People" would be sovereign. We would choose our own leaders and hold them accountable for how they exercised power.
As they designed our government at the Constitutional Convention, however, the Framers faced a dilemma. On the one hand, many of them embraced the need for a powerful chief executive. This had been cast into stark relief by the failure of the Nation's very first constitution, the Articles of Confederation, which put Congress in charge at the federal level. The ensuing discord led James Madison to warn, "it is not possible that a government can last long under these circumstances."[1] The Framers therefore created the Presidency. A single official could lead the Nation with integrity, energy, and dispatch—and would be held personally responsible for honoring that immense public trust.
Power, though, is a double-edged sword. "The power to do good meant also the power to do harm, the power to serve the republic also meant the power to demean and defile it."[2] The President would be vested with breathtaking authority. If corrupt motives took root in his mind, displacing civic virtue and love of country, he could sabotage the Constitution. That was clear to the Framers, who saw corruption as "the great force that had undermined republics throughout history."[3] Obsessed with the fall of Rome, they knew that corruption marked a leader's path to abuse and betrayal. Mason thus emphasized, "if we do not provide against corruption, our government will soon be at an end." This warning against corruption—echoed no fewer than 54 times by 15 delegates at the Convention— extended far beyond bribes and presents. To the Framers, corruption was fundamentally about the misuse of a position of public trust for any improper private benefit. It thus went to the heart of their conception of public service. As a leading historian recounts, "a corrupt political actor would either purposely ignore or forget the public good as he used the reins of power."[4] Because men and women are not angels, corruption could not be fully eradicated, even in virtuous officials, but "its power can be subdued with the right combination of culture and political rules."[5]
The Framers therefore erected safeguards against Presidential abuse. Most famously, they divided power among three branches of government that had the means and motive to balance each other. "Ambition," Madison reasoned, "must be made to counteract ambition."[6] In addition, the Framers subjected the President to election every four years and established the Electoral College (which, they hoped, would select virtuous, capable leaders and refuse to re-elect corrupt or unpopular ones). Finally, the Framers imposed on the President a duty to faithfully execute the laws—and required him to accept that duty in a solemn oath.[7] To the Framers, the concept of faithful execution was profoundly important. It prohibited the President from taking official acts in bad faith or with corrupt
- ↑ Quoted in id. at 27.
- ↑ Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Imperial Presidency 415 (1973).
- ↑ Elizabeth B. Wydra & Brianne J. Gorod, The First Magistrate in Foreign Pay, The New Republic, Nov. 11, 2019.
- ↑ Teachout, Corruption in America at 48.
- ↑ Id. at 47.
- ↑ James Madison, Federalist No. 51 at 356.
- ↑ U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, cl. 8.
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