The end of democracy in America and the beginning of the oligarchy—rule by a few.
John Jay
When the Founding Fathers wisely created a constitution with checks and balances, they created what they thought was a “properly designed state”. As Richard Hofstadter wrote in An Age of Reason,” A properly designed state, the Founders believed, would check interest with interest, class with class, faction with faction, and one branch of government with another in a harmonious system of mutual frustration.” They knew that because man was an “atom of self interest” it was too much to expect that they could check vice with virtue. They decided therefore to check vice with vice.
The checks and balances between the two Congressional Houses and the Executive Branch created by the constitution would be capped by an independent judiciary. “The inevitable tendency of the rich and poor to plunder each other would be kept in hand.”
Did they dream that the 21st century Roberts Court would not keep that tendency at hand?
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Lloyd Lofthouse 
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