The Myth of Equality: The Theory and Founding of Interinstitutional Power.

While we often hear that the American founders set up three coequal branches of government, this outcome was not what the theorists who inspired the founders envisioned, nor was it what the founders wrought. In fact, most American founders did not even favor coequality as a norm. This is most obviously acknowledged in The Federalist Papers when Madison suggests that in republican governments the legislative power "necessarily predominates." This paper will demonstrate two things: that the theorists who inspired the founders, like Locke, Harrington, and Montesquieu did not harbor true coequality between branches as a desirable or an achievable norm and second, that the founders themselves did not think that they had set up three coequal branches of government, and most of them did not think this a desirable outcome. Somehow the notion of coequality has been confused with the separation of roles and the ability of each branch to check the other branches, norms which the founders did build into the Constitution without any accompanying understanding that they were creating institutions which were equal in power. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]