there ensues that concentration of power which destroys the working of free
institutions, enables the holder to continue himself in power, and leaves
no opportunity to the people for a change except through a revolution.
Numerous instances of this very process are furnished by the history of
some of the Spanish-American republics. It is of little consequence that
the officer who usurps the power of others may design only to advance the
public interest and to govern well. The system which permits an honest
and well-meaning man to do this will afford equal opportunity for selfish
ambition to usurp power in its own interest. Unlimited official power
concentrated in one person is despotism, and it is only by carefully
observed and jealously maintained limitations upon the power of every
public officer that the workings of free institutions can be continued.

The rigid limitation of official power is necessary not only to prevent the
deprivation of substantial rights by acts of oppression, but to maintain
that equality of political condition which is so important for the
independence of individual character among the people of the country. When
an officer has authority over us only to enforce certain specific laws at
particular times and places, and has no authority regarding anything else,
we pay deference to the law which he represents, but the personal relation
is one of equality. Give to that officer, however, unlimited power, or
power which we do not know to be limited, and the relation at once becomes
that of an inferior to a superior. The inevitable result of such a relation
long continued is to deprive the people of the country of the individual
habit of independence. This may be observed in many of the countries of
Continental Europe, where official persons are treated with the kind of
deference, and exercise the kind of authority, which are appropriate only
to the relations between superior and inferior.

So the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, after limiting the powers of