Friends:
This is a great idea. I hope all will follow and join in the effort. It doesn't require much effort or money but the impact will make our President think.
RED ENVELOPE DAY
March 31, 2009
Get a red envelope. You can buy them at Kinkos, or at party and office supply stores. On the front, address it to:
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington , DC 20500
On the back, write the following message:
"This envelope represents one child who died because of an abortion. It is empty because the life that was taken is now unable to be a part of our world."
Then mail the envelope on March 31st, 2009.
President Obama has pledged to support and sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which will essentially "undo" every law currently in place to limit abortion in the U.S. , i.e., parental consent laws, parental notification, waiting periods, prohibition of transporting a minor girl across state lines to obtain an abortion, etc.
It may seem that those who believe abortion is wrong are in a minority. It may seem like we have no voice and it's shameful to even bring it up. Let us show our President and the world that the voices of those of us who do not believe abortion is acceptable are not silent and must be heard.
An empty red envelope will send a message to President Barack Obama that there is moral outrage in this country over this issue. It is a quiet, but clear message of protest.
Please forward this message to every one of your friends who you think would send one too. I wish we could send 50 million red envelopes, one for every child who has died before having a chance to live since Roe v Wade legalized abortion in the US 36 years ago.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Debating Dissent
Rush Limbaugh’s comment that he wants President Obama to fail has led to a firestorm in the mainstream media. But is anyone talking about how perhaps the President should fail if his policies would be bad for the nation? It seems like the only one saying this is the icon of Conservative talk radio himself. Everyone else is caught up in the notion that a successful president translates into a successful country. If you debate and disagree with the President, suddenly you are unpatriotic.
Where have I heard that line before? It seems so eerily familiar…
Oh! That’s right! Hillary Clinton uttered something like that… where did I put it? Ah! Here it is!
“I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this [Bush] administration, somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration!”
Where is this now? Where is the questioning of those in authority? It certainly isn't happening in the media. What was intended to be the watchdog of government by our Founders has become the guardog of government and the lapdog of Democrat politicians. Where is the debate and dialogue that can only help implement the right solution for this so called crisis? We should be bringing all ideas to the table if it is as bad as they say. Suddenly it is unpatriotic to do anything but bow down or bend over, whichever you prefer.
Bill Sammon points out this hypocrisy in his latest article. He is spot on.
Where have I heard that line before? It seems so eerily familiar…
Oh! That’s right! Hillary Clinton uttered something like that… where did I put it? Ah! Here it is!
“I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this [Bush] administration, somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration!”
Where is this now? Where is the questioning of those in authority? It certainly isn't happening in the media. What was intended to be the watchdog of government by our Founders has become the guardog of government and the lapdog of Democrat politicians. Where is the debate and dialogue that can only help implement the right solution for this so called crisis? We should be bringing all ideas to the table if it is as bad as they say. Suddenly it is unpatriotic to do anything but bow down or bend over, whichever you prefer.
Bill Sammon points out this hypocrisy in his latest article. He is spot on.
Monday, March 9, 2009
How The President and Democrats in Congress are Killing Jobs
Washington politicians, including President Obama, have recently taken to using McCarthy like tactics to demonize corporations who host conventions and parties for their employees or customers or spend money on other “frivolous” activities. Bank of America, who along with several other banks, was forced to take bailout money by then Secretary of Treasury, Hank Paulson, recently came under fire for hosting a lavish Super Bowl party. Citigroup refused delivery of a new jet after pressure from the White House. AIG came under fire for spending $125 million for the priviledge of having its logo appear on the British soccer team, Manchester United’s uniforms. Merrill Lynch was ridiculed by the White House for spending $1.2 million renovating its corporate office.
The question is, when a company like Merrill spends $1.2 million renovating an office, what does that do, what happens? The answer is quite simple, STIMULUS. Stimulus happens. A contractor, decorator, drywallers, carpenters, and painters were hired. A furniture company was able to sell its products. The little guys, the very ones who the Obama administration and Democrats claim to stand for, benefit from these “lavish excesses”. What happens when corporations stop throwing conventions or lavish parties for their employees and customers? Lawrence Geller, President and CEO of Strategic Hotels and Resorts recently shed some light on the damage being done by our benevolent leaders in Washington.
“The hyperbole and rhetoric was notched up to gigantic levels during this recent political debate season. The bookings of our meetings have cut down drastically. We've lost an awful lot of major businesses, and it's not just those receiving government bailouts that are affected, but there's a general fear of criticism by people not only making the bookings but people attending these conferences so it's really got out of hand because the meetings and conference business is absolutely essentially to this nation. We lost 200,000 jobs last year. We thought if things went the same way we'd lose 240,000. This year, since the hyperbole got ratcheted up to these levels, we're on track to lose 350, 400,000 jobs. The ripple through the economy is gigantic, lodging and tourism is the third largest retail business in the country.”
