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Separation of powers. The idea was that government cannot be completely trusted, so each branch of the government was given the authority and the responsibility to act as a check against the other two.
This is an example of the ability of the national government to use its funding authority to achieve indirectly what it cannot achieve directly.
The Bill of Rights limits the actions that the government can pass and enforce. It guarantees that there are certain rights that the government can not take away.
In the Revolutionary Period in America's history, the various colonies and colonists were afraid of centralized authority and a strong national government for several related reasons. First, the British government exhibited such powers. Second, and still more importantly, such powers are easily abused and cannot easily be reformed once abuses (or other injustices in the government) take root.
Abraham Lincoln