The Separation of Powers and Democracy

The founders put in all those limits is because they knew that democracy has always failed. So if you're a small minority, you have no hope whatever in a democracy - but in this country, minorities are protected. And what has happened is that the constitution was amended many times back in the early 1900s and 1920s. A lot of those things that the founders put in place to make those separations and checks and balances powerful were stripped away.