Grievances

 Many posts have discussed the Founding.

Ryan Goodman, Jack Palmer-Coole, Siven Watt and Simone Lipkind at Just Security:

Americans commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence this year. As many in the United States and around the world reflect on the words in the solemn document, it will be readily apparent how the actions of the monarch that prompted the “grievances” of the settlers are echoed by the actions taken by the current presidential administration in its first year and a half. 

We believe there is an important history lesson in simply reading, and rereading, the Declaration and reflecting on the current times in the United States. In the passages below, the text of the Declaration is annotated with the words of federal judges in 52 court cases involving the current administration. We have identified 17 of the 27 grievances with a contemporary analog.

Over the past months, different studies published at Just Security have closely documented how the federal courts have adjudicated Americans’ attempts to vindicate their rights against administration policies. The gravity of the judges’ conclusions are sobering. Indeed, reading the Declaration and their words side-by-side shows how much the very fabric of the American social contract is being tested. Today’s federal judiciary, no less than the signatories of the Declaration 250 years ago, is speaking to the current generation about the foundational needs of a functional and representative American democracy, with meaningful checks and balances, and above all, a commitment to the rule of law.

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Grievance 16: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
Grievance 17: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

Historical grievance: The Boston Port Act (1774) shut down Boston Harbor, the Restraining Acts (1775) barred New England from trading outside the British Empire, and the Prohibitory Act (1775) prohibited American trade altogether (Grievance 16). The Sugar Act (1764), Stamp Act (1765), and Townshend Acts (1767) imposed direct taxation on the colonies without their consent or representation in Parliament (Grievance 17).
Contemporary translation: Executive restriction of international trade (Grievance 16); and executive imposition of tariffs (considered a tax by the Supreme Court) without congressional authorization (Grievance 17).
Strength of contemporary analog: Strong.

“Based on two words separated by 16 others in Section 1702(a)(1)(B) of IEEPA — ‘regulate’ and ‘importation’ — the President asserts the independent power to impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time. Those words cannot bear such weight.

Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution sets forth the powers of the Legislative Branch. The first Clause of that provision specifies that ‘The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.’ It is no accident that this power appears first. The power to tax was, Alexander Hamilton explained, ‘the most important of the authorities proposed to be conferred upon the Union.’ It is both a ‘power to destroy’ and a power ‘necessary to the existence and prosperity of a nation’ — ‘the one great power upon which the whole national fabric is based.‘

The power to impose tariffs is ‘very clear[ly] … a branch of the taxing power.’ ‘A tariff,’ after all, ‘is a tax levied on imported goods and services.’ And tariffs ‘raise[] revenue’ — the defining feature of a tax
…
Recognizing the taxing power’s unique importance, and having just fought a revolution motivated in large part by ‘taxation without representation,’ the Framers gave Congress ‘alone … access to the pockets of the people.’ see also Declaration of Independence ¶19[sic]. … They did not vest any part of the taxing power in the Executive Branch.”

“We are therefore skeptical that in IEEPA — and IEEPA alone — Congress hid a delegation of its birth-right power to tax within the quotidian power to ‘regulate.'”

— Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. (W. Bush appointee) — IEEPA as a basis for presidential tariff power (link to Supreme Court opinion)

Prayer and the Continental Congress

Many posts have discussed the role of religion in American life.

From Tikvah:

In September of 1774, the First Continental Congress gathered at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia. The delegates were divided by geography, culture, and religion—uncertain whether so fractious a body could act as one. When a proposal to open with prayer met with resistance, Samuel Adams rose and declared he would pray with any man who was a friend of his country—and they opened the session with Psalm 35. Rabbi Soloveichik reflects on what that moment reveals about the Hebrew Bible in American civic life, illustrating how faith serves not as a source of division, but as the unifying foundation of our national covenant.

Myths, Misinformation, and the Founding

 

Many posts have discussed myths and misinformation. 

View on Threads

There's something odd about being so self-righteous when you're so wrong. Mamdani is, of course, correct, and Posobiec is wrong - New York was the first capital of the United States of America. pic.twitter.com/ytYUU9tHXr

— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) July 6, 2026

No…the Declaration of Independence says all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights including Life, Liberty & the pursuit of Happiness. “Made in the image of God” is from the Bible. I guess its easy to confuse 2 things you’ve never read https://t.co/x729uCghhP

— Andrew—#IAmTheResistance (@AmoneyResists) July 5, 2026

Civic Ignorance on America's 250th Birthday

Many posts have discussed what Americans do and do not know about their government.

