| 来源类型 | Op-Ed
|
| 规范类型 | 评论
|
| How the framers thought about impeachment |
| Gary J. Schmitt
|
| 发表日期 | 2019-09-25
|
| 出处 | The American Interest
|
| 出版年 | 2019
|
| 语种 | 英语
|
| 摘要 | With House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s announcement that she asked the relevant House committees to begin an impeachment inquiry of the President comes the need for a short primer on how to think about the impeachment of a president as a constitutional matter. This is not to dive into the details about what the current president may or may not have done. Rather, it’s a reminder in outline about how the Constitution, first through the text of Article II and second the process as laid out in Article I, intends to shape House members’ thinking about such an inquiry.
In Section 1 of Article II, the text explains that the “powers and duties” of presidency will “devolve on the Vice President” when, for whatever reason, a president is removed from office. This signals that, when examining Article II, we should be looking not only for the President’s authorities but also his official obligations.
In that regard, Article II begins by vesting “the executive power” in the person of the president—a power that was defined by the political theorists of the day as involving a broad obligation to administer the laws of the land, command the nation’s military forces, and conduct the nation’s foreign affairs. What concludes Section 1, Article II, is the presidential oath to “faithfully execute the office of President. . . .and. . . .to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Thus Section 1, which lays out the fundamental features of the office, begins with the defining power and concludes with a sweeping obligation to not only carry out the office properly, but to do so with the health of the larger constitutional order in mind.
Sections 2 and 3 of Article II appear as an odd lot, sharing neither the same length nor an obvious coherence. As Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson once put it, the text is “almost as enigmatic as the dreams Joseph was called upon to interpret for Pharaoh.” But is it? Would the Constitution’s drafters have been so slipshod when it came to such an important matter as setting out presidential authorities?
Continue reading on The American Interest. |
| 主题 | Constitution
; Executive Branch
; Foreign and Defense Policy
; Politics and Public Opinion
|
| 标签 | impeachment
; US Constitution
|
| URL | https://www.aei.org/op-eds/how-the-framers-thought-about-impeachment/
|
| 来源智库 | American Enterprise Institute (United States)
|
| 资源类型 | 智库出版物
|
| 条目标识符 | http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/210485
|
推荐引用方式
GB/T 7714 |
Gary J. Schmitt. How the framers thought about impeachment. 2019.
|
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