Last Best Hope of Earth

Tag: Presidential Power

  • Constitution Sunday: Luther Martin, “The Genuine Information,” IX

    Luther Martin: “The Genuine Information,” IX

    Maryland Gazette (Baltimore), January 29, 1788

    Impeachment of a president has become a feature within the Constitution that is colored by its uses throughout history: the impeachments of Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump and the near-impeachment of Richard Nixon. While none of the impeachment proceedings resulted in conviction—and thus removal—of a president, those proceedings illustrated how Congress would deliberate over the solemn task that the Constitution assigned it. At the time the Constitution was facing ratification, it remained unclear how Congress would actually remove a president, and one author, writing under the name Luther Martin, opined in the Maryland Gazette that Congress would never remove a president—and thus far, Martin has been correct.

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  • Constitution Sunday: “Cato” V

    “Cato” V

    New York Journal, November 22, 1787

    Following are excerpts from an anonymous article published in the New York Journal:

    “To the Citizens of the State of New-York.

    In my last number I endeavored to prove that the language of the article relative to the establishment of the executive of this new government was vague and inexplicit, that the great powers of the President (more…)

  • Constitution Sunday: Answers to Mason’s “Objections”: “Marcus” [James Iredell] II

    Answers to Mason’s “Objections”: “Marcus” [James Iredell] II

    Norfolk and Portsmouth Journal (Virginia), February 27, 1788

    Following are excerpts from James Iredell’s responses to George Mason’s “Objections” to the Constitution:

    “IVth. Objection. The Judiciary of the United States is so constructed and extended, as to absorb and destroy the Judiciaries of the several States (more…)

  • Polk’s Expansion of Presidential Power

    james_knox_polk_by_george_peter_alexander_healy_detail_1846_-_dsc03261
    James Polk. By: George Peter Alexander Healy. (Detail).

    The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was the culmination of the Mexican-American War and “embodied the objectives for which [President James] Polk had gone to war.” Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: Transformation of America, 1815-1848, 808.

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