Emily Ekins at Cato:

A new national survey from the Cato Institute, conducted in collaboration with Morning Consult of 2,253 Americans ahead of July 4th and America’s 250th anniversary, finds nearly half (46%) of Americans don’t know what America’s 250th anniversary commemorates. A little more than half (53%) correctly answered that it was the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

Despite civic ignorance, overwhelming majorities are grateful (86%) and proud (79%) to be Americans. Most also believe America is a land of opportunity (61%), and even more believe the American Dream (74%) is available to them personally. As the nation celebrates its birth, most Americans feel positive (76%) about the nation’s founding, and 70% believe its founding principles remain relevant today. In particular, overwhelming majorities believe the US Constitution is important for protecting our rights and freedoms (86%) and for enabling America’s prosperity (82%).

However, nearly 6 in 10 believe the country has moved away from the founding principles, and 56% worry the US could stop being a free country within the next 50 years. People believe corruption, concentrations and abuse of power, and ignoring founding principles could lead to the country’s demise. Americans support constitutional limits, dividing power, and checking the power of the president to maintain their freedoms. For instance, 58% say no political party should be trusted with too much power, 55% say the US Constitution should place firm limits on what the government is allowed to do, even if it makes it harder to solve problems, and 72% say the president should have to obey Supreme Court rulings even when he disagrees.

Yet, a significant minority is willing to bend the rules when it suits their advantage. Four in 10 Americans think it’s acceptable if a president they support stretched the Constitution to get what they want.

Another risk to the country is low substantive civic knowledge on basic governance questions. For instance, while 77% know George Washington was the first president, 58% don’t know what the main purpose of the US Constitution is, and 57% don’t know the reason we declared independence from Great Britain and created our government with limited powers.

Capitalism (52%) is viewed somewhat more favorably than socialism (37%). However, people are evenly divided on socialism, with equal shares who are favorable and unfavorable. Gen Z stands out with more who are supportive of socialism (53%) than capitalism (45%). The survey found the “Democratic Socialist” label can both help and harm a candidate about equally. While 39% said they’d be more likely to vote for a Democratic Socialist candidate, 40% said they’d be less likely, and 22% weren’t sure either way. Democrats (61%) and Gen Z (51%) reported they’d be likely to vote for a candidate with the Democratic Socialist label.

America: The Signers Would Be Disappointed

 Many posts have discussed patriotism and American exceptionalism.

Andy Kemp at Gallup:

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, just 19% of Americans say the signers of the Declaration of Independence would be pleased with how the country has turned out.

Just over three in four Americans (77%) now say the founders would be disappointed, compared with 71% in 2013 and 42% in 2001. The latest findings come from a May 2026 Gallup survey.

 

Hamilton and the Removal Power

Previous posts have discussed the appointment and removal of executive branch officials.

Gary Schmitt at AEI:

During the First Congress’s debate in which James Madison and others defended the ideas that the president had the constitutional power to remove department heads “at pleasure,” one of Madison’s opponents noted that, in Federalist #77, Alexander Hamilton had written that the Senate’s consent would be necessary not only for an official’s appointment but also “to displace” them. Madison and Hamilton, the two most influential expositors of the newly adopted constitution were seemingly at odds over how the government would remove senior administration figures.

Hamilton, alerted to the fact that his statement in Federalist #77 had been used to challenge Madison’s argument sent a note (see William Smith letter to Edward Rutledge, June 21, 1789) to a Madison ally in the House to let its members know that “upon more mature reflection,” he now agreed with Madison. The power to remove was the president’s alone as a constitutionally implied power of the office.

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King Charles on America

 Many posts have discussed the Founding.

Ironically, the British monarch echoed the No Kings rallies in the US.

From King Charles's Address to Congress:

The Founding Fathers were bold and imaginative rebels with a cause. Two hundred and fifty years ago, or, as we say in the United Kingdom ‘just the other day,’ they declared Independence. By balancing contending forces and drawing strength in diversity, they united 13 disparate colonies to forge a nation on the revolutionary idea of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ They carried with them, and carried forward, the great inheritance of the British Enlightenment – as well as the ideals which had an even deeper history in English common law and Magna Carta.

