The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for March 6, 2025

Brian is away today, so we’re rebroadcasting a report from last July, which is particularly apt for the shattering of the norms of the presidency we’ve witnessed in the first weeks of the Trump second term.

Anti-authoritarian feelings ran high in the years before and after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, as the Declaration’s litany of complaints against the King suggests.  So it’s unlikely the founding fathers would have supported expansion of Presidential powers, and absolute immunity for “official acts.”

The July 1st opinion from the so-called “originalist” members of the U.S. Supreme Court invokes Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Papers vision for a “vigorous” and “energetic” Executive.  Without that, “the President would be chilled from taking the “bold and unhesitating action” required of an independent Executive.”   But that’s not the whole story.

Three other prominent framers of the U.S. Constitution, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and George Mason, feared the opposite, and pushed for a multiple-person executive council to decentralize power.  Ultimately they compromised,  stipulating that the President  seek “advice and consent” from the Senate for appointments and treaties. 

Constitutional Convention delegate James Wilson said during debates on the Constitution,  “Sir, we have a responsibility in the person of our President; he cannot act improperly, and hide either his negligence or inattention; he cannot roll upon any other person the weight of his criminality. He continued, “Far from being above the laws, he is amenable to them in his private character as a citizen, and in his public character by impeachment.” 

We’ve linked those documents and to the text of the Declaration of Independence  at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org.  I’m Brian Beihl.

Today’s Links

Articles & Resources:
National Archives – Declaration of Independence: A Transcription
U.S. Supreme Court – Trump v. United States
Library of Congress – Constitutional Convention Debate Transcripts – James Wilson
Newsweek – The Founding Fathers Didn’t Think Donald Trump Should Get Immunity Either | Opinion
University of Virginia Miller Center – IMPEACHMENT IN THE 1780S – Speech of James Iredell, North Carolina advocate for ratifying the U.S. Constitution
The Hill – Ty Cobb: Founding Fathers would be ‘weeping and stunned’ over Trump guilty verdict
Salon – Historian says Trump lawyer “deliberatively misleading” SCOTUS: Ben Franklin “would be horrified”
Washington Post – (2017) The president was never intended to be the most powerful part of government
Robert J. Reinstein, American University Law Review – (2017) The Limits of Executive Power

Groups Taking Action:
ACLU, Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, International Refugee Assistance Project

Register or Check Your Voter Registration:

U.S. Election Assistance Commission – Register And Vote in Your State

Please follow us on Facebook and Bluesky Social, and SHARE! 

Find all of our reports at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org

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Are you a radio station?  Find our broadcast files at Pacifica Radio Network’s Audioport and PRX

#Democracy  #DemocracyNews #July4th #FoundingFathers #IndependenceDay #PresidentialPowers #OfficialActs

The post Would the Founding Fathers Have Embraced Having Unfettered Power for the Presidency?  Not Likely. appeared first on American Democracy Minute.

The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for Dec. 2, 2024

Brian took a few days off, so we’re revisiting a report from this past July which is even more relevent as the Trump administration takes shape.

Today’s Script

(Variations occur with audio due to editing for time. Today’s Links below the script)

You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.

Anti-authoritarian feelings ran high in the years before and after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, as the Declaration’s litany of complaints against the King suggests.  So it’s unlikely the founding fathers would have supported expansion of Presidential powers, and absolute immunity for “official acts.”

The July 1st opinion from the so-called “originalist” members of the U.S. Supreme Court invokes Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Papers vision for a “vigorous” and “energetic” Executive.  Without that, “the President would be chilled from taking the “bold and unhesitating action” required of an independent Executive.”   But that’s not the whole story.

Three other prominent framers of the U.S. Constitution, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and George Mason, feared the opposite, and pushed for a multiple-person executive council to decentralize power.  Ultimately they compromised,  stipulating that the President  seek “advice and consent” from the Senate for appointments and treaties. 

Constitutional Convention delegate James Wilson said during debates on the Constitution,  “Sir, we have a responsibility in the person of our President; he cannot act improperly, and hide either his negligence or inattention; he cannot roll upon any other person the weight of his criminality. He continued, “Far from being above the laws, he is amenable to them in his private character as a citizen, and in his public character by impeachment.” 

We’ve linked those documents and to the text of the Declaration of Independence  at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org.  I’m Brian Beihl.

Today’s Links

Articles & Resources:
National Archives – Declaration of Independence: A Transcription
U.S. Supreme Court – Trump v. United States
Library of Congress – Constitutional Convention Debate Transcripts – James Wilson
Newsweek – The Founding Fathers Didn’t Think Donald Trump Should Get Immunity Either | Opinion
University of Virginia Miller Center – IMPEACHMENT IN THE 1780S – Speech of James Iredell, North Carolina advocate for ratifying the U.S. Constitution
The Hill – Ty Cobb: Founding Fathers would be ‘weeping and stunned’ over Trump guilty verdict
Salon – Historian says Trump lawyer “deliberatively misleading” SCOTUS: Ben Franklin “would be horrified”
Washington Post – (2017) The president was never intended to be the most powerful part of government
Robert J. Reinstein, American Univerity Law Review – (2017) The Limits of Executive Power

Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter and SHARE!  

Find all of our reports at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org

Want ADM sent to your email?  Sign up here!

Are you a radio station?  Find our broadcast files at Pacifica Radio Network’s Audioport and PRX

#Democracy  #DemocracyNews #July4th #FoundingFathers #IndependenceDay #PresidentialPowers #OfficialActs

The post Would the Founding Fathers Have Endorsed Unfettered Power for the Presidency?  Not Likely. appeared first on American Democracy Minute.

The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for July 4, 2023

Today’s Script

(Variations occur with audio due to editing for time) 

Today’s Links now below the script

You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.

Thomas Jefferson was an owner of enslaved people when he wrote this line in the Declaration of Independence:  “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.”

Who could give that Consent by voting was debated by the landed White male gentry, framing what became the U.S. Constitution in 1787.  James Madison encapsulated this argument, writing:

“The right of suffrage is a fundamental Article in Republican Constitutions. The regulation of it is, at the same time, a task of peculiar delicacy. Allow the right [to vote] exclusively to property [owners], and the rights of persons may be oppressed… . Extend it equally to all, and the rights of property [owners] …may be overruled by a majority without property….”  

We know how that worked out.  By 1807 New York had abolished land requirements for White men, but kept them in place for free Black men. It wasn’t until the 15th Amendment in 1869 did all Black men theoretically get the right to vote, for which citizens of color have been fighting ever since. Women had to wait another 50 years for the 19th Amendment.

As you celebrate your freedoms this July 4th, remember that recent voter suppression, racial gerrymandering, and voting restrictions demonstrate that the freedom to vote for ALL Americans has still not been achieved – a wrong we must all fight to correct.  

Find more at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org.  I’m Brian Beihl.

Today’s Links

Articles & Resources:
National Archives – The Declaration of Independence

U.S. Library of Congress – The Founders and the Vote
Prof. Thomas Jewett – Jefferson, Education and The Franchise
U.S. History.org – The Expansion of the Vote: A White Man’s Democracy
National Archives – The Fifteenth Amendment
National Archives – The Nineteenth Amendment

Groups Taking Action:
NAACP Legal Defense Fund, League of Women Voters US, ACLU, Common Cause, Declaration for American Democracy

Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter and SHARE!  

Find all of our reports at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org

Want ADM sent to your email?  Sign up here!

#Democracy  #DemocracyNews #VotingRights #FreedomtoVote

The post Would the Founding Fathers Have Given You the Freedom to Vote? appeared first on American Democracy Minute.