James Bovard Quotes
We are asking the wrong question. The issue is not who should be trusted with all the power of the Presidency. Instead, we must ask how much power any candidate can be trusted with.
Bovard, James. Attention Deficit Democracy. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
The debate was about the unlimited pardon power of the President. Madison argued that the check was the impeachment power. However, Presidents had tended to make large numbers of pardons just before they leave office so the impeachment power works only as a check for the beginning and middle part of their term.
Although Hamilton was an advocate of a strong Federal Government, he always advocated checks and balances. Here, he called for checks on the President in the area of foreign affairs which he thought was lacking in the draft of our original constitution. His concern was not addressed and the President still has almost unilateral control over American foreign policy. The only checks are the Senate with the power to ratify treaties or not, and the Congress which need not appropriate money for purposes that the President thinks important, and can condition the money that they do appropriate upon certain limitations on the President’s preferred policies.
In England, the King was above the law. However, impeachment was a tool that could be used against his favorite ministers. In debating the United State Constitution one of the first questions to be determined was whether impeachment could be a tool used against the President or like, England, only the other government officials. Franklin urged the President be included. See also Mason: {584246}.
James Bovard (/bəˈvɑːrd/; born 1956) is an American libertarian author and lecturer whose political commentary targets examples of waste, failures, corruption, cronyism and abuses of power in government. He is a USA Today columnist and is a frequent contributor to The Hill. He is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy and nine other books. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New Republic, Reader's Digest, The American Conservative, and many other publications. His books have been translated into Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, and Korean.
