The powers of the federal
executive have been growing steadily in the United States since Lincoln’s War,
which destroyed the limited, coordinating government that had existed in DC up
to his time in office and replaced it with a powerful, centralized entity that
could stomp upon the States with impunity.
Proof of this may be seen in the numbers
of executive orders issued by the presidents. Prior to Lincoln’s War they were quite rare,
not even totaling 20 in most cases.
After that turning point, they have ranged from near 100 to over 1,000.
This increase in presidential power corresponds to a diminution of the power of the federal legislature. Government power is a zero-sum game: Particular functions cannot be exercised by more than one person or department without creating chaos. Thus, we have seen the federal Congress grow weaker as the president and the executive bureaucracy grow stronger.
President Trump exemplifies
this trend. Many of his headline-making
policies are a usurpation of congressional powers as laid out in the federal
constitution.
Tariffs: Article I, Section 8, clauses 1 and 3 clearly
give the power of deciding on tariffs to Congress. Yet Trump has been busily revising tariff
rates from week to week while Congress stands idly by.
Declaring wars: Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 11 grants this power to
Congress alone. But again President
Trump has launched attacks against quite a few actors, whether countries or
non-state actors – Iran, Somali
terrorists, the Houthis in Yemen, Venezuelan drug cartels – none of which
attacks have been debated or approved by Congress.
Calling up the States’
militias/National Guards: Art. I, Sec.
8, cl. 15 authorizes the Congress to call out the militia to execute the laws,
etc. The president may not call them up
himself; however, once the Congress does call up the Guard, the president then
becomes their commander (Art. II, Sec. 2, cl. 1). Once again, what we have seen with the Trump
administrations is the reversal of the constitutional order, with the president
sending the National Guard to conduct various law enforcement tasks without a
specific act of Congress authorizing those tasks.
Delegation of powers from
Congress to the president is an unlawful revision of the federal charter. Only the States, either in their legislatures
or in conventions, have the authority to approve revisions to the charter (Art.
V), for they are the ones who originally wrote and ratified it.
But this transition from a
powerful legislature and a weak executive to a weak legislature and powerful
executive was foreseeable. A federation
as extensive as the United States cannot be governed well by a strong
Congress/weak president. The size of the
federation to be governed was a concern from the earliest days of the newly
independent States. One of the best of
the Anti-Federalist writers (those who opposed the ratification of the current
federal constitution), Brutus, had this to say in Essay 1:
‘Let us now proceed to
inquire, as I at first proposed, whether it be best the thirteen United States
should be reduced to one great republic, or not? It is here taken for granted,
that all agree in this, that whatever government we adopt, it ought to be a
free one; that it should be so framed as to secure the liberty of the citizens
of America, and such an one as to admit of a full, fair, and equal
representation of the people. The question then will be, whether a government
thus constituted, and founded on such principles, is practicable, and can be
exercised over the whole United States, reduced into one state?
‘If respect is to be paid to
the opinion of the greatest and wisest men who have ever thought or wrote on
the science of government, we shall be constrained to conclude, that a free
republic cannot succeed over a country of such immense extent, containing such
a number of inhabitants, and these increasing in such rapid progression as that
of the whole United States. Among the many illustrious authorities which might
be produced to this point, I shall content myself with quoting only two.
‘The one is the Baron de
Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws,[1] Chap. xvi.
Vol. I [Book VIII]. “It is natural to a republic to have only a small
territory, otherwise it cannot long subsist. In a large republic there are men
of large fortunes, and consequently of less moderation; there are trusts too
great to be placed in any single subject; he has interest of his own; he soon
begins to think that he may be happy, great and glorious, by oppressing his
fellow citizens; and that he may raise himself to grandeur on the ruins of his
country. In a large republic, the public good is sacrificed to a thousand
views; it is subordinate to exceptions, and depends on accidents. In a small
one, the interest of the public is easier perceived, better understood, and
more within the reach of every citizen; abuses are of less extent, and of
course are less protected.” Of the same opinion is the Marquis Beccarari.[2]
‘History furnishes no example
of a free republic, anything like the extent of the United States. The Grecian
republics were of small extent; so also was that of the Romans. Both of these,
it is true, in process of time, extended their conquests over large territories
of country; and the consequence was, that their governments were changed from
that of free governments to those of the most tyrannical that ever existed in
the world’ (teachingamericanhistory.org).
Keep in mind that the size of
the union at the time Brutus was writing was a fraction of what it is today,
consisting mainly of the States along the Atlantic coast. Yet even a union of that size aroused his
skepticism of the formation and long duration of a limited, representative
federal government. How much more would
he have balked at the idea of such a government existing in a union that
stretches over several time zones, such as ours does today.
Brutus adds the following:
. . .
The rest is at https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/irrelevant-congresses-and-caesar-presidents/.
--
Holy
Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema
to the Union!