These roots run deep, and they are still vital. Our Declaration of Rights of 1689 was not only the foundation of our constitutional monarchy, but also provided the source of so many of the principles reiterated, often verbatim, in the American Bill of Rights of 1791.

And those roots go even further back in our history: the U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society has calculated that Magna Carta is cited in at least 160 Supreme Court cases since 1789, not least as the foundation of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances.

This is the reason why there stands a stone, by the River Thames at Runnymede where Magna Carta was signed in the year 1215. This stone records that an acre of that ancient and historic site was given to the United States of America by the people of the United Kingdom, to symbolize our shared resolve in support of liberty, and in memory of President John F. Kennedy.

Distinguished members of the 119th Congress, it is here in these very halls that this spirit of liberty and the promise of America’s founders is present in every session and every vote cast.

Not by the will of one, but by the deliberation of many, representing the living mosaic of the United States. In both of our countries, it is the very fact of our vibrant, diverse and free societies that gives us our collective strength, including to support victims of some of the ills that, so tragically, exist in both our societies today.

What Is Madisonianism?

 Many posts have discussed the Founding.

 Jay Cost, "What Does It Mean to Be Madisonian? at AEI:

• Today, the word Madisonian is automatically paired with the American constitutional order, particularly the nexus of Federalist 10 and 51—the popular sovereignty of an extended republic mitigated by institutional mechanisms to temper majority factions.
• While that is arguably a fair characterization of the constitutional system, it misrepresents James Madison’s political position at the time of the Constitution’s drafting. Madison’s Federalist 10 defends the Constitution on grounds on which he privately criticized it, and Federalist 51 employs classical republican ideas his original theory did not heavily rely on.
• While Madison in retirement praised the Constitution as a whole, a more precise vocabulary would distinguish the “Publian” Madison from the authentically Madisonian position of 1787.
• The constitutional system advances Madisonian commitments like democratic governance, deliberation, and consensus—not through the means Madison preferred in 1787 but through the practical accommodations with classical republicanism that he eventually embraced.

From the essay:

From a broader perspective, while the Constitution does not embody the democratic republic to nearly the extent that Madison had hoped, it likely does so much more than it would have had Madison not been involved. His Virginia Plan set the agenda for the early portion of the convention and oriented the delegates to a national plan of government. His insistence on a democratically elected House of Representatives rebutted many delegates who thought states should appoint House members. His staunch defense of proportional representation in both chambers of Congress limited the power of the small states in only the Senate. For instance, William Paterson’s New Jersey Plan would have retained the unicameral Congress of the Articles of Confederation, with votes apportioned equally among the states.33 Madison also opposed demands by delegates sympathetic to commercial interests to entrench representation based on property and many of the demands from his fellow Southerners on protection for the slaveholding interest. He may have failed to create a constitution that reflected his aspirations of a national, democratic republic, but the finished product does reflect that view in part, thanks to his aspirations. In that sense, the Constitution is Madisonian.

Foreign Policy and the Declaration

 Many posts have discussed the Founding.

Schmitt, Gary J, 'The Period is Not Far Off': American Statecraft in the Founding Generation (April 01, 2025). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5278972 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5278972

Abstract:

If the Declaration of Independence was, as Thomas Jefferson claimed, an “expression of the American mind” at the time of the country’s founding, what does it imply about the American approach to statecraft? What follows is an analysis of the Declaration as a national security document: its principles and their application. With that as background, the paper moves on to explore how the founding generation adapted those principles to the global security environment it found itself in, and the institutions and policies it established to deal with that environment. It concludes with a close analysis of the statecraft of John Quincy Adams, arguing that Adams believed he was staying true to Washington’s vision in the Farewell Address by advocating for a more forward-leaning American foreign policy given the growing strength of the United States, the rise of revisionist powers in Europe, and the prospect of a new strategic alignment in the American hemisphere with the advent of republican governments in Latin America. In brief, the paper modifies the typical “realist” account of Adams and argues that Adams was alive to the theoretically expansive implications of the Declaration of Independence.

Official Acts and Presidential Immunity

Official Acts and Presidential Immunity: Reflections on Trump v. United States

By Joseph M. Bessette and Gary J. Schmitt

Executive summary:

• Many critics of the Supreme Court’s recent decision on presidential immunity conclude that it shields the president from criminal prosecution if he uses his “official” powers to commit a crime. This overstates the six-member majority’s holding.
• The key distinction is between “official” and “unofficial” acts. If the president commands civilian or military authorities to perform an act not authorized by the Constitution—such as assassinating a political opponent—this cannot be an “official” act. It follows that much, if not all, of the illegal activity in which a president might engage would be “unofficial conduct” for which there is no immunity from prosecution.
• This reading of the majority opinion is consistent with the views of leading founders, such as Alexander Hamilton and James Wilson, who assured early Americans that presidents could be prosecuted for committing crimes while in office even when employing Article II authorities.
• Nonetheless, the majority goes too far in implying that the president has absolute immunity for his or her deliberations with executive branch subordinates.

From the article:

Does the president employ an “official power” if he orders the military to kill a political opponent or stage a coup? Surely not if we understand “official power” to be a power authorized by the US Constitution. Not only does the Constitution lack any language that could be perverted to authorize a murder or coup; such acts would directly violate the president’s express duties to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” and to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”30 By its own terms, the commander in chief’s power includes the power to command the military, but it does not include the power to command the military to do anything the president wishes. Rather, the clause authorizes the president to issue lawful orders to military subordinates to protect the nation and its interests, subject to the Constitution’s division of national security authority between the president and Congress.

The Founders and Current Events

 Many posts have discussed the Founding.

David Frum at The Atlantic:

Two political myths inspired the dreams and haunted the nightmares of the Founders of the American republic. Both these foundational myths were learned from the history and literature of the ancient Romans.

Cincinnatus was the name of a man who, the story went, accepted supreme power in the state to meet a temporary emergency and then relinquished that power to return to his farm when the emergency passed. George Washington modeled his public image on the legend of Cincinnatus, and so he was depicted in contemporary art and literature—“the Cincinnatus of the West,” as Lord Byron praised him in a famous poem of the day.

Against the bright legacy of Cincinnatus, the Founders contrasted the sinister character of Catiline: a man of depraved sexual appetites who reached almost the pinnacle of power and then exploited populist passions to overthrow the constitution, gain wealth, and pay his desperately pressing debts. Alexander Hamilton invoked Catiline to inveigh against his detested political adversary, Aaron Burr:

He is bankrupt beyond redemption except by the plunder of his country. His public principles have no other spring or aim than his own aggrandisement … If he can, he will certainly disturb our institutions to secure to himself permanent power and with it wealth … He is truly the Cataline of America.

Jessica Gavora at The Atlantic:

The notion that America is an idea has always lifted up our country, and for good reason. The fact that America was founded on the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the governing limits of the Constitution makes us unique among nations. Most countries trace their origins to tribal identity. But America has its origins in the revolutionary idea that the government cannot deny men and women an equal opportunity to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Both our friends and foes have recognized this difference. No less than Joseph Stalin railed against American “exceptionalism” when our workers refused to join in solidarity with his murderous revolution of the proletariat.

People Who Did Not Sign the Declaration

Many posts have discussed myths and misinformation -- especially about documents of the Founding

Absolutely humiliating community note for Marjorie Taylor Greene pic.twitter.com/eLdrHHIEyh

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) July 7, 2024

Wielding the Executive Power, 1775-1789

  Gary J. Schmitt and Joseph M. Bessette at AEI:

The practice of executive power from the early days of the Revolution to the Constitutional Convention was complicated by the division of governance between the central authority – first the Continental Congress and then the Congress under the Articles of Confederation – and the thirteen newly-independent states. Thus, the executive power was divided between the two: Congress assumed the authority over foreign and defense matters, while state governors were largely tied, at least formally (and in the absence of delegations of extraordinary authority), to administrating measures enacted by their legislatures. Hence, the various lessons learned about the practice of executive power from this decade-plus of self-government were themselves complex. 

