we remain in thrall to the presidential habit. We still look to a president who, through force of will,
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