Thanks for that Hayes-Tilden article, Josh. Fascinating. And that kind of deal with the devil only fucks up the nation for a century or so, right?
The deal with the devil was that it took that long before somebody took that much advantage of the system. What we are seeing today is just another of the thoroughly predictable aspects of the Constitution.
The Articles of Confederacy had their own issues, but were not vulnerable to this kind of power grabbing demagoguery. Thomas Jefferson demonstrated quite ably just how easy it was for a Chief Executive under the Constitution to ignore its limits so long as Congress would go along with him and the Courts were not called upon. Andrew Jackson demonstