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| When Presidents Are Right and Courts Are Wrong: Defying the Bench to Save the Nation |
| 2025-05-31 |
| [PJMedia] When a president defies a court, the media pulls the fire alarm. Legal experts fill TV panels with words like "unconstitutional" and "authoritarian." The phrase “constitutional crisis” gets tossed around like glitter at a political parade. But what most people forget is that history doesn’t always side with the judiciary. Some of America’s greatest presidents defied court rulings, and history later confirmed that those examples of defiance were not only justified but necessary. They didn’t do it to seek power. They did it to protect the country when others froze. That’s not a crisis. That’s leadership. Now that two federal courts have blocked President Trump’s new economic tariffs, it’s worth revisiting the long American tradition of presidents ignoring the gavel when national security, survival, or sovereignty are on the line. In every example below, the court ruled against the president, but the president was right. LINCOLN AND HABEAS CORPUS: BREAKING THE LAW TO SAVE THE UNION In 1861, as the nation buckled under secession, President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus. That gave Union generals the authority to arrest Confederate sympathizers without a judge reviewing the case. This was no hypothetical fear. Pro-Southern saboteurs in Maryland had torn up railroad tracks and destroyed bridges, threatening troop movements near Washington, D.C. Chief Justice Roger Taney, still clinging to the robes of his infamous Dred Scott legacy, ruled that Lincoln had no such authority in Ex parte Merryman. Taney claimed only Congress could suspend habeas corpus. Lincoln ignored him. FDR AND THE GOLD CLAUSE CASES: LEGAL ORTHODOXY VS. ECONOMIC RECOVERY When Franklin D. Roosevelt came into office, the country was sliding off a cliff. Unemployment had reached biblical proportions. Banks were failing. People hoarded gold. Deflation made debt impossible to repay. FDR made a radical move: he took America off the gold standard. He voided “gold clauses” in contracts, which guaranteed payment in gold instead of paper dollars. The move enraged investors and Wall Street lawyers, who saw it as a direct violation of property rights. In Perry v. United States (1935), the Supreme Court acknowledged that Roosevelt's move was unconstitutional. He had broken binding contracts. However, the Court effectively shrugged and ruled that the plaintiff hadn’t suffered actual damages since he had been repaid the equivalent amount in currency. Roosevelt stared down the Court and dared them to stop him. The gamble worked. Inflation began to rise, banks stabilized, and Americans could breathe again. Critics accused him of shredding the Constitution. TRUMAN AND THE STEEL SEIZURE: NO COURT CAN BUILD A TANK Fast forward to 1952. The Korean War was raging. The United Steelworkers threatened a nationwide strike. Without steel, the U.S. military couldn't make tanks, artillery, or warships. President Harry Truman, unwilling to let war production halt, ordered the federal seizure of America’s steel mills. The case reached the Supreme Court quickly. In Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, the Court ruled that Truman had exceeded his constitutional authority. They said Congress had not authorized the seizure, and therefore it was unlawful. Truman lost. Legally. But he complied with the ruling and found other ways to keep steel flowing. The military stayed supplied, and the war effort never stalled. JEFFERSON AND THE JUDICIARY: MIDNIGHT APPOINTMENTS AND MORNING RESOLVE When Thomas Jefferson took office in 1801, he faced a judiciary packed with Federalist loyalists thanks to John Adams’ last-minute “Midnight Judges.” Jefferson refused to deliver some of their commissions. One of the snubbed appointees, William Marbury, sued. That case became Marbury v. Madison. Chief Justice John Marshall used it to establish judicial review, the principle that courts could declare laws unconstitutional. But while flexing the Court’s power, Marshall also agreed that Jefferson didn’t have to deliver Marbury’s commission. |
| Posted by:NoMoreBS |
| #5 The doctrine of judicial immunity, which basically means that activist judges don't have skin in the game, is not a part of the Constitution. I can think of a bunch of reasons not to abolish that doctrine, but it would be fun to see Trump issue an executive order limiting it in some way. For example: "Any district judge who declares an executive order unconstitutional shall within 10 days appear before Congress to explain the basis for the court's decision." I'd like to see Senator Kennedy ask these folks his typical pointed questions in public. After all, democracy dies in darkness. |
| Posted by: Matt 2025-05-31 09:51 |
| #4 Gracias |
| Posted by: Grom the Affective 2025-05-31 03:49 |
| #3 Duplicate deleted, apology accepted. :-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2025-05-31 02:55 |
| #2 ^Sorry. |
| Posted by: Grom the Affective 2025-05-31 02:27 |
| #1 “Any government will work if authority and responsibility are equal and coordinate. This does not insure “good” government, it simply insures that it will work. But such governments are rare — most people want to run things, but want no part of the blame. This used to be called the “backseat driver” syndrome.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long |
| Posted by: Grom the Affective 2025-05-31 02:23 |