What was the profound irony embedded in the decision of the American founders to leave questions of public administration for other generations of leaders to work out? How do their motivations and fears of government haunt us today?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Basically, most all of the grievances of the American colonists that produced the American Revolution grew from abuses of administrative power by George III and his Parliament. Although the Constitution created a system that balanced the powers of government among the legislative, judicial, and executive and included checks on those powers, they did little to define exactly how those powers would be exercised. Their greatest fears were embodied in the executive branch, which led to that branch being defined the least. This has led to a vast confusion in recent times over the powers of the executive (since WWII, presidential war powers, for example, have been under question). The textural example of the founders shows that even from the start “American public administration was grounded in politics” and that although the founders wanted to avoid the abuses of power they had suffered under England, they did not outline how this should be done as they created their new government. In part, this was because they could not agree and just wanted to get the Constitution ratified without additional political conflict. Because of their choice to omit more details on public administration, however, conflict is the hallmark of the American political system.