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Do We Trust Every Future President? · I Believe

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to I Believe, where we talk about governance and philosophy in America.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Joel Douglas, and I believe in America.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for joining me.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: June eighteenth, 1787, Philadelphia.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: The temperature in the Pennsylvania State House had already hit 85 degrees.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Fifty-five men in wool coats and powdered wigs sat trapped in a room with the windows nailed shut and doors guarded for secrecy.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: The delegates chose privacy over performance so they could speak freely.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: They had been arguing openly for three weeks about how to build a government.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing was working.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Alexander Hamilton finally stood.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant, abrasive, born a bastard in the Caribbean.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: He'd watched the Continental Congress dither while soldiers froze at Valley Forge.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: He'd seen New York burn while thirteen states bickered over tax policy.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: He had been quiet, boxed in by his own New York colleagues.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Then he said the hard part out loud.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: I have well considered the subject, he began, and am convinced that no amendment of the Confederation can answer the purpose of a good government so long as state sovereignties do in any shape exist.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: In short, there could be no fix to the Articles of Confederation, the governing document that existed before the Constitution.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was the heat, or frustration from the gridlock.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: But Hamilton was done with democracy's inefficiency.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: State sovereignty would always gridlock national purpose.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: He rejected the proposals on the table from Virginia and New Jersey, and aimed higher.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: He spoke for six hours.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: All day.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: The room heard a full design for a national government.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: What Hamilton wanted?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: A president elected for life.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Power to appoint every governor of every state, senators serving for life, a government that Madison judged to be suspiciously like the monarchy we had just defeated in a prolonged war.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: Madison noted, give all power to the many, they will oppress the few.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: Give all power to the few, they will oppress the many.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: In the end, America would owe allegiance to no king.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hamilton's model pushed far past what most men in the room would accept.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Delegates from Connecticut started whispering to each other.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: The Virginians exchanged glances.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: By hour three, some walked out.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: By hour five, even his allies from New York looked uncomfortable.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Benjamin Franklin, 81 years old and sitting near the back, closed his eyes, unclear whether from boredom or horror.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: No one took it up for a vote.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: The plan was never seriously considered.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: His audacity branded him a monarchist to some.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: The day after the convention went back to the real fight over representation.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: But something had shifted.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: The center of gravity slid toward Madison's national vision because Hamilton had stretched the frame.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: What happened next tells you how the room felt.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Hamilton left Philadelphia on June 29th.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: He drifted in and out.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: He returned briefly in mid-August and early September.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Fleeting presence meant little influence.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: In the end, Hamilton signed anyway.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: He was the only New Yorker who did.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: On signing day, he told the other delegates, sign it even if it's not perfect.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: The country needs this.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_03: Then he went home and did something remarkable.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: New York wouldn't ratify the Constitution.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_03: The state legislature hated it.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_03: Too much federal power, they said.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_03: Too much risk of tyranny.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_03: So Hamilton spent seven months writing essays in New York newspapers under the pen name Publius.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_03: He wrote 51 of them.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_03: Madison and John Jay wrote the rest.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_03: These became the Federalist Papers, the most important commentary on the Constitution ever written.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_03: Hamilton's task was to convince New Yorkers that a strong executive wasn't a king.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_03: That energy in government didn't mean tyranny.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: That the constitution he'd argued against in private was actually the best hope for the Republic.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_03: He lost the room in Philadelphia, but he won the argument in the newspapers, New York ratified, barely.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_03: By three votes, Hamilton defended a constitution that rejected his vision because he understood something crucial.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_03: A flawed republic beats no republic at all.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: Read Madison's notes closely, and you see he understood the logic of the six-hour speech, even though he disagreed.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_03: Hamilton believed human passion would wreck any loose Confederacy.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_03: He feared both gridlocked democracy and entrenched kings.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_03: His cure was durability.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_03: Long terms, firm vetoes, national supremacy over state mischief.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_03: He said the British Constitution best united strength with security.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_03: Now the decisive matter.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_03: America's founders did not fear a British king.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_03: They feared an American one.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_03: They feared what would happen when blind ambition gathered enough levers to bend the entire machine.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_03: They wrote a constitution that mixes energy with friction, so no single person or group could run away with the Republic.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_03: The secrecy and sealed windows were tools to make that compromise possible, not symbols of elitism.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_03: Hamilton lost the day but not the argument.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_03: His extreme plan made the moderate path possible.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_03: But ideas never really die.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_03: His left a permanent temptation on the table.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_03: Trade our Republic's checks and balances for speed.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_03: Trade gridlock for efficiency, trade debate for decisiveness.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: The room said no in 1787.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_03: That decision created the Republic of the United States of America.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: Hamilton lost, but his argument never died.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: It waits for every moment when efficiency and allegiance sound better than divided power.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: That moment is now.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: This week we're watching what happens when Congress gives up.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: The shutdown impacts real people.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: But the crux of the matter is not the impacted programs.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's not whether the EPA should exist or the CDC deserves its budget.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's not even whether these firings save money or waste it.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: The crux is Hamilton and Madison.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Hamilton wanted a king, or close enough, a president who could veto laws or congressional policies they found distasteful, not just unconstitutional laws, not just illegal spending.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Policies the executive simply disagreed with.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Madison said no.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: He built a system where congressional power over spending was sacred, where the president couldn't just refuse to execute laws because he thought they were bad policy, where gridlock wasn't a bug.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: It was the entire point.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: The question in 1787.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: What happens when the legislature passes something the executive hates?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Does the executive get to ignore it?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Does one person's judgment override the people's representatives?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: The Convention answered, No.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: The President executes the laws.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't like what Congress funds, you veto the bill before it becomes law.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Once it's law, you follow it.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: But what we're watching now is Hamilton's vision, two hundred and thirty eight years late, a shutdown that becomes a veto, an executive using congressional paralysis as permission to act, not just managing the crisis, reshaping government during it.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't about President Trump.