After the Revolutionary War, the colonists created an executive branch with constitutional limits in order to prevent tyranny from the government and let the states still have power.
The Articles of Confederation was the first constitution for the United States, it was very weak and gave the national government little to no power. The government could barely create and enforce laws, regulate trade, draft soldiers, or tax the people.
Some people preferred this, as they felt like the power should be in the hands of the people and were scared of tyranny, as they had just broken away from British rule during the Revolutionary War. Still, some people wanted to create a stronger government and felt like the Articles of Confederation were doing more harm than good.
During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the Articles of Confederation ended up getting scrapped and the United States Constitution was created instead. This created three branches of government, one of them being the executive branch, where the president is. Many people feared that the president would become too powerful, so they made each branch have constitutional limits. These are called separation of powers and checks and balances, each branch is powerful in its own ways and holds certain powers over others to keep each other in check.