You may be thinking, “Well, it’s the rich that goes to these things anyway, so why should I care?” The fact of the matter is the rich, except maybe the hotel owners, are not directly affected by this trend. The people that do these meetings are stopping because they are afraid of criticism from the president of the United States. The president of the United States personally is shutting down a large part of the travel and leisure industry in this country, purely on the basis of class envy. But who is really getting hurt? Aside from the hotel owners, who works at hotels? Who works in the travel and leisure business? It's the very little guy that the Obama administration and Democrats claim to stand for. If there are no guests arriving, if there are no conferences being held, if there's no food being prepared and consumed, if there are no hotel rooms being occupied, then there's no work for the maids and there's no work for the kitchen personnel, there's no work for any of the staff in the hotel and they get laid off. This is the grim reality of Obama’s politics that everyone is ignoring.
President Obama, you claim that you want to save jobs. You can start by putting an end to the class envy game you are playing because it is costing a lot of little guys their jobs. For some reason, I don’t think you really care about that. Maybe it is because you have not demonstrated that you do. You talk a good talk, but your actions speak louder than words. Is it because the more people who are out of a job and have to depend on the government to get by are all the more people who will vote for your government programs, and ultimately, you? This isn’t hope and change Mr. President; this is sick.
Monday, March 2, 2009
How President Bush Returned to the Founders' Intent
The 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush, has come under fire from both ends of the political spectrum for his Constitutional record in regards to his administration’s conduct in the ongoing war on terrorism. Indeed, over these past eight years the country has witnessed the growing collection of journalistic and legal literature cataloguing the alleged trampling of the United States Constitution. The examples are numerous. On December 16, 2005 The New York Times declared that “Bush lets U.S. spy on callers without courts.” USA Today affirmed that the “NSA has [a] massive database of Americans’ phone calls… [which] reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans – most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime.” The Washington Post leaked the news that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was operating secret prisons around the world at which an unknown and unidentified group of prisoners was being held. The country also learned that the CIA and Treasury Department, “[u]nder a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism… gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States.” Numerous lawsuits, challenging the Bush Administration’s counterterrorism policies are moving up through the U.S. court system ranging from groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Even the Cato Institute, a renowned conservative think tank and public policy research foundation, bashed President Bush’s Constitutional record. “Unfortunately, far from defending the Constitution, President Bush has repeatedly sought to strip out the limits the document places on federal power. In its official legal briefs and public actions, the Bush administration has advanced a view of federal power that is astonishingly broad…”
Has President Bush trampled the Constitution or has he acted in accordance with what the Founding Fathers intended for the Executive Branch? In the following pages, we will endeavor to answer this very question. For our purposes here, we will only be examining the Bush record in regards to his administration’s actions concerning foreign policy and the war on terrorism. To be able to pass judgment on President Bush’s Constitutional record we must first understand what the Founders intended for the Executive Branch and how it fit into their view concerning the role of government as a whole. This will be done through a thorough examination of some of the Framers, such as George Clinton, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson, their writings in regards to the Executive Branch and the Constitution, the Presidential selection process they chose, and, where applicable, how those Framers who held the highest office in the land conducted themselves.
Some of the Founders understandably feared any amount of executive power; they had just emerged from under the tyranny of King George the Third. One of these men was George Clinton. Clinton was extremely active in securing independence from Great Britain and establishing a new government. He was elected to the Continental Congress, voted for the Declaration of Independence but was called into service as a brigadier general under Washington before he could sign it, served as the first governor of New York, voted to ratify the Constitution, was the Vice President under both Jefferson and Madison, and is credited with being the pseudonymous author, “CATO”, of the Anti-Federalist Papers, a collections of essays which appeared in New York newspapers during the ratification debates.
In the Anti-Federalist Papers no. 67, Clinton compares the executive branch provided in the Constitution to the King of England. “And wherein does this president, invested with his powers and prerogatives, essentially differ from the king of Great Britain (save as to name, the creation of nobility, and some immaterial incidents, the offspring of absurdity and locality)?” He warns of the dangers of amassing power in the hands of one man. “It is, therefore, obvious to the least intelligent mind to account why great power in the hands of a magistrate, and that power connected with considerable duration, may be dangerous to the liberties of a republic. The deposit of vast trusts in the hands of a single magistrate enables him in their exercise to create a numerous train of dependents.”
