Indicate why the framers believed it was important to create a "separation of powers".

The framers, in wanting to create a new form of government
that was not authoritarian like the monarchy that they left behind, sought to draft a
constitution that did not place all of the power for decision-making into one branch of
government. This is why the United States has three separate branches - executive,
legislative, and judicial - each with a unique role in the decision-making process and
each with some degree of "checking" power on the others (this is the system that we
refer to as checks and balances). This degree of group oversight did not exist in Great
Britain. In the United States, Congress is the legislative or law-making branch of
government. They write the laws. The executive branch is headed by the President who is
commander in chief of the armed forces and has the ability to negotiate treaties,
execute the laws enacted by congress, and make various appointments subject to the
approval of the senate. Essentially, this branch carries out the laws. The Supreme Court
acts as the primary judicial body whose main task is to make sure that the Constitution
is never violated. In other words, it acts as a review board. Through this separation,
the framers created a system that minimized the threat of any one branch becoming too
powerful and turning into a dictatorship which is what they felt they were seeing in
Britain.