Trust The Constitution – Not Men

My personal political observations over the last 50 years have revealed two things about party politics – the Left obfuscates and the Right whines. Lying comes naturally to the Left, and the Right will always cry foul when they do. Under the disastrous four years of Biden, for example, we were consistently told that the border was secure. Many knew this to be an outright lie but were counting on the 2025 election to fix the problem at the border.

In October of 2023, I warned about relying on a democratic election to fix our problems instead of relying on the Constitution to do it: “It seems that most . . . are hoping that President Trump can get back into office so that he can deport the terrorists . . . When considering the likelihood of such a scenario, one should consider this question in the interim – even if the terrorist attacks don’t come until after the 2024 election, what is the likelihood that the new president will even be able to track down and deport all of the terrorists . . . Jay gives the answer to this question in The Federalist Papers – ‘And here let us not forget how much more easy it is to receive . . . foreign armies into our country, than it is to persuade or compel them to depart.[1]’”[2]

Now that Trump is in office, we hear nothing but whining coming from conservative outlets complaining about the judicial coup preventing the promised mass deportations. The truth is much different than what you’re hearing from all the whining. Under the Constitution, Congress has the power to stop the judicial coup. The only permanent court established by the Constitution is the Supreme Court. All the others exist at the discretion of Congress.[3] Congress could easily get rid of those courts acting outside their jurisdiction especially given the fact that both Houses of Congress are controlled by Republicans.

The Constitution also gives Congress the power to restrict their jurisdiction and what cases they can and cannot decide.[4] If the Republicans wanted to fix this problem for the President, they could easily do it, but party politics is not about fixing problems. Problems keep them in power. This is the real reason why their pundits whine to you about the rogue courts instead of using the Constitution to fix the court problem. They want to distract you so you won’t find out about the real solution.

Every branch of government, not just the courts, has been violating the “sacred maxim,”[5] as Madison called it, that was built into the Constitution for a very long time now. This maxim is known as the Separation of Powers. The conservative whiners are only highlighting the violation of this principle by the courts to keep you distracted from the truth. Without a doubt, the courts are interfering with the exclusive powers of the Executive Branch by interfering with President Trump’s ability to deport the illegals living in our country.

This way you won’t notice when the President himself is violating the same maxim with his war policies. Only Congress can “raise and support Armies,”[6] “provide and maintain a navy,”[7] “make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces,”[8] and “declare war.”[9] The President is only designated as “Commander in Chief,”[10] and there is no power given to him to engage in war without a declaration of war by Congress.

Our Founders deliberately placed this power in the hands of Congress and not in the President, since this power would make him a monarch. This fact is clearly addressed in the Declaration of Independence as well. It calls King George a “tyrant”, because he was “transporting large Armies . . . to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny”[11] at will.

The Founders didn’t want this kind of power in the Executive so they created a Constitutional Republic, which placed all the powers of starting a war into the hands of the Congress. Hamilton explains it this way: “The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States . . . It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces . . . while that of the British king extends to the DECLARING of war and to the RAISING and REGULATING of fleets and armies, all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature.”[12]

All the whining about the courts violating their separation of powers keeps you from noticing the same about President Trump who is now threatening war against Iran, and it is quite possible that he is already engaged in that war given his recent announcements that uses the vernacular “we.”[13]

Aside from the fact that under the Constitution a president can only go to war when Congress makes an official declaration of war, the Framers only believed that there were two justifications for going to war: “The JUST causes of war, for the most part, arise either from violation of treaties or from direct violence.”[14] Iran has not violated any treaty with the U.S., and it has not committed any “direct violence” against the U.S. If it does, it will still require a declaration of war from Congress before President Trump can go to war with Iran.

Unfortunately, President Trump is using the fear of a nuclear Iran as a reason for going to war with them. He and others claim that Iran is only moments away from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Besides the fact that we’ve heard this kind of fear mongering before about Iraq having WMDs, the Framers never classified preemptive activities as a “just cause” for war. In fact, they referred to this kind of activity as a “pretended” cause for war.[15]

When we place our trust in a man instead of the Constitution, we get actions that are closer to a king rather than a president who is restricted by the powers granted in the Constitution. In October of last year, I wrote that “My fear has always been that history will repeat itself, and that the so-called peace candidate will be the one who actually gets us into world war once again. The prior peace candidates, FDR and Woodrow Wilson, both promised to stay out of world wars, but were the ones responsible for getting the U.S. into both of those wars. President Trump has promised no more wars, but apparently is still intent on ending wars in which we have no business being involved by threatening to bomb Moscow.”[16] He is now threatening to bomb Iran out of existence. The objective individual will see that these threats sound more like a warmonger than a peacemaker. Those who don’t see it as such are the ones who trust the man more than the Constitution.

Jefferson said it best – “In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.”

Madame Publius

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[1] Jay, The Federalist Papers, Ltr. 5, ¶11.

[2] https://madamepublius.substack.com/p/how-much-more-easy-it-is-to-receive

[3] U.S. CONST. Art. III, §1.

[4] “the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.” U.S. CONST. Art. III, §2.

[5] Madison, The Federalist Papers, Ltr. 47, ¶1.

[6] U.S. CONST. Art. I, §8, cl.12.

[7] Id. at cl. 13.

[8] Id. at cl. 14.

[9] Id. at cl. 11.

[10] U.S. CONST. Art. II, §2, cl.1.

[11] U.S. Declaration of Independence.

[12] Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, Ltr. 69, ¶8.

[13] “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.” https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114699514822488706

[14] Jay, The Federalist Papers, Ltr. 3, ¶6.

[15] Jay, The Federalist Papers, Ltr. 4, ¶2.

[16] https://madamepublius.substack.com/p/flaunting-our-beams-as-we-go-abroad