When the framers decided to write a constitution, they were faced with several problems, one of which was how to set up the national government. The framers had to create a government that had strong central power but still maintained civil liberties for the people. Despite one observer's assertion that " The Constitutional Convention of 1787 is supposed to have created a government of separated powers. It did nothing of the sort. Rather it created a government of separated institutions sharing powers," the Constitutional Convention actually created a government that has separated powers as well as separate institutions sharing powers. The Framers intended for the national government not to be of one sole entity with sole power, but rather to be a government of several institutions with specific separate powers. Along with the separate powers, the Convention of 1787 intended those separate branches to have specific powers to check the other branches of the national government.
             The framers present at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 intended to create a government of separated powers. When the framers spoke of "separated powers," they were referring to the division of a national government and its powers. The framers feared granting the same entity all powers of government: legislative, judicial and executive. If one person, group, or branch has all power, the people's liberty is lost. James Madison states, " The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.... the preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct" (Federalist No. 47, Lasser, 9-10). Here, Madison makes it evident that the fear of one entity possessing all governmental power led the fra...