At first, Clinton apposed the newly drafted Constitution mainly based upon his concerns regarding the Executive Branch and the power of the federal government as a whole. In the end, however, he voted to ratify the Constitution. What changed? The answer is simply the Bill of Rights. This is an important point because it underscores what the Founding Fathers, even those who apposed a stronger, more centralized government than that provided by the Articles of Confederation, saw as the primary purpose of government, the protection of individual liberties. The Declaration of Independence, which states the Founders’ reasons for separating from the government of England, declares, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The preamble to the Constitution proclaims, “We the People, of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” For the Founding Fathers, rights were not granted by government; they were unalienable. Thus, government, which is established to protect those rights, must recognize them. The inclusion of the Bill of Rights fulfilled this requirement for men like George Clinton.
Most of the Founding Fathers did not share Clinton’s concerns regarding the Executive Branch. Many of them feared the power of an unchecked legislative branch even more. One such man was Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, political philosopher, and among the first to call for the Constitutional Convention, although his role was somewhat limited. Due to his outspoken support of a strong, independent executive, Hamilton acquired the reputation in some circles as a monarchist. His main achievement is arguably his role in co-authorship, along with John Jay and James Madison, of The Federalist Papers, which “are more often cited than any other primary source by jurists, lawyers, historians and political scientists as the major contemporary interpretation of the Constitution.”
In The Federalist Papers no. 51, Hamilton declared that “in republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.” The remedy was to divide the legislature into two competing branches, but for Hamilton, that was still not enough. “It may even be necessary to guard against dangerous encroachments by still further precautions. As the weight of the legislative authority requires that it should be thus divided, the weakness of the executive may require, on the other hand, that it should be fortified.” Hamilton is arguing that a stronger executive is needed to check usurpations of legislative power.
Another Founder who shared Hamilton’s views regarding the role of the executive was James Madison, who served as the fourth President of the United States, became known as the Father of the Constitution through the strong role he played in the Constitutional Convention and the ratification by the states. Though Madison was a shy man, he was one of the more outspoken members of the Continental Congress. Madison's draft of the Virginia Plan and his revolutionary three-branch federal system became the basis for the Constitution. Finally, Madison authored the Bill of Rights, which he intitially apposed for several reasons. First, “a specific bill of rights remained unnecessary because the Constitution itself was a bill of rights.” Furthermore, it was unnecessary, since it purported to protect against powers that the federal government had not been granted; it was dangerous, since enumeration of some rights might be taken to imply the absence of other rights; and at the state level, bills of rights had proven to be useless paper barriers against government powers. However, in order to get the support of Anti-Federalists like George Clinton, Madison eventually authored and supported the Bill of Rights.
Madison also was very outspoken against he dangers of amassing too much power in the legislative branch. In his Federalist Papers no. 48, Madison talked about “the danger from legislative usurpations, which, by assembling all power in the same hands, must lead to the same tyranny as is threatened by executive usurpations.” Like Hamilton, he agreed that a strong, independent executive was needed in order to guard against legislative usurpations. They feared a tyranny of the masses just as much, if not more, than the tyranny of one. For the Founding Fathers, individual freedom and liberty must be protected above all else, even from the people themselves. After all, a right is not unalienable if it can be voted away. Protecting individual freedom and liberty and preserving it for future generations was, for them, the primary purpose of government.
The question now arises, if the Founders were so jealous of individual liberties and distrusted government so, why would they even set up a strong federal government? The answer to this question lies in their secondary purpose of government, to provide for the common defense. A weak government, while it may not be able to infringe as easily upon individual liberties, cannot effectively protect the nation as a whole from attacks and foreign invasions or civil insurrections, thus, leaving vulnerable the very liberties it was established to protect. However, a strong government is better suited to infringe upon liberty. The solution to this “Catch 22" situation was to separate the power within the federal government, assigning different primary powers, functions, and responsibilities for each branch, making them accountable one to another by each, in essence, competing for more and more power. In his book, The Rhetorical Presidency, Jeffrey K. Tulis illustrates this very point.
"Ensuring the protection of liberty and individual rights was one element of effective governance as concieved by the founders, but not the only one. Government was also needed to ensure the security of the nation and to implement policies that reflected popular will. These three governmental objectives might conflict; for example, popular opinion might favor policies that violate rights. Seperation of powers was thought to be an institutional way of accommidating the tensions between governmental objectives."
