Question

WILL GIVE MEDALS

"Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power."-James Madison
In at least two paragraphs, discuss the meaning and how this quote supports or rejects one of the following principles-limited government, natural rights, or separation of powers. (11 points)

Answer 1

@wwhitlock

Answer 2

Abuse of liberty happens when someone uses their rights to limit the freedom of another person. The simple illustration is a person has a right to swing her fist. Another person has the right to not be punched in the nose. But when the fist hits the nose one persons rights have been limited by the other.
It's easy to see that we need some way to limit freedom so that everyone can enjoy rights equally. That idea has to do with Natural Rights. Rights that everybody has. We need government to ensure those rights.

But we don't need someone to keep us from swinging our arms. That's the idea of limited government. We can swing arms to play sports, wave at people, swing an ax or hammer. All those things are none of the governments business. So it is limited to ensuring our rights. Like the right not to get punched in the nose.

Bump it up a few notches. Now make the fist swinger president of the US. The President can do whatever she wants as head of the government. Except, we limit the power of the President. We set up congress and the judiciary (courts) to have equal power. So no body gets all the power. That's what we call separation of power.
When Congress complains that the president isn't doing what they want, or the president complains the same about Congress, it's a good thing. That's the way we want it.