February 15, 2019: President Trump Takes on the Founding Fathers

 

2/15/19: Once again we learn that a wall along the border with Mexico isn’t going to solve our most vexing crime problem. Friday morning, Gary Martin, who suspects he’s about to be fired, carries a gun to work at the Henry Pratt Co. in Aurora, Illinois. Martin shoots and kills five co-workers. 

In an ensuing standoff he wounds five police officers before they can kill him and end the bloody standoff. 

Martin is not an illegal immigrant. He did not sneak across the border. A year and a day after Trump told the loved ones of victims and the survivors of the Parkland, Florida high school shooting that GOP lawmakers were “afraid of the N.R.A,” the biggest coward of all has done nothing to stem the tide of blood in the streets. Instead, the president marches out to the Rose Garden and declares a national emergency because Congress won’t give him the money to build the Great Wall of Trump. 

In declaring that “emergency,” he admits, “I could build the wall over a longer period of time. I didn’t need to do this.”

 

After blaming Democrats for not realizing that his every wish is their command, the plump president (now officially obese) tells gathered reporters that he really wants the wall. So, he is going to get the money he wants in any way he wants. “I just want to do it faster,” he says.

Or to put it plainly, the strictures in the U.S. Constitution often annoy the President of the United States. 

James II of England.

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The Founding Fathers were always clear. Too much power in any one person’s hands or vested in any one body, would represent a threat to freedom.

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In order to gain necessary perspective, we need to take a trip to Philadelphia in 1787. What were the Founding Fathers thinking when they talked about forming a new government, including creation of the office of the presidency? 

Roger Sherman, a Connecticut delegate, argued that the “Executive magistracy” would exist to carry out the will of the Legislature. Therefore, the Executive “ought to be appointed by and accountable to the Legislature only [emphasis added, throughout].” 

Edmund Randolph of Virginia was opposed to that idea. The Executive would have to have “vigor, dispatch & responsibility.” He thought three men, acting as an Executive board, would be best. 

James Wilson noted that there was always a concern that the Executive might be “the fetus of monarchy.” Nevertheless, he was for one man to head the government, believing the republican manners of the people would suffice to keep the Executive under control. Wilson, who represented Pennsylvania, was for direct election of the president by the people. (No Electoral College required.) He suggested a term of three years, “on the supposition that a re-eligibility would be provided for” in the new Constitution. Another delegate suggested a term of seven years, with no chance for a second. George Mason, later known as the “father of the Bill of Rights,” supported that idea.

 

The question was put – with the issue being how to create an effective Executive without granting too much power – state delegations each having one vote. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia voted “ay,” for a seven-year term. Delegates from Massachusetts were split. Connecticut, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia voted “no,” making the vote 5-4, with Massachusetts tied. 

Like political leaders today, the Founding Fathers were often divided on matters of grave import. The men who wrote the U.S. Constitution never wavered in one respect. Too much power in any one person’s hands or vested in any single body, would represent a threat to freedom. 

Pierce Butler, representing South Carolina, had this to say: “It had been observed in all countries [that] the Executive power is in a constant course of increase… Gentlemen seemed to think that we had nothing to apprehend from an abuse of the Executive power. But why might not a Cataline or a Cromwell arise in this Country as well as in others,” he asked his fellow delegates? 

(Or a Trump.) 

 

“The immediate choice of the people.” 

What, then, were the Founding Fathers thinking when they decided to vest the power of the purse in the hands of the House of Representatives? Why not rest it in the president’s hands, instead? 

Under Section 5 of Article IV, of the proposed Constitution, it was agreed that this power should reside in the House. On August 8, 1787, after nearly three months of debate, the question arose once more. By that time, the large and small states (in population) had agreed to what we call The Great Compromise. States with larger populations would have more votes in the House. All states would have two votes in the Senate, giving the less populous states a check on the power of their more populous neighbors. 

Now, according to James Madison’s notes, Charles Pinckney of South Carolina “moved to strike out Sect. 5, Art. IV.” 

Pinckney could see no reason to leave that power of the purse in the hands of the House alone. He felt the Senate should have the same power. 

Madison’s notes for August 8 capture the moment: 

Mr. Ghorum. Was ag^st allowing the Senate to originate; but only to amend [money bills].