The three objectives were mixed among the branches, but each one was given a priority. Congress was to implement policies that reflected popular will. The Court was to ensure the protection of liberty and individual rights, and the Executive was to ensure the security of the nation. For example, if Congress passes a law that infringes upon individual liberties, the Court is supposed to dispassionately strike it down. If the President oversteps his bounds, Congress holds the power of impeachment and the Court can render his actions unlawful. The Court is checked through nomination and confirmation and the ability of the people to override a court decision via constitutional amendment. In essence, the Founders set up a strong government with institutional roadblocks, obstacles, and an innate ability to accomplish seemingly nothing except when it came to one thing, national defense.
In Article II of the Constitution, the Founders outlined the role of the President of the United States, vesting in him the power to adminster the laws passed by Congress and to be “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States”, thus making the President’s primary objective the security and defense of the nation. This role is further emphasized in the Presidential Oath of Office also articulated in Article II. All government officers swear to defend the Constitution, but only the President swears to the “best of [his] Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” This oath highlights the energy the Founding Fathers envisioned for the Executive branch. The President was to do everything to the best of his ability to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and ulitimately the nation.
This primary obligation of the President is reenforced even further by the means of selection the Framers chose. They chose indirect selection by electors over direct popular election in order to insulate the President from the pressures of fickle popular sentiment. James W. Ceaser in Presidential Selection: Theory and Development, summs up the properties the Founders viewed as ideal in a President.
"The Properties in the executive sought by the Founders can be summarized as follows. In negative terms, they wanted to prevent the president from defining himself and from being looked upon as a populae favorite. The president might earn the people’s respect, but he was not to solicit their favor. In positive terms, the Founders looked to the president ot lend “energy” i.e. firmness and competence, to the government and to provide a source of statemanship."
Another reason the Framers sought to insulate the Presidency from popular opinion was to guard against the dangers of demagoguery. “The possibility of a national demagogue was one of the greatest fears of the Founders and literally frames The Federalist, being mentioned in both the first and the last numbers.” In order for a President to effectively defend the nation, he may have to do things that are unpopular. Hence, he should not base his entire presidency, his existence, on seeking good opinion poll numbers or job approval ratings. Shying away from rhetoric and populism would enable him to not rely on popular sentiment but truly use his judgment when it is needed most.
We have established thus far that the Founders believed government should protect individual liberty, implement policies that reflect public will, and provide for the common defense. The President’s primary objective was to provide for the common defense. The Founders set up, not only in the institutional form of government, but the means of selection of the different branches, a method they believed would best serve to promote the obligations of each branch and the type of individual they felt most qualified to fulfill the role of the President. But what happens when a President is faced with a situation that requires him to overstep his bounds, to break the law in order to protect the nation? If he chose to do so, would this be an egregious act of executive usurpation and a trampling of the Constitution, or would it be in keeping with his primary obligation? The answer to this question lies in one of the most famous and revered of the Founding Fathers, perhaps second only to George Washington.
Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States and the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. He viewed the Presidency as the ultimate representative of the people. Jefferson believed that the law of self preservation trumps the Constitution, even though the Constitution did not address this question. It is better to beg forgiveness than ask permission would have been a mantra that Jefferson lived by when he governed as a governor and the President. The President, whose primary obligation is national defense, may have to operate outside the framework of the Constitution when an extreme threat. He took this logic even further when he applied it to the Louisiana Purchase, arguing not that it was good for national security, but that it was a good deal for the country. “It is the case of a guardian, investing the money of his ward in purchasing an important adjacent territory; and saying to him when of age, I did this for your good.” Jefferson believed that as an executive, he had the prerogative to act on behalf of the people of whom he was the chief representative, using his judgment which the people had placed their confidence in via election, while keeping Congress informed. In 1810 Jefferson penned his clearest view of presidential prerogative in a letter to John B. Colvin.
"A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means."
Jefferson’s view of executive prerogative has been adopted by Presidents ever since when faced with extreme threats to the Union. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was forced to pursue Jefferson’s higher obligation. In response to the secession crisis that began when Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter, Lincoln raised armies and borrowed money on the credit of the United States, both powers that the Constitution gave to Congress. He suspended the writ of habeas corpus in many places even though most constitutional scholars, then and now, believed that only Congress could do this. Lincoln imposed a blockade on the South without specific Congressional approval. He imprisoned thousands of Southern sympathizers and war agitators without any charge or due process; and he ignored a judicial order from the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to release a prisoner detained illegally. Yet Lincoln’s defense of his arguably unconstitutional actions was rooted in the Constitution itself.
"I did understand however, that my oath to preserve the constitution to the best of my ability, imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means, that government -- that nation -- of which that constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet preserve the constitution?"
