As a student of the founding fathers, it is disheartening to see any administration—including the current one—especially the current one—abuse power by gathering more authority to itself than that granted to it under the Constitution.

The great 19th century British statesman, William Gladstone, once noted, “The American Constitution is, so far as I can see, the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.”

One of the great insights of the founders was their biblical and realistic assessment of human nature. If there is one doctrine the founding fathers of America seemed to agree on, it was that which is revealed in the Bible and has been proven by all history—that man is a sinner. The Scriptures say, “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

James Madison, who helped write the Constitution, said, “All men having power ought to be distrusted.” Madison attended Princeton at a time when it was thoroughly evangelical. One of his great teachers was the founding father and signer of the Declaration of Independence, Dr. John Witherspoon, the president of Princeton. John Eidsmoe, author of Christianity and the Constitution, writes: “[A]lthough Witherspoon derived the concept of separation of powers from other sources, such as Montesquieu, checks and balances seem to have been his own unique contribution to the foundation of U. S. Government.”

Perhaps the most important lesson Madison learned from his Princeton education was his firm belief in the biblical doctrine of man’s inherent sinfulness. Because of man’s sin, government must institute a rigorous system of checks and balances to protect its citizens from tyranny. Rev. Witherspoon’s strong Calvinist theology greatly influenced Madison’s philosophy of political science. Madison wrote in Federalist #10: “It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.”

Then, in Federalist #47, Madison explained why governmental power had to be divided between competing forces: “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.”

Having so recently escaped from one tyrant in England, the drafters of the Constitution were very careful not to replace him with another.

James Madison was not alone among the founders in professing the Christian doctrine of original sin and insisting that this theological concept be incorporated into the new government through an elaborate system of checks and balances. Echoing Scripture, even though he generally claimed not to believe it, Benjamin Franklin declared: “There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh, get first all the peoples’ money, then all their lands and then make them and their children servants forever.”

Similarly, John Adams, of Puritan New England, saw any man who held political power as “a ravenous beast of prey.” That power, he believed, must be contained and balanced by other governmental powers.

Alexander Hamilton said, “Till the millennium comes, in spite of all our boasted light and purification, hypocrisy and treachery will continue to be the most successful commodities in the political market.”

This was not a cynical view. It was a realistic view, and it helped America’s founders create a free country that flourished, since no one person or oligarchy (small group of persons) or group of elites could grab power and rule over its citizens.