At the level of the Union, the major takeaway was that executive power in the hands of a plural body—be it the Congress as a whole or one of its committees—was functionally inept when it came to dealing with the demands of the war and the diplomacy necessary to secure American independence. Nor was Congress adept at day-to-day administrative tasks. Too many hands on the tiller caused delays and the blurring of responsibility for decision-making. Gradually, members came to understand that giving charge of foreign, defense, and fiscal matters to single individuals promoted coherent and effective management. If the government was to possess the qualities of dispatch, decisiveness, and secrecy—let alone administrative efficiency—the executive authority would not only have to be unified but also enjoy some level of institutional independence from the legislature.

...

 In fine, the practice of republican rule in the decade following the Declaration of Independence had produced a new sense among many Americans on the need for, the advantages of, a firm and energetic executive power. That change had taken place at both the state and the national level, with different emphases arising from different circumstances and distinct governing tasks. Once the decision was made to jettison the Articles of Confederation, the challenge was how to incorporate in a coherent way the various lessons learned since independence so as to create an effective and safe executive in the new national, but still republican, government. Separation of powers provided a popularly accepted template for attempting to do so. But the devil would be in the details and, not surprisingly, this explains why deliberations about the executive went virtually the whole length of the Constitutional Convention.

The Founding and Its Enemies

Many posts have discussed the Founding.

Robert Kagan at WP:

Before the American Revolution no government had ever been founded on liberal principles, and the vast majority of human beings had never believed in these natural rights — certainly not the Christian church in either its Protestant or Roman Catholic versions nor Islam nor Judaism nor Hinduism nor Buddhism. People might be equal in the eyes of their god, but no government or religious institution had ever been based on the principle of equal rights. Not even the English system was based on this principle but rather on monarchy, a ruling aristocracy, and a contract between crown and subjects that was modified over the centuries but was not based on the principle of universal “natural” rights.

The Founders knew these ideas were radical, that they were inaugurating, in their own words, a novus ordo seclorum — a new order of the ages — that required a new way of thinking and acting. They knew, as well, that their own practices and those of 18th-century American society did not conform to their new revolutionary doctrines. They knew that slavery was contrary to the Declaration’s principles, though they permitted slavery to continue, hoping it would die a natural death. They knew that established churches were contrary to those principles because they impinged on that most important of rights, “freedom of conscience,” which was vital to the preservation of liberty, yet a number of states in the 18th and 19th centuries retained all kinds of religious tests for office. In short, they knew that a great many Americans did not in fact believe in the liberal principles of the Revolution. As Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, put it, “We have changed our forms of government, but it remains yet to effect a revolution in our principles, opinions and manners so as to accommodate them to the forms of government we have adopted.” They did not insist that citizens believe in those principles. One could be an American citizen whether one believed in the Declaration or not.

And a great many did not. Leaders of the slaveholding South called the Declaration “a most pernicious falsehood.” South Carolina’s John C. Calhoun called the very idea of equal rights a “false doctrine.” They believed in democracy, but only if it was an exclusively White democracy. When democracy turned against them in 1860, they rebelled and sought an exit from the system. That rebellion never ended. It has been weakened, suppressed — sometimes by force — and driven underground, but it has never gone away. Although the South was militarily defeated and deprived of its special advantages in the Constitution, its hostility to the Founders’ liberalism did not abate. As Southern writer W.J. Cash observed in 1941, if the war had “smashed the southern world,” it had nevertheless “left the essential southern mind and will … entirely unshaken” and Southerners themselves determined “to hold fast to their own, to maintain their divergences, to remain what they had been and were.” In 1956, almost a century after the Civil War, a fifth of Congress, almost all Democrats — signed the “Southern Manifesto” calling on states to refuse to obey the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision to end segregation in public schools. Nothing had changed. Are we so surprised that for many Americans, nothing has changed even today?

Nor has anti-liberalism only been about race. For more than a century after the Revolution, many if not most White Anglo-Saxon Protestants insisted that America was a Protestant nation. They did not believe Catholics possessed equal rights or should be treated as equals. The influential “second” Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s was anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish as well as anti-Black, which was why, unlike the original Klan, it flourished outside the South. Many regard today’s Christian nationalism as a fringe movement, but it has been a powerful and often dominant force throughout America’s history.