Nearly eighty years later in the months preceding and the years during World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt applied this same doctrine of self preservation. In a move that has been condemned by history, Roosevelt rounded up thousands of American civilians of Japanese descent along the west coast and placed them in detention camps. When eight hapless Nazi saboteurs, one of whom was an American citizen, roaming the streets of New York were captured, Roosevelt had them tried via military tribunal; six of them were executed. This all happened within six weeks of their capture. His Destroyers for Bases Program, now hailed as crucial to saving Great Britain and ultimately the West, was bitterly opposed at the time in strikingly similar rhetoric to recent outbursts over President Bush’s different actions.
During the 1970’s, Congress, in obvious reaction to President Richard Nixon’s use of national security assets to spy on political opponents, waged an all out assault on the Executive branch, passing the War Powers Resolution, which cut off presidential uses of force abroad over sixty days and the Budget and Impoundment act to eliminate the modest presidential power to curb wasteful spending. Last but not least, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act requiring federal agencies to get a warrant from a special court to conduct wiretapping for national security reasons. This resulted in a tremendous shift of power from the Executive to the Legislature. Instead of an energetic executive able to quickly sift through and decipher critical information and making the tough decisions, Congressional committees were now trying to manage day to day policy, passing vague mandate after vague mandate and handing them off to the Court to interpret.
The reality facing the Bush Administration on September 12, 2001 was grim and terrifying. No one knew when the next attack might come, but no one doubted that it would. With intelligence agencies hampered by the walls and barriers erected by a paranoid Congress, President Bush and his team set about the task of rebalancing the Executive. John Yoo, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, explains the Administration’s logic.
"[T]he president has broader goals than even fighting terrorism – he has long intended to make reinvigorating the presidency a priority. Vice President Dick Cheney has rightly deplored the “erosion of the powers and the ability of the president of the United States to do his job” and noted that” we are weaker today as an institution because of the unwise compromises that have been made over the last 30 to 35 years.” …A reinvigorated presidency enrages President Bush’s critics, who seem to believe that the Constitution created a system of judicial or congressional supremacy. …But the Founders intended that wrongheaded or obsolete legislation and judicial decisions would be checked by presidential action, just as executive overreaching is to be checked by the courts and Congress."
Was Yoo right in his assessment of Presidential prerogative? In light of the previous discussions of the Framers’ intent for the Executive, the Constitution, and government as a whole, the answer would be a resounding “Yes!” Effective government fulfills three obligations, protecting individual liberty, implementing policies congruent to the public will, and providing for the common defense. The Constitution established the framework, the institutional structure, which would enable government to best fulfill these obligations while reducing the possibility of usurpations and eventual tyranny by separating the powers of government into three branches and assigning obligations to each one. The Founders’ intended the Executive to provide a check against the encroachments of the Legislature, make critical decisions based on judgment and experience rather than popular mandates and sentiments, provide energy to the government, and, above all else, secure and defend the nation, even at the expense of the law itself.
No one can argue that President Bush has not fulfilled his highest obligation. During the two decades leading up to that fateful day on September 11, 2001 the United States was hit by over twenty major terrorist attacks at home and abroad. Since then, not even a minor attack has been carried out, due not to lack of motive or intent by America’s enemies but rather in large part to the controversial policies of the Bush Administration. It can be argued that President Bush’s actions have grown the Executive and infringed upon liberty, but even his critics cannot deny that he has kept America safe. Like Lincoln and Roosevelt before him, in keeping with Jefferson’s higher obligation, and viewing the Executive as the Founders ordained, did what he deemed necessary to protect the nation. It would indeed be foolish to sacrifice the nation in scrupulous adherence to the law. To do so would be to sacrifice the law itself.
If the nation falls, freedom falls with it. A fallen America cannot protect the liberties of her people or the people around the world for whom America is their last best hope. As Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, when speaking of America, asked, “Who else can stand up for liberty in the world?”
Has President Bush trampled the Constitution or has he acted in accordance with what the Founding Fathers intended for the Executive Branch? In the following pages, we will endeavor to answer this very question. For our purposes here, we will only be examining the Bush record in regards to his administration’s actions concerning foreign policy and the war on terrorism. To be able to pass judgment on President Bush’s Constitutional record we must first understand what the Founders intended for the Executive Branch and how it fit into their view concerning the role of government as a whole. This will be done through a thorough examination of some of the Framers, such as George Clinton, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson, their writings in regards to the Executive Branch and the Constitution, the Presidential selection process they chose, and, where applicable, how those Framers who held the highest office in the land conducted themselves.
