On Thomas Jefferson' Thought Of Separation Of Powers With "Three-dimensional Checks And Balances"

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was a famous politician, thinker, the third president, the bourgeois democratic revolutionist and the founder of American democratic tradition in U.S. history. He had been struggling for people's freedom and democracy during his life. In order to protect people's human rights, he designed a set of tight measures; among them is the separation of powers of government and public authority to form a three-dimensional framework of checks and balances. He thought came into being in the subjective and objective conditions such as the political situation of his special period, the European enlightenment ideology and his own social practice and political activities. As a kind of social consciousness, Jefferson's thought on the separation of powers is successive to that of the predecessors, and the reflection of the current social political system of the United States. That is, the organic integration of theory and reality. In short, his thought is mainly the product that combines the thought of the modern European thinkers Locke and Montesquieu with the reality of the social and political system in the United States. His thought had not only exceeded his predecessors but also reached a considerable degree of perfection. This thinking is reflected not only in the horizontal separation of powers and checks and balances at all levels of government at federal and local levels, but also in the vertical separation of powers and check sand balances. Both crosscut to form a three-dimensional defensive system, and there emerges a new network of an additional layer of protection on the basis-- that is, using political parties closely related with national public authority to regulate the power, subordinating military powers easy to give rise to tyranny to a civilian government and dividing it into three, thus completing a sophisticated and effective checks and balances of power within the design. This strict thought of separation of powers shows "three-dimensional checks and balances" feature. In theory, this is very effective for preventing public authority from violations of the natural rights of the people, the protection system has been quite sound. This impact not only on Europe and the U.S. greatly, but also has very important lessons for socialist countries, which have heterogeneous cultural traditions different from Europe and the U.S.A, helping us to build socialist political civilization and political democracy.