By the time of the American Revolution, for hundreds of years kings had often defied common law by exercising centralized power, called prerogative power:

Whereas ordinarily kings bound their subjects through statutes passed by Parliament, when exercising prerogative power they bound subjects through proclamations or decrees—or what we today call rules or regulations.

Whereas ordinarily kings would repeal old statutes by obtaining new statutes, when exercising prerogative power they issued dispensations and suspensions—or what we today call waivers.

Whereas ordinarily kings enforced the law through the courts of law, when exercising prerogative power they enforced their commands through their prerogative courts—courts such as the King’s Council, the Star Chamber, and the High Commission—or what we today call administrative courts.

—Philip Hamburger, “The History and Danger of Administrative Law” [4]

English absolutism was epitomized by King James I, who ruled from 1603 to 1625 … His prerogative tribunals most famously included the Star Chamber and the High Commission … Such tribunals are often assumed to have been blood- soaked torture chambers, but they were more bureaucratic than bloody. They were efficient prerogative agencies, and they exercised absolute power in ways that have come back to life in America.

—Philip Hamburger, The Administrative Threat, EPUB version, p. 8 [5]

As English business people started building up economic power, they repeatedly pushed back centralized power:

They did this in 1215 in Magna Charta’s provision on the law of the land, in 1354 and 1368 in the statutes on due process, in 1610 in the Commons’ petition to James I, in 1628 in the Petition of Rights, in 1641 in the abolition of the prerogative courts, in 1689 in the Declaration of Rights, and finally in 1763 in the rejection of general warrants. 

—Philip Hamburger, Is Administrative Law Unlawful?, EPUB version, p. 683 [6]

The American colonists built up considerable, more-widespread economic power.

The colonists’ taxes as a percentage of gross domestic product were just 1% to 2% (Edwin Perkins, The Economy of Colonial America, 2nd ed., pp. 190, 205 [7]).

Under that long-lived unprecedentedly-low taxation, the colonists’ purchasing power ended up exceeding that of the English people by a spectacular 68% (Peter Lindert and Jeffrey Williamson, Unequal Gains: American Growth and Inequality since 1700, EPUB version, pp. 107-8 [8]).

The American colonists used their economic power to further push back centralized power. They explained in their grievances.

Many of their grievances described specific practices that later they specifically outlawed.

A few of their grievances described general practices like our current Progressive agency lawmaking, deep state, and executive lawmaking:

the present king of Great Britain … has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance …

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: …

For … declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us

—USA Declaration of Independence [9]

Soon after, the USA representatives stepped up their game to keep us safe from centralized power. They threw together proven law, theory, and new law, praying that enough of what they created would work. Their design, like a fail-safe engineering design, provides multiple independent layers of protection [10].