What they tried to do was to harness human nature to check that inevitable human instinct among all who acquire power. They distributed powers among competing centers and different levels of government. They guaranteed religious liberty to instill a higher loyalty among the people which they knew would set natural boundaries beyond which the government could not go. They protected the right among the poor to acquire property and therefore to have a personal stake in their liberty. But they did not labor under any delusion that the republic they created would be immortal, without the constant attention of each generation.
Material abundance is the surest path to destruction.
An aide to George Washington by the name of James McHenry recorded this encounter between Benjamin Franklin and a Mrs. Powel in Philadelphia on the day the Constitution was born. When we lose our way as a people, we must go back to the principles of the Declaration. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained, and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and to eat out their substance. I don't mean to say that our government has yet grown as oppressive as the one from which we once separated.