Immunity and Insurrection

From Jack Smith's brief in the immunity case:

Even if this Court holds that a former President is entitled to some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts, that principle does not preclude trial on this indictment. First, the specific form of criminal conduct charged here—efforts to subvert an election in violation of the term-of-office clause of Article II and the constitutional process for electing the President—does not justify any form of immunity. Second, the private conduct that the indictment alleges is sufficient to support the charges. Thus, even if liability could not be premised on official acts, the case should be remanded for trial, with the district court to make evidentiary and instructional rulings in accordance with this Court’s decision. Peetitioner could seek appellate review of those rulings, if necessary, following final judgment.

This case implicates two principles of paramount importance: the necessity of the effective functioning of the Presidency, and the equally compelling necessity of upholding the rule of law. Petitioner is charged with crimes that, if proved at trial, reflect “an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government.” J.A. 42. The effective functioning of the Presidency does not require that a former President be immune from accountability for these alleged violations of federal criminal law. To the contrary, a bedrock principle of our constitutional order is that no person is above the law— including the President. Nothing in constitutional text, history, precedent, or policy considerations supports the absolute immunity that petitioner seeks.

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If petitioner were correct that the former President has permanent immunity from federal criminal prosecution except after his impeachment and Senate conviction—which has never happened—it would upset the separation of powers and usher in a regime that would have been anathema to the Framers. The Framers had experienced firsthand the dangers of a monarch who was above the law, and they adopted a system of checks and balances to avoid those dangers. They designed a Constitution that would ensure an effective and energetic President under Article II—but one who was accountable to justice under laws passed by Congress under Article I, enforced by the Executive Branch under Article II, and adjudicated by the courts under Article III. That careful design leaves no room for an implicit and previously unrecognized rule categorically immunizing the President from accountability for criminal conduct involving the misuse of his office.

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The Framers’ most relevant writings provide no support for immunity of the type that petitioner claims. “James Wilson, a signer of the Constitution and futureJustice of this Court, explained to his fellow Pennsylvanians that ‘far from being above the laws, [the President] is amenable to them in his private character as acitizen, and in his public character by impeachment.’” Vance, 591 U.S. at 816-817 (Thomas, J., dissenting) (quoting 2 The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 480 (J. Elliot ed. 1891) (Debates on the Constitution)). Wilson therefore recognized that prosecution was the means of holding a President accountable in his “private character” for criminal acts, while impeachment was the means of addressing his “public character” as office holder. “James Iredell, another future Justice, observed in the North Carolina ratifying convention that ‘[i]f [the President] commits any crime, he is punishable by the laws of his country.’” Id. at 817 (Thomas, J., dissenting) (quoting 4 Debates on the Constitution 109). Alexander Hamilton likewise confirmed that a President, unlike a King, would be “liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.” The Federalist No. 65, at 442; see id. at No. 69, at 463; id. at No. 77, at 520-521 (noting that the President is “at all times liable to impeachment, trial, [and] dismission from office” as well as “forfeiture of life and estate by subsequent prosecution in the common course of law”).

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 Petitioner contends (Br. 22) that the lack of any prosecutions of former Presidents until this case reflects the settled conclusion that criminal immunity precludes such a prosecution. But this prosecution is a historical first not because of any assumption about immunity but instead because of the singular gravity ofthe alleged conduct. The indictment describes petitioner’s efforts to “remain in power despite losing the 2020 election.” J.A. 42. The severity, range, and democracy-damaging nature of the alleged crimes are unique in American history. Other than former 41 President Nixon, whose pardon precluded criminal prosecution, petitioner can point to no former President alleged to have engaged in remotely similar conduct.

An Imperfect Founding

Many posts have discussed the Founding.

George Thomas at The Bulwark:

The American founding was imperfect. America’s founders weren’t just aware of the point, they insisted on it: “I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man.” This bit of wisdom was central to the founding. In contrast, today, Republicans, continuing their departure from any serious understanding of American ideas and history, have taken to insisting that teaching about a flawed founding threatens the very foundations of the republic.

