Then, at the end of the eighteenth century, the founders of the United States of America and their intellectual successors claimed that this pessimism about government was unwarranted. “The science of politics...like most other sciences,” claimed Alexander Hamilton, “has received great improvement....The regular distribution of power into distinct departments...legislative balances and checks...judges holding their offices during good behavior; the representation of the people in the legislature by deputies of their own election...are means, and powerful means, by which the excellences of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided...”