My fellow citizens:
WE THE PEOPLE who have raised the right hand to uphold
the Constitution must take action. America
is under attack—at home and abroad. There
is no statute of limitations on the oath to support and defend the supreme law
of the land “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Thus, it is necessary to embrace what may
demand one’s life; and that must resonate with anyone who seeks the Presidency.
Those most
responsible for the creation of the office had a clear vision.
“…(T)he
Executive Magistrate should be the guardian of the people,” said Gouvernor
Morris, “even of the lower classes against legislative tyranny, against
the great and the wealthy who in the course of things will necessarily compose
the legislative body.”
How was that
to be done?
“...(T)o be the
guardian of the people,” Morris said, “let him be appointed by the
people.”
James Wilson
was no Whig. He agreed.
“He who is to
execute the laws will be as much the choice, as much the servant and,
therefore, as
much the friend of the people as he who is to make
them.”
What
was the Executive to do?
“Be
impartial…(and) promote the interests of the whole,” said Wilson. (Presidents Above Party by Ralph
Ketcham, 117 & 118)
When an
electoral system was approved, James Madison said, the Executive is “to be
elected by the people.” (The
Electoral College by Lucius Wilmerding, Jr., 3 & 19)
On September
17, 1787, as Benjamin Franklin and James McHenry left on the final day of the
Federal Convention, they were approached by Mrs. Powel of
Philadelphia.
“Well, Doctor,
what have got—a republic or a monarchy?”
“A republic,”
Franklin replied, “if you can keep it.”
A monarchy is one thing, a republic another,
as Alexander Hamilton made plain.
“…(T)he king
of Great Britain is a perpetual and HEREDITARY prince. The one would be amenable to personal punishment and disgrace; the person of the other is sacred and
inviolable.” (The Federalist Papers,
No. 69)
In the
Framers’ day, hereditary rule was so ingrained that anything else was almost unimaginable. Thus, even before the Constitution was
approved, critics referred to the new office as “the fetus of
monarchy.” And now,
belatedly, there is someone determined to prove them right.
During the
transition, Richard Painter, former ethics lawyer for Bush the Younger, and
Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard University,
warned the gentleman from New York about the emoluments clause. Walter
Shaub, the Director of the Office of Government Ethics, offered to assist him
with divestiture. But that was given no consideration and was not
accepted. And so, from the moment “So help me God” passed his lips,
he has been in violation of the emoluments clause. (Article I, Section 9, Clause 8) The
man who was supposed to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” chose
to terminate “the supreme law of the land” with extreme prejudice.
(Article II, Section 3 & Article VI, Clause 2) And the oath was
dismissed with a wave of his hand. After all, how can one “preserve,
protect and defend” the very thing he upends? (Article II, Section 1,
Clause 8) ALL OF THOSE ARE IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES. Together, they go
beyond, say, civil or inherent contempt, to raise the curtain for an encore, a
showstopper of an impeachable offense--contempt of the Constitution.
Thus, there have been four charges from the
beginning--without even considering the Russian Connection and the related
Ukraine Situation. And he has been working on more ever since.
The gentleman
from New York claims he has “the complete power to pardon.” Yet immediately after the grant, the
Constitution states a limitation—“except in cases of impeachment”; and in The
Federalist Papers, Hamilton shows how the power is to be used in extreme
and mundane situations, consistent with the standards of the Preamble—to
“insure domestic tranquility” and “establish justice.” (Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 & The Federalist
Papers, No. 74) He has also said, “I
have an Article II, where I can do whatever I want.” But if the gentleman from New York had studied the country’s birth
certificate instead of his predecessor’s, he would have seen himself as the
progeny of George III. Furthermore, he
fails to understand that the Framers saw an emergency as a bridge over troubled
water connecting means and ends; for, as John Locke said, “…(P)rerogative
is nothing but the power of doing public good without a rule.” (Second Treatise of Government, Chapter XIV, 166) Thus, an emergency does not exist simply
because the House of Representatives exercised its power over money bills and denied him a pet project. Finally, there is the claim of “absolute
immunity”—to which a United States District Court took exception.
“Simply
stated, the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American
history is that
Presidents are not kings.
This means that they do not have subjects, bound by loyalty, or blood,
whose destiny they are entitled to control.
Rather, in this land of liberty, it is indisputable that current and
former employees of the White House work for the People of the United States,
and that they take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United
States….
“Thus, DOJ’s
present assertion that the absolute testimonial immunity that senior-level
presidential aides possess is, ultimately, owned by the President, and
can be invoked by the President to overcome the aides’ own will to testify, is
a proposition that cannot be squared with core constitutional values, and for
this reason alone, it cannot be sustained.”
(House of Representatives v. McGahn, 116 & 117)
A monarchy is
one thing, a republic another. The
former is subject to the genetic lottery.
