Harry Flood Byrd: “The power of the purse is no accident, and its inclusion in the Constitution of the United States is not there by…”

“The power of the purse is no accident, and its inclusion in the Constitution of the United States is not there by chance. The British constitution, which is an unwritten constitution, except for certain documents and statutes and cases in the common law courts, is the archetype of the United States Constitution which is the oldest written successful constitution in the world. Montesquieu knew about the English struggle, the struggle of our English forebears to wrest from the monarch the power of the purse and to place it into the hands of the elected representatives of the people in Parliament, and particularly in the House of Commons. He believed that the three major departments, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial, must be separated in order to preserve freedom and liberty.”