That would be news to the founders, who were often the Constitution’s most perceptive critics. In his closing speech at the Constitutional Convention, the only speech from the Convention to be published at the time, Benjamin Franklin confessed that he “did not entirely approve of this Constitution at the present.” Yet he acknowledged his own fallibility, noting that in time he might come to change his mind, and, given the circumstances, it wasn’t clear the Convention could “do better” than it had. This is no small thing, but inherent in the political philosophy of leading founders. To insist on a perfect founding is to misapprehend the thought of the founders themselves. The founders rejected the notion of a perfect political order. They built from low but solid ground by insisting on imperfection as an inescapable feature of political institutions crafted by human beings. And they built from experience, learning from the past, but knowing full well that the future was likely to require adjustments and improvements to our political institutions.

Statesmanship

Daniel Stid at National Affairs:

To understand why even these acts of statesmanship appear increasingly rare in American politics, we can turn to an essay written by the great political scientist Herbert Storing in the early years of the Carter administration. In "American Statesmanship: Old and New" (which ended up being his last essay before his untimely death in 1977), Storing identified three categories of obstacles to American statesmanship: an original set that was consciously adopted by America's founders, as well as two more resulting from the spread of populism and technocracy, respectively.

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If a system is designed to operate with minimal dependence on statesmen, it becomes difficult to identify what incentives and structures will remain in place to create them for the moments of crisis when they are needed. In such a system, it is easy to imagine that the people would come to take the machinery of government for granted and lose sight of the virtues of leadership upon which even the most well-designed governments ultimately depend. In Storing's estimation, by developing a system of government that so limited the need for statesmen, the America's founders created a polity that would likely fail to understand, appreciate, or generate them.

This original challenge to American statesmanship has been compounded by the rise of populism in the centuries since the founding era. Storing noted that, contrary to the standard critique from progressives, the founders sought to establish a popular government based on the principle of majority rule. But they also recognized the danger inherent to such democratic systems — which they called "majority foolishness or tyranny" — and sought to mitigate it through constitutional arrangements that would foster large yet unstable majorities. "Democratic statesmanship," Storing argued, "must be understood, above all, in the light of that great danger, which implies its great task" — namely, refining and enlarging and, if need be, standing against public views that run counter to the rights of some or the long-term interests of all.
...
In addition to the descent into populism, Storing identified the rise of technocracy as a force that undermined American statesmanship. Though Storing argued that the origins of this approach to governance can be traced to the founding era, and especially to Alexander Hamilton, it only became a dominant way of thinking about politics in response to Jacksonian populism in the mid-19th century. Following the Jacksonians' rank embrace of the so-called "spoils system" — by which administration offices are awarded to the supporters of election winners, rather than based on merit — subsequent generations of reformers became ardent proponents of meritocracy, efficiency, and "sound administration." One result of this development was an eventual push for civil-service reform in the latter part of the 19th century, spearheaded by a new generation of Hamiltonians seeking to save government from populists by professionalizing it.

These efforts gained momentum during the Progressive Era of the early 20th century, when the government began to undertake more daunting tasks in regulating society and the economy. As government swelled in size, politicians increasingly looked to technical experts to understand how best to achieve their desired results. The ideal of scientific management as the standard for government decision-making has been predominant in America — and in our governing class, in particular — ever since.

Writing in the 1970s, amid simultaneous waves of regulation and deregulation in federal policy driven by this worldview, Storing lamented that "what scientific management has been moving toward is not statesmanship, and not even administration or management, but rather economizing." He warned that the notion (per efficiency expert Frederick Taylor) that there is always one best way to solve a problem, and that it can be identified through research, analysis, and optimization uncoupled from moral considerations, would ultimately lead administrators down a blind alley. Though a statesman should take empirical data and research into account, Storing understood that true statesmanship hinges on the moral dimension of decision-making — on the statesman's capacity to grasp the ends of government and to balance competing moral values in his pursuit of those ends.

The combined effects of these two arcs of decline, Storing argued, was "to resolve the role of the public official into two simple elements: populism...and scientific management." Storing saw this problematic resolution embodied in the presidency of Jimmy Carter, who had won his party's nomination through the recently democratized primary system. A nuclear engineer by trade, Carter vowed to re-organize, streamline, and fix government to deliver what the people wanted more efficiently.

Despite Carter's determination to govern as both a populist and a technocrat, he had to make judgments and take actions on matters for which the will of the people was not clear, and for which there were real questions about not only the best means but also the proper ends of policy. Carter needed to practice statesmanship, but he and others could not understand or describe his leadership as such. For his part, Storing doubted "the feasibility, at least on any significant scale or over any considerable period of time, of a statesmanship in which there is such a sharp difference between style and substance."

