How does our system of checks and balances help protect our rights?
As we have already seen our Constitution is very much a reaction to the events that came before it. Our founding fathers had several goals, foremost among those goals was to avoid tyranny. In order to do this several different systems were set up to prevent the abuse of power. Federalism was one of these systems. Federalism was designed to balance the power of the national and State governments and thus limit the powers of the national government. Jefferson and others were convinced that state government was closer to the people and thus more democratic.
Iit protects against any branch of the government trying to abuse its power. This way all powers are shared and equal. This goes even for the president, he alone cannot mandate orders. It takes approval of branches (judicial, legislative, executive) to get to a deal. :)