Some of the Founders understandably feared any amount of executive power; they had just emerged from under the tyranny of King George the Third. One of these men was George Clinton. Clinton was extremely active in securing independence from Great Britain and establishing a new government. He was elected to the Continental Congress, voted for the Declaration of Independence but was called into service as a brigadier general under Washington before he could sign it, served as the first governor of New York, voted to ratify the Constitution, was the Vice President under both Jefferson and Madison, and is credited with being the pseudonymous author, “CATO”, of the Anti-Federalist Papers, a collections of essays which appeared in New York newspapers during the ratification debates.
In the Anti-Federalist Papers no. 67, Clinton compares the executive branch provided in the Constitution to the King of England. “And wherein does this president, invested with his powers and prerogatives, essentially differ from the king of Great Britain (save as to name, the creation of nobility, and some immaterial incidents, the offspring of absurdity and locality)?” He warns of the dangers of amassing power in the hands of one man. “It is, therefore, obvious to the least intelligent mind to account why great power in the hands of a magistrate, and that power connected with considerable duration, may be dangerous to the liberties of a republic. The deposit of vast trusts in the hands of a single magistrate enables him in their exercise to create a numerous train of dependents.”
At first, Clinton apposed the newly drafted Constitution mainly based upon his concerns regarding the Executive Branch and the power of the federal government as a whole. In the end, however, he voted to ratify the Constitution. What changed? The answer is simply the Bill of Rights. This is an important point because it underscores what the Founding Fathers, even those who apposed a stronger, more centralized government than that provided by the Articles of Confederation, saw as the primary purpose of government, the protection of individual liberties. The Declaration of Independence, which states the Founders’ reasons for separating from the government of England, declares, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The preamble to the Constitution proclaims, “We the People, of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” For the Founding Fathers, rights were not granted by government; they were unalienable. Thus, government, which is established to protect those rights, must recognize them. The inclusion of the Bill of Rights fulfilled this requirement for men like George Clinton.
Most of the Founding Fathers did not share Clinton’s concerns regarding the Executive Branch. Many of them feared the power of an unchecked legislative branch even more. One such man was Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, political philosopher, and among the first to call for the Constitutional Convention, although his role was somewhat limited. Due to his outspoken support of a strong, independent executive, Hamilton acquired the reputation in some circles as a monarchist. His main achievement is arguably his role in co-authorship, along with John Jay and James Madison, of The Federalist Papers, which “are more often cited than any other primary source by jurists, lawyers, historians and political scientists as the major contemporary interpretation of the Constitution.”
In The Federalist Papers no. 51, Hamilton declared that “in republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.” The remedy was to divide the legislature into two competing branches, but for Hamilton, that was still not enough. “It may even be necessary to guard against dangerous encroachments by still further precautions. As the weight of the legislative authority requires that it should be thus divided, the weakness of the executive may require, on the other hand, that it should be fortified.” Hamilton is arguing that a stronger executive is needed to check usurpations of legislative power.
Another Founder who shared Hamilton’s views regarding the role of the executive was James Madison, who served as the fourth President of the United States, became known as the Father of the Constitution through the strong role he played in the Constitutional Convention and the ratification by the states. Though Madison was a shy man, he was one of the more outspoken members of the Continental Congress. Madison's draft of the Virginia Plan and his revolutionary three-branch federal system became the basis for the Constitution. Finally, Madison authored the Bill of Rights, which he intitially apposed for several reasons. First, “a specific bill of rights remained unnecessary because the Constitution itself was a bill of rights.” Furthermore, it was unnecessary, since it purported to protect against powers that the federal government had not been granted; it was dangerous, since enumeration of some rights might be taken to imply the absence of other rights; and at the state level, bills of rights had proven to be useless paper barriers against government powers. However, in order to get the support of Anti-Federalists like George Clinton, Madison eventually authored and supported the Bill of Rights.
Madison also was very outspoken against he dangers of amassing too much power in the legislative branch. In his Federalist Papers no. 48, Madison talked about “the danger from legislative usurpations, which, by assembling all power in the same hands, must lead to the same tyranny as is threatened by executive usurpations.” Like Hamilton, he agreed that a strong, independent executive was needed in order to guard against legislative usurpations. They feared a tyranny of the masses just as much, if not more, than the tyranny of one. For the Founding Fathers, individual freedom and liberty must be protected above all else, even from the people themselves. After all, a right is not unalienable if it can be voted away. Protecting individual freedom and liberty and preserving it for future generations was, for them, the primary purpose of government.
The question now arises, if the Founders were so jealous of individual liberties and distrusted government so, why would they even set up a strong federal government? The answer to this question lies in their secondary purpose of government, to provide for the common defense. A weak government, while it may not be able to infringe as easily upon individual liberties, cannot effectively protect the nation as a whole from attacks and foreign invasions or civil insurrections, thus, leaving vulnerable the very liberties it was established to protect. However, a strong government is better suited to infringe upon liberty. The solution to this “Catch 22" situation was to separate the power within the federal government, assigning different primary powers, functions, and responsibilities for each branch, making them accountable one to another by each, in essence, competing for more and more power. In his book, The Rhetorical Presidency, Jeffrey K. Tulis illustrates this very point.
