It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional
spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The
spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to
create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power,
and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the
truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by
dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the
public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern;
some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to
institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional

what is the authors point of view