The president is not an imperial monarch

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

The founding fathers were cautious and fearful of setting up a government with anything like an imperial office as its head. They had had it with King George, and they were determined not to make that mistake deliberately. 

Hence, our national government has a number of checks and balances.

For instance, the president cannot solely be the appointer of the Supreme Court and federal judges. Over the length of our government, the Senate has failed to approve 12 Supreme Court nominees. In recent times, these have included Merrick Garland (2016) (nomination withdrawn), Robert Bork (1987) (42-58), Harold Carswell (1970) (45-51), and Clement Haynsworth (1969) (45-55). The first rejection was John Rutledge (1795) (10-14).  

Your personal influence on a Supreme Court nominee is only three votes – the president and your two senators. That means there are 98 other senators over which you have no influence but have a say in judiciary appointments.

Which brings us to these regional or district judges commanding the president to do their will. This is nonsense and needs to be fixed. This is where the imperialism lies in today’s government.

The president is showing remarkable restraint in following their wishes. There have been six times in history when the Supreme Court has been ignored.

In Worcester v. Georgia (1832) the Supreme Court ruled that the State of Georgia had no authority over Cherokee lands. Georgia ignored the ruling, and President Jackson did not intervene, leading to the forced removal of the Cherokees (Trail of Tears).

In 1861, Ex parte Merryman, Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled that President Lincoln had no right to suspend habeas corpus unilaterally. Abraham Lincoln ignored the ruling and continued suspending habeas corpus throughout the length of the Civil War.

In United States v. Klein (1871), the Supreme Court limited Congress’s ability to dictate the outcome of specific cases. President Grant and Congress largely disregarded this ruling.

The Supreme Court in Ex parte Endo (1944) ruled the government could not detain loyal Japanese Americans. President Roosevelt kept these camps open into 1945 anyway.

In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. President Eisenhower did not strongly enforce this ruling until 1957.

In 1974, United States v. Nixon, the Supreme Court ordered President Nixon to release the Watergate tapes. He initially resisted but ultimately complied before resigning.

That’s all, folks! Perhaps President Trump will ultimately join this list but has not so far.

Special note: This is the first time I have used Artificial Intelligence to do my research (specifically ChatGPT.com). I will likely use it for research in the future without attribution. I will not use AI to write my columns – ever.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He can be reached at jthompson@taii.com.