Constitutional Crisis Quotes
This quotation shows what prompted the Texas rebellion against Mexico. Military dictators had taken over the Federal Government of Mexico and Mexico was no longer a free country.
The congressman was reacting to a group staging a protest on the bridges connecting Washington DC with Virginia, thereby stopping traffic.
Bush, more so than any other president, claimed executive powers that had never been claimed by other presidents even in wartime. At the time the senator made this statement, the Supreme Court had ruled against the President on several of his claims and others were pending. The powers ranged from the right to hold even American Citizens incommunicado without filing any charges or going before a court or even allowing a court to review the action if the President Claims the person was an “enemy combatant” or “terrorist”; to the right to spy on American Citizens phone calls in America without any court review and even went so far as to claim the right to question Americans or other suspected enemies by methods that are classified as “torture” by most nations and is even illegal by the American Military Regulations for interrogating prisoners.
Senior civil judge in the Court of Appeal of England and Wales
The Congress over the last century has ceded much of its Constitutional power to the President. Congress has much power to check the President, but just as Congress has not been very competent at legislating, oversight, and conducting hearings and investigations, it has not organized itself to use the powers it has very well.
Sowell’s definition of “degeneracy” seems to be departing from his ideal version of proper views and action.
Harding, not the most historically knowledgeable of American Presidents, had forgotten the revolutionary origin of the United States or its drastically experimental nature. It was the fear of Communism and the Russian Revolution that gave revolution a bad name at the time.
The majority of the country strongly favored American participation in the League of Nation provided there were some reservations that made it explicitly clear, the American troops could not be committed without the approval of Congress and that nothing would impinge on U. S. domestic sovereignty. Wilson wanted no exceptions or reservations to the treaty he had negotiated and would not compromise in any way. The issues were soon forgotten in what had become a test of will and power between the Senate and the President. The treaty was never ratified and without the United States, the League of Nations collapsed.