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's about whether America still believes what Madison wrote in 1787.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: That ambition must check ambition, that we must divide power to limit power, that even good policy imposed by one person is tyranny.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Hamilton lost that argument.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: But his idea never died.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: It keeps popping up, waiting for the right moment.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Nixon's impoundment crisis, when a president tried to be his own Congress.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Richard Nixon looked at the federal budget in 1972 and saw waste, not illegal spending, just programs he thought were stupid.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: He blamed the Democratic-led party for excess spending, water treatment plants in Democratic districts, rural development funds, clean water grants.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Congress had passed these appropriations.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Nixon had even signed some of the bills.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: But he decided, I'm just not going to spend this money.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: He called it impoundment.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: What it meant, the president can refuse to spend money Congress allocated if he thinks it's a bad idea.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: By 1973, Nixon had impounded over$18 billion, about 20% of controllable federal spending, Clean Water Act funds, highway construction, housing assistance, food stamps.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: When Congress asked why, his answer was simple.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm protecting the economy.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Nixon's position was that the president has inherent constitutional authority to refuse to spend money he deems unnecessary, regardless of what Congress wants.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Congress sued.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: The Supreme Court unanimously ruled against Nixon in Train vs City of New York.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: The law said money shall be allotted, not maybe, or at the president's discretion, shall meant shall.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: The courts said clearly, the president cannot refuse to spend appropriated funds based on policy disagreement.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: The law was simple.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: The president cannot permanently cancel spending that Congress appropriated.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: To rescind funds, the president had to ask Congress.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Both chambers must approve within 45 days.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: If they didn't, the money must be spent.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: The president can temporarily delay spending, but must notify Congress.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Congress can force immediate release anytime.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: The law was bipartisan.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Senate Republicans joined Democrats, because they understood, if a Republican can do this, so can the next Democrat.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: This guts Congress's power permanently.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: America need not fear a British king.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: We should fear an American one.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: The power of the purse is the power of the people.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: If we surrender it to the executive, we surrender the Republic itself.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Nixon resigned in August 1974.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Every president since has operated under the Impoundment Control Act.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: They've all chafed against it.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: But they generally followed the process.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Propose rescisions, let Congress vote, spend the money if Congress says.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Until now.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: We've seen this before.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Canceling foreign aid, withholding domestic spending, using shutdown authority to cut programs.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's Nixon's playbook.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: The argument is similar.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: These programs are wasteful.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: The president has inherent authority to manage the executive branch.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: The impoundment control act itself might be unconstitutional.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: The question is the same question from 1787.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Does the president execute the laws Congress passes?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or does the president decide which laws are worth executing?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hamilton said the executive should have that discretion.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Madison said no, that's monarchy.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Nixon tried to claim it.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Congress and the courts said no.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're asking again.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Congress built this trap.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the uncomfortable truth.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: Congress created this problem.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Not President Trump.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Not Russell Vaught.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Congress did this by refusing to do their job.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: The Constitution gives Congress one primary measure against executive overreach.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: The power of the purse.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Article one, section nine.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: Every dollar spent must be in consequence of appropriations made by law.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Congress decides what gets funded.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: The President executes those decisions.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: For decades, Congress has punted.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: They pass continuing resolutions instead of budgets.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: They kick hard choices down the road.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: They let government lurch from crisis to crisis because making actual spending decisions requires something they can't muster.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Consensus.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: And when Congress won't decide, someone else will.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: When the legislature abdicates, the executive fills a space.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Not because presidents are tyrants, because someone has to keep the lights on.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Obama used executive orders when Congress wouldn't act on immigration.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Bush claimed war powers when Congress wouldn't debate authorization.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Every modern president pushes boundaries because Congress left the boundaries undefended.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Both sides have constitutional arguments.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Advocates for presidential power claim the unitary executive position.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Article II vests the executive power in the president.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Executing laws includes discretion over how and when to spend.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: The president has inherent authority to decline spending he deems wasteful.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: Advocates for congressional power claim the congressional supremacy position.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Article I gives Congress the power of the purse.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Appropriations are laws.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: The President's duty is to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: The framers rejected a presidential line item veto by design.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Both can cite founders.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Both can find judges who agree.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: This debate only happens because Congress stopped defending its own power.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: The framers created friction deliberately.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Madison designed it that way, ambition to check ambition.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: The government grinds to a halt when consensus breaks down because gridlock is the price of divided power.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the originalist paradox.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: If this executive power existed all along, why didn't presidents use it for 184 years?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: From Washington to Nixon, presidents generally spent what Congress appropriated.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Not because they lacked ambition, but because they understood the constitutional bargain.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: When Nixon broke that norm, both parties slapped him down.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Republicans joined Democrats on the Impoundment Control Act because they understood, if Nixon can do this, so can the next Democrat.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's the test.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Not do I trust this president, but do I trust every future president?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: We can't complain about executive overreach if Congress won't exercise legislative power.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_03: Do we trust every future president?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_03: Hamilton wanted a king.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_03: The room said no.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: They built a system where Congress could check the executive through the power of the purse.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_03: But that check only works if Congress pulls the lever.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_03: Madison's design assumed ambition would check ambition.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_03: That Congress would jealously guard its powers.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_03: He didn't account for a Congress that would rather avoid hard votes than defend its constitutional role.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: What's happening now looks like Hamilton's vision, but Madison's system didn't fail.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_03: Congress is failing Madison's system.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_03: The founders gave us the tools, Congress just refuses to use them.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_03: So, again, do we trust every future president?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_03: May God bless the United States of America.