The system of checks and balances created by the framers is designed to ensure that no one branch of government gets too powerful.

The American colonists' long-standing complaints at what they saw as the tyranny of British rule under King George III eventually led to the Revolutionary War. Having won that war and achieved independence, the last thing Americans wanted was a system of government that violated their fundamental liberties and inalienable rights.

With that in mind, they put in place a system of checks and balances in the new government to ensure that none of the three branches of government—legislature, executive, judiciary—became too powerful and therefore threatened Americans' hard-won liberties.

One should see the system of checks and balances as a kind of power-sharing arrangement in which no one branch of government has absolute control. As power is shared, so the theory goes, no institution can become too powerful.

Each branch has an important role to play, not just in carrying out its duties and responsibilities but also in ensuring that the other branches don't exceed their proper bounds. In this way, the balance envisaged by the framers of the Constitution is maintained and Americans' rights and liberties secured, at least in theory.

What is the system of checks and balances, and why is it important?

Ultimately, the system of checks and balances was intended as a check against government overreach and abuse of power. Remember, the American Revolution was fought during an age where European politics was still dominated by monarchies, and the revolutionaries themselves framed the revolutionary struggle as a fight against tyranny. However, this raises the question: How would you prevent the government of the United States from itself descending into tyranny?

Interestingly, the Constitution was not the first system of government planned for the United States. The first, envisioned in the Articles of Confederation, actually sought to address this problem by making the federal government exceptionally weak (in comparison to the state governments), but this had the effect of making that government too weak to effectively address the challenges of the time. Thus, the framers understood that a stronger, more centralized governing structure was necessary, but at the same time, this greatly raised the potential for future overreach on the part of the federal government itself.

The framers addressed this problem by dividing power between the three branches of government (the judicial, executive, and legislative branches), with each serving as a counterbalance against the others. Additionally, it should be noted that this system of checks and balances has itself evolved throughout US history.