stylistic:tone
Relationship to constitutions

Limited government is closely associated with constitutions and constitutionalism; the United States Constitution of 1789 and the French Constitution of 1793 were both enacted in an effort to reaffirm limited government, although in different ways. The U.S. Constitution achieved limited government through a separation of powers: "horizontal" separation of powers distributed power among branches of government (the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary, each of which provide a check on the powers of the other); "vertical" separation of powers (federalism) divided power between the federal government and the state government. James Madison, one of the authors of the Federalist Papers, noted that the Framers of the American Constitution sought to create a government that was capable of both being controlled and of exercising control. Madison wrote in Federalist No. 51 that "the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department, the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives, to resist encroachments of the others."