"Ensuring the protection of liberty and individual rights was one element of effective governance as concieved by the founders, but not the only one. Government was also needed to ensure the security of the nation and to implement policies that reflected popular will. These three governmental objectives might conflict; for example, popular opinion might favor policies that violate rights. Seperation of powers was thought to be an institutional way of accommidating the tensions between governmental objectives."
The three objectives were mixed among the branches, but each one was given a priority. Congress was to implement policies that reflected popular will. The Court was to ensure the protection of liberty and individual rights, and the Executive was to ensure the security of the nation. For example, if Congress passes a law that infringes upon individual liberties, the Court is supposed to dispassionately strike it down. If the President oversteps his bounds, Congress holds the power of impeachment and the Court can render his actions unlawful. The Court is checked through nomination and confirmation and the ability of the people to override a court decision via constitutional amendment. In essence, the Founders set up a strong government with institutional roadblocks, obstacles, and an innate ability to accomplish seemingly nothing except when it came to one thing, national defense.
In Article II of the Constitution, the Founders outlined the role of the President of the United States, vesting in him the power to adminster the laws passed by Congress and to be “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States”, thus making the President’s primary objective the security and defense of the nation. This role is further emphasized in the Presidential Oath of Office also articulated in Article II. All government officers swear to defend the Constitution, but only the President swears to the “best of [his] Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” This oath highlights the energy the Founding Fathers envisioned for the Executive branch. The President was to do everything to the best of his ability to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and ulitimately the nation.
This primary obligation of the President is reenforced even further by the means of selection the Framers chose. They chose indirect selection by electors over direct popular election in order to insulate the President from the pressures of fickle popular sentiment. James W. Ceaser in Presidential Selection: Theory and Development, summs up the properties the Founders viewed as ideal in a President.
"The Properties in the executive sought by the Founders can be summarized as follows. In negative terms, they wanted to prevent the president from defining himself and from being looked upon as a populae favorite. The president might earn the people’s respect, but he was not to solicit their favor. In positive terms, the Founders looked to the president ot lend “energy” i.e. firmness and competence, to the government and to provide a source of statemanship."
Another reason the Framers sought to insulate the Presidency from popular opinion was to guard against the dangers of demagoguery. “The possibility of a national demagogue was one of the greatest fears of the Founders and literally frames The Federalist, being mentioned in both the first and the last numbers.” In order for a President to effectively defend the nation, he may have to do things that are unpopular. Hence, he should not base his entire presidency, his existence, on seeking good opinion poll numbers or job approval ratings. Shying away from rhetoric and populism would enable him to not rely on popular sentiment but truly use his judgment when it is needed most.
We have established thus far that the Founders believed government should protect individual liberty, implement policies that reflect public will, and provide for the common defense. The President’s primary objective was to provide for the common defense. The Founders set up, not only in the institutional form of government, but the means of selection of the different branches, a method they believed would best serve to promote the obligations of each branch and the type of individual they felt most qualified to fulfill the role of the President. But what happens when a President is faced with a situation that requires him to overstep his bounds, to break the law in order to protect the nation? If he chose to do so, would this be an egregious act of executive usurpation and a trampling of the Constitution, or would it be in keeping with his primary obligation? The answer to this question lies in one of the most famous and revered of the Founding Fathers, perhaps second only to George Washington.
Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States and the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. He viewed the Presidency as the ultimate representative of the people. Jefferson believed that the law of self preservation trumps the Constitution, even though the Constitution did not address this question. It is better to beg forgiveness than ask permission would have been a mantra that Jefferson lived by when he governed as a governor and the President. The President, whose primary obligation is national defense, may have to operate outside the framework of the Constitution when an extreme threat. He took this logic even further when he applied it to the Louisiana Purchase, arguing not that it was good for national security, but that it was a good deal for the country. “It is the case of a guardian, investing the money of his ward in purchasing an important adjacent territory; and saying to him when of age, I did this for your good.” Jefferson believed that as an executive, he had the prerogative to act on behalf of the people of whom he was the chief representative, using his judgment which the people had placed their confidence in via election, while keeping Congress informed. In 1810 Jefferson penned his clearest view of presidential prerogative in a letter to John B. Colvin.
"A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means."
