34. THE CHECK AND BALANCE SYSTEM SECURES STABILITY.--American
government is not only strong, it is stable. This stability is due
chiefly to the admirable way in which different governmental agents
are balanced against one another. The check and balance system renders
us safe from the danger of anarchy, for though ultimate control is
vested in the people, sufficient powers are entrusted to the
governmental mechanism to protect it against popular passion. The
system likewise protects us against despotism. So long as the
Constitution endures, neither the Federal government nor the
governments of the states may destroy each other. The undue
concentration of political power is likewise rendered difficult by the
division of power between the legislative, executive, and judicial
branches of both Federal and state governments.

The significance of a properly applied check and balance system
appears clearly when we compare our government with that of various
other republics. In many of the ancient republics, for example, the
powers of government were so unequally and so indefinitely divided
that republican government degenerated either to despotism or to
anarchy. Within the last century many Latin-American republics have
modeled their governments after ours, and yet some of these republics
are constantly threatened by either revolution or despotism. The
explanation of this, according to Elihu Root, is that these republics
have adapted our check and balance system so carelessly that they find
it difficult, if not impossible, to maintain a really stable
government. [Footnote: Here we are pointing out the fundamental merits
of the check and balance system; later (Chapters XXXIV, XXXV, and
XXXVI) we shall have occasion to notice some of the disadvantages of
this system.]