The Mayflower Compact

Stephen B. Young at The Minneapolis Star-Tribune

The founding impulse for America came with the Pilgrims, mooring at Plymouth 400 years ago this autumn. The Calvinist Pilgrims came in search of a place to live out their faith — an intangible mind-set that called them to work and to pray. They set moral standards for themselves and organized their personal, family and community lives to aspire to those ideals.

Their moral vision was of a community of industrious believers in the good, of proud and hardworking, self-governing individuals, accepting a vocation of service to God and community.

The men who had chosen this course for their families agreed to:

“Solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another; covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic ... to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws ... as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good ... .”

This Mayflower Compact provided for the rule of law in governing the community; it honored personal freedoms under the law; it set expectations of each person to work for both personal and the common good. It presumed good will, good faith and commitment on the part of those who joined the common effort. It also presumed some education and rationality.

This moral vision came to be the American dream.

In 1776, this aspiration was applied to ennoble political separation from the government of Great Britain. The Declaration of Independence echoed the Mayflower Compact in being a contract among those who believed in “certain truths.” The new nation of the United States of America would seek to live by ideals, not by tribal identity or by the doctrines of any one religion. The new nation would be a novus ordo seclorum — “a new order for the ages.”

Hamilton on Natural Rights

Tony Williams at RealClearPublicAffairs:

After serving a brief time in Congress, Hamilton became an attorney in New York. His dedication to natural-law justice prompted his courageous defense of the rights of unpopular Tories who had had their property confiscated under New York law. He believed that the laws violated equal justice, the rights of minorities, and the Peace Treaty of 1783. In January 1784, he wrote "Letter from Phocion," stating that a natural-rights republic “holds the rights of every individual sacred” and “punishes no man without regular trial.” Most famously, he represented a widow in Rutgers v. Waddington, making a case for judicial review when state laws conflicted with national ones, individual rights, and natural law.

During the 1780s, Hamilton joined the antislavery New York Manumission Society. He believed that slavery was a moral evil and a contradiction of any natural-rights regime. During the war, he had backed friend John Lauren’s plan to emancipate slaves in South Carolina if the slaves would bear arms for the patriot cause. Ultimately, though, abolition was not Hamilton’s main cause. He adopted a longer view, one devoted to building a well-governed republic that protected the inalienable rights of all.

The Idea of America

George Thomas at The Bulwark:

We can take pride in the idea of America: a racially, religiously, and ethnically diverse republic bound by a set of common ideas is an extraordinary historical achievement. Yet more than two centuries into the American experiment, we must be humble in recognizing how far we have to go. The struggle before us, a struggle inextricable from the whole of our history, is to make that idea real—especially when it comes to race.

The poet Langston Hughes has given us the most sublime expression of this struggle in “Let America Be America Again.” He evokes some of what is best about America: pioneer dreams and liberty “where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme” and where “Equality is in the air we breathe.” But from the margins, those denied the promise mumble in the dark: “America never was America to me.” It is the hard truth of the unrealized idea. Yet driven by hard truths, the poem ends with a resounding commitment to the American idea that we can yet make our own:

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

Also at The Bulwark, John Kingston writes in a similar vein :

Today we should still ask: “What, to Black Americans, is the Fourth of July.” Or, even better, “What, to all Americans, should the Fourth of July be?”

This year, let’s not gloss over the disconnect between the lived experience of white and black Americans. Let’s acknowledge the path Black Americans have traveled—through Emancipation, Juneteenth, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the civil rights era, and on to today—to even get where we all are.

It’s okay for our holidays to be complicated. Memorial Day and Veterans Day, to take just two examples, commingle our celebration of what has been achieved, with our mourning of the sacrifice that work entailed, and the aspiration to earn the freedoms which were secured for us at great cost.

That’s a lot of freight. But the truth is, the holidays mean more when we appreciate their complexity. Not less.

Similarly, let’s change how we take July Fourth to heart. Together we can celebrate what has been achieved.

But together we should also mourn the costs with Douglass and our Black American brothers and sisters. And so together we can pledge to work to fulfill the Declaration’s promise.