Editing Separation of powers (section)

=== Early modern ===

[[John Calvin]] (1509–1564) favoured a system of government that divided political power between [[democracy]] and [[aristocracy]] ([[mixed government]]). Calvin appreciated the advantages of [[democracy]], stating: "It is an invaluable gift if God allows a people to elect its own government and magistrates."<ref>Quoted in Jan Weerda, ''Calvin'', in ''Evangelisches Soziallexikon'', Third Edition (1960), Stuttgart (Germany), col. 210</ref> In order to reduce the danger of misuse of political power, Calvin suggested setting up several political institutions that should complement and control each other in a system of [[#Checks and balances|checks and balances]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ward |first=Lee |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YuUaBgAAQBAJ |title=Modern Democracy and the Theological-Political Problem in Spinoza, Rousseau, and Jefferson |date=2014-12-04 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=9781137475053 |series=Recovering Political Philosophy |publication-date=2014 |pages=25–26 |quote=Calvin's republican sympathies derived from his view of human nature as deeply flawed. Compound or mixed governments reflect the reality that human frailty justifies and necessitates institutional checks and balances to the magistrate's presumed propensity to abuse power. It was this commitment to checks and balances that became the basis of Calvin's resistance theory, according to which inferior magistrates have a duty to resist or restrain a tyrannical sovereign. |author-link=Lee Ward}}</ref>  In this way, Calvin and his followers resisted [[autocracy|political absolutism]] and furthered the growth of democracy. Calvin aimed to protect the rights and the well-being of ordinary people.<ref>Clifton E. Olmstead (1960), ''History of Religion in the United States'', Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., pp. 9–10</ref>{{request quotation|date= November 2015}}

In 1620 a group of English separatist [[Congregationalists]] and [[Anglicans]] (later known as the [[Pilgrim Fathers]]) founded [[Plymouth Colony]] in North America. Enjoying self-rule, they established a bipartite democratic system of government. The [[Freeman (Colonial)|"freemen"]] elected the [[Plymouth General Court|General Court]], which functioned as legislature and judiciary and which in turn elected a governor, who together with his seven "assistants" served in the functional role of providing executive power.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Fennell |first=Christopher |title=Plymouth Colony Legal Structure |url=http://www.histarch.uiuc.edu/plymouth/ccflaw.html |publisher=Histarch.uiuc.edu |access-date=12 January 2013 |archive-date=29 April 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120429000512/http://www.histarch.uiuc.edu/plymouth/ccflaw.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[Massachusetts Bay Colony]] (founded 1628), [[Rhode Island]] (1636), [[Connecticut]] (1636), [[New Jersey]], and [[Pennsylvania]] had similar constitutions – they all separated political powers.

[[John Locke]] (1632–1704) deduced from a study of the English constitutional system the advantages of dividing political power into the legislative (which should be distributed among several bodies, for example, the [[House of Lords]] and the [[House of Commons]]), on the one hand, and the executive and federative power, responsible for the protection of the country and prerogative of the monarch, on the other hand, as the [[Kingdom of England]] had no written constitution.<ref>Otto Heinrich von der Gablentz, ''Gewalt, Gewaltenteilung'', In ''Evangelisches Soziallexikon'', col. 420</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Galdia |first=Marcus |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wVVXqe0cvYEC |title=Legal Linguistics |date=2009 |publisher=Peter Lang |isbn=9783631594636 |location=Frankfurt am Main |page=249 |quote=[...] in the absence of a written constitution in England it may at times be difficult to determine whether a particular text belongs to the constitutional law, i.e. forms the corpus of legal constitutional acts of England [...].}}</ref>