Jefferson’s view of executive prerogative has been adopted by Presidents ever since when faced with extreme threats to the Union. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was forced to pursue Jefferson’s higher obligation. In response to the secession crisis that began when Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter, Lincoln raised armies and borrowed money on the credit of the United States, both powers that the Constitution gave to Congress. He suspended the writ of habeas corpus in many places even though most constitutional scholars, then and now, believed that only Congress could do this. Lincoln imposed a blockade on the South without specific Congressional approval. He imprisoned thousands of Southern sympathizers and war agitators without any charge or due process; and he ignored a judicial order from the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to release a prisoner detained illegally. Yet Lincoln’s defense of his arguably unconstitutional actions was rooted in the Constitution itself.
"I did understand however, that my oath to preserve the constitution to the best of my ability, imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means, that government -- that nation -- of which that constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet preserve the constitution?"
Nearly eighty years later in the months preceding and the years during World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt applied this same doctrine of self preservation. In a move that has been condemned by history, Roosevelt rounded up thousands of American civilians of Japanese descent along the west coast and placed them in detention camps. When eight hapless Nazi saboteurs, one of whom was an American citizen, roaming the streets of New York were captured, Roosevelt had them tried via military tribunal; six of them were executed. This all happened within six weeks of their capture. His Destroyers for Bases Program, now hailed as crucial to saving Great Britain and ultimately the West, was bitterly opposed at the time in strikingly similar rhetoric to recent outbursts over President Bush’s different actions.
During the 1970’s, Congress, in obvious reaction to President Richard Nixon’s use of national security assets to spy on political opponents, waged an all out assault on the Executive branch, passing the War Powers Resolution, which cut off presidential uses of force abroad over sixty days and the Budget and Impoundment act to eliminate the modest presidential power to curb wasteful spending. Last but not least, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act requiring federal agencies to get a warrant from a special court to conduct wiretapping for national security reasons. This resulted in a tremendous shift of power from the Executive to the Legislature. Instead of an energetic executive able to quickly sift through and decipher critical information and making the tough decisions, Congressional committees were now trying to manage day to day policy, passing vague mandate after vague mandate and handing them off to the Court to interpret.
The reality facing the Bush Administration on September 12, 2001 was grim and terrifying. No one knew when the next attack might come, but no one doubted that it would. With intelligence agencies hampered by the walls and barriers erected by a paranoid Congress, President Bush and his team set about the task of rebalancing the Executive. John Yoo, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, explains the Administration’s logic.
"[T]he president has broader goals than even fighting terrorism – he has long intended to make reinvigorating the presidency a priority. Vice President Dick Cheney has rightly deplored the “erosion of the powers and the ability of the president of the United States to do his job” and noted that” we are weaker today as an institution because of the unwise compromises that have been made over the last 30 to 35 years.” …A reinvigorated presidency enrages President Bush’s critics, who seem to believe that the Constitution created a system of judicial or congressional supremacy. …But the Founders intended that wrongheaded or obsolete legislation and judicial decisions would be checked by presidential action, just as executive overreaching is to be checked by the courts and Congress."
Was Yoo right in his assessment of Presidential prerogative? In light of the previous discussions of the Framers’ intent for the Executive, the Constitution, and government as a whole, the answer would be a resounding “Yes!” Effective government fulfills three obligations, protecting individual liberty, implementing policies congruent to the public will, and providing for the common defense. The Constitution established the framework, the institutional structure, which would enable government to best fulfill these obligations while reducing the possibility of usurpations and eventual tyranny by separating the powers of government into three branches and assigning obligations to each one. The Founders’ intended the Executive to provide a check against the encroachments of the Legislature, make critical decisions based on judgment and experience rather than popular mandates and sentiments, provide energy to the government, and, above all else, secure and defend the nation, even at the expense of the law itself.
No one can argue that President Bush has not fulfilled his highest obligation. During the two decades leading up to that fateful day on September 11, 2001 the United States was hit by over twenty major terrorist attacks at home and abroad. Since then, not even a minor attack has been carried out, due not to lack of motive or intent by America’s enemies but rather in large part to the controversial policies of the Bush Administration. It can be argued that President Bush’s actions have grown the Executive and infringed upon liberty, but even his critics cannot deny that he has kept America safe. Like Lincoln and Roosevelt before him, in keeping with Jefferson’s higher obligation, and viewing the Executive as the Founders ordained, did what he deemed necessary to protect the nation. It would indeed be foolish to sacrifice the nation in scrupulous adherence to the law. To do so would be to sacrifice the law itself.
If the nation falls, freedom falls with it. A fallen America cannot protect the liberties of her people or the people around the world for whom America is their last best hope. As Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, when speaking of America, asked, “Who else can stand up for liberty in the world?”
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