 

Mr. Gov^r Morris. It is particularly proper that the Senate sh^d have the right of originating money bills. They will…consist of a smaller number, and will be able to prepare such bills with due correctness; and so as to prevent delay of business in the other House.

 

Col. Mason was unwilling to travel over this ground again. To strike out the section, was to unhinge the compromise [the agreement on the number of votes in the House and Senate] of which it made a part. The duration of the Senate [the six-year terms of senators] made it improper. He does not object to that duration. On the Contrary he approved of it. But joined with the smallness of the number, it was an argument against adding this to the other great powers vested in that body. His idea of an Aristocracy was that it was the govern^t of the few over the many. An aristocratic body, like the screw in mechanics, work^s its way by slow degrees, and holding fast whatever it gains, should ever be suspected of an encroaching tendency. The purse strings shou^d never be put into its hands.

 

Again, serious disagreement arose. Mr. Butler was for leaving the section in. Mr. Wilson was “opposed to it [the measure to strike out Sect. 5] on its merits.” Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut was “willing it should stand” if it was important to other members of the body. Madison “was for striking it out.” On the question of striking that section, New Hampshire voted “no.” Massachusetts voted “no.” Connecticut was a “no.” New Jersey voted “ay.” So did Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia. North Carolina was another “no.” 

The question was revived the next day. On August 9, Mr. Randolph expressed his unhappiness with the vote of the day before, “concerning money bills, as endangering the success of the plan [for the new government], and extremely objectionable in itself; and gave notice that he should move for a reconsideration of the vote.” Hugh Williamson of North Carolina “said he had formed a like intention.” 

Colonel Mason was for postponing the matter. But he agreed “that it was of essential importance to restrain the right to the House of Representatives.” Members of the House were directly elected every two years and were therefore “the immediate choice of the people.”

 

Senators were not to be chosen by popular vote under the new government plan. So, the power to tax should rest with the House, as also the power to decide how to spend the people’s money. Mason made his position clear. “He said that unless the exclusive originating of money bills should be restored to the House of Representatives, he should, not from obstinacy, but duty and conscience, oppose throughout [the Constitution] the equality of Representation in the Senate.” 

If the Senate could pass appropriations, he did not believe the smaller states in population should have an equal vote with the larger.

 

The English had handcuffed the king. 

On August 13, the question was raised again. This time Randolph moved for a change in the wording of Article IV, Section 5. It should be made more precise, to ease the concerns shared by others in the Constitutional Convention. “Bills for raising money for the purpose of revenue or for appropriating the same,” he suggested, “shall originate in the House of Representatives and shall not be so amended or altered by the Senate as to increase or diminish the sum to be raised, or change the mode of levying it, or the objects of its appropriation.” 

Col. Mason was for adopting Randolph’s wording. He reminded delegates that “the Senate did not represent the people, but the States in their political character. It was improper therefore that it should tax the people.” He cited in support of this construction, the good example of England: “The House of Lords does not represent nor tax the people, because not elected by the people.” 

The English had also handcuffed the king when it came to raising taxes or spending the people’s money.

 

John Dickenson, representing Delaware, spoke up: “Eight States have inserted in their Constitutions the exclusive right of originating money bills in favor of the popular branch of the Legislature.” 

That is, the House of Representatives (the name varied) for each state, not their Senate. 

“When the people behold in the Senate, the countenance of an aristocracy; and in the president, the form of a little monarch,” Randolph asked, “will not their alarms be sufficiently raised without taking from their immediate representatives, a right which has been so long appropriated to them?” 

That is: control over the purse strings. 

In the end, it was not till Saturday, September 8, the final day of the Convention, that the money question was resolved. This time the states voted for clauses separately. First, “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the house of Representatives.” 

Nine states voted “ay.” Only Delaware and Maryland voted “no.”

 

It was moved separately that the existing wording, that appropriation bills would be “subject to alterations and amendments by the Senate” be struck. It was to be replaced with wording from the Massachusetts State Constitution. That is: “but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as in other bills.” Madison reports that this change was adopted “nem. con.” 

Or, in Latin: “nemine contradicente,” “with no one dissenting.” 

Not once did any of the Founding Fathers suggest that the President of the United States should have control over appropriations or have any role in amending or altering spending bills once made. 

Today, 232 years later, along comes President Trump.