The latter depends upon free elections, and the prohibition on granting
titles of nobility reveals America’s true identity (Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 & Section
10, Clause 10)
“The
original intention”—of Gouvernor Morris, James Wilson, and James Madison—is
clear, as are the dangers when it is thwarted due to a hangover. The result is a really bad morning
after, the President being chosen with fewer popular votes. “The right of equal suffrage among
the States is another exceptional part of the Confederation….,” Hamilton
reminds us, “Its operation contradicts
that
fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of
the majority should prevail…. It
may happen that this majority of States is a small minority of the people of
America; and two thirds of the people of America could not long be persuaded…to
submit their interests to the management and disposal of one third.” (The Federalist Papers, No. 22;
emphasis added) It creates a
political discontinuity—a misalignment of means and ends, a condition where a minority
rules the majority. But the
consequences of the loser’s lottery—Bush the Younger and the gentleman from New York—will
continue until the Electoral College is used to perform its proper
functions--popular choice and national security. Therefore the 2020 election must be decided
by the National Popular Vote.
History is
full of mysteries. But despite the one
who sows confusion, there is none about the position at the center of the American
political system. During the battle for
ratification, Hamilton described the role of the new office.
“Energy in the
Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less
essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of
property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes
interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against
the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy…
“There can be
no need, however, to multiply arguments or examples on this head. A feeble Executive implies a feeble execution
of the government. A feeble execution is
but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever
it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.” (The Federalist Papers, No. 70)
The acceptance of power and responsibility
defines a leader. Others need not apply, as Hamilton explains.
“The republican
principle demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the
conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs;
but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden
breeze of passion, or to every transient impulse which the people may
receive from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray
their interests. It is a just observation, that the people
commonly INTEND the PUBLIC GOOD. This often applies to their very
errors. But their good sense would despise the adulator who should
pretend that they always REASON RIGHT about the MEANS of promoting
it. They know from experience that they sometimes err; and the
wonder is that they so seldom err as they do, beset, as they continually are,
by the wiles of parasites and sycophants, by the
snares of the ambitious, the avaricious, the desperate, by the artifices
of men who possess their confidence more than they deserve it, and of
those who seek to possess rather than to deserve it. When occasions
present themselves, in which the interests of the people are at
variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed
to be the guardians of those interests, to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for
more cool and sedate reflection. Instances might be cited in
which a conduct of this kind has saved the people from very
fatal consequences of their own mistakes, and has procured lasting
monuments of their gratitude to the men who had courage and magnanimity
enough to serve them at the peril of their displeasure.” (The Federalist
Papers, No. 71)
The challenge
was formidable. Washington reigned in an
age when monarchs ruled. He was an
exception, and the prospect of elections for the House of Commons was not a sunbeam
in the minds of writers of the time, as an historian informs us.
“The real
crisis for Pope, Swift, and their circle was the ‘corruption’ they saw
everywhere in the rule of Walpole. But for
these critics corruption meant much more than the giving or taking of
bribes or the taint of other forms of dishonest exchange or exercises
of power by public officials. The term corruption
carried the full Classical connotation of displacement of the public good by
private interest. In this context, the
phrase private citizen becomes a contradiction: to be a citizen in the Aristotelian
sense means precisely and completely to transcend the private, selfish
viewpoint…
“This
conception of citizenship, derived by English neoclassical writers from the
Renaissance
humanists, harkened to the sternest Spartan ideals of
disinterestedness.” (RK, 31)
In The Craftsman,
Lord Bolingbrooke said “the head of the state is responsible for the moral
health of the body politic.”
In The Idea of a Patriot King, he called such a leader “the
most powerful of all reformers,…a sort of standing miracle.” Under his influence, “a new people will seem
to arise with a new king.” The
reason? “A little merit in a prince is
seen and felt by numbers: it is multiplied….
A little failing…is multiplied in the same manner.” But, said Bolingbrooke, “the character of a
great and good king (must) be founded in that of a great and good man.” (RK, 61 &64)
Leadership
comes down to intangibles, and trust is the indispensable attribute. Pierce Butler, a delegate from South
Carolina, gave testimony in a letter to a relative in England.
“I am free to acknowledge that his powers
are full great, and greater than I was disposed to make
them.
Nor, entre nous, do I believe they would have been so great had not many of the
members cast their eyes towards General Washington as President; and shaped
their ideas of the powers to be given to a President, by their opinions of his
virtue.”
Here was Lord Bollingbrooke’s idea of a patriot
king. As an historian attests, “The
President was to be a strong, dignified, nonpolitical chief of state and
government. In two words, he was to be
George Washington.” (The American
Presidency by Clinton Rossiter, 77)
To do the job,
one must know the job. The Preamble and
the oath make the point: All the powers
of the Presidency are to be used for the benefit of the Republic; and the means
are directed to these ends—to “promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
Then one will indeed “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.”
(c)2020 Marvin D. Jones. All rights reserved.
https://www.marvindjones.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-schlesinger-moment.html
https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2019cv2379-46
https://www.nationalpopularvote.com
No comments:
Post a Comment