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Basic Constitutional Concepts
States of those powers that were not delegated to the Federal government.
Conversely, the Framers were also mindful that in order to be limited,
it did not follow that government must also be weak. Too little power
was as dangerous as too much, and if left unattended might produce
‘‘anarchy in the parts,’’ or a state of disorder into which the man on the
white horse would ride to forge tyranny out of chaos. The solution for
avoiding these extremes of too much and too little power was to balance
power and to balance liberty and order, allocating to the people and to
each unit of government a share of the national sovereignty.
Fifth, the American Constitution was premised on the seemingly unassailable assumption that the rights and liberties of the people would
be protected because the powers of government were limited, and that
a separate declaration of rights would therefore be an unnecessary and
superfluous statement of an obvious truth. Since the government of the
United States was to be one of enumerated powers, it was not thought
necessary by the Philadelphia delegates to include a bill of rights
among the provisions of the Constitution. ‘‘If, among the powers conferred,’’ explained Thomas Cooley in his famous treatise Constitutional
Limitations (1871), ‘‘there was none which would authorize or empower
the government to deprive the citizen of any of those fundamental
rights which it is the object and duty of government to protect and defend, and to insure which is the sole purpose of a bill of rights, it was
thought to be at least unimportant to insert negative clauses in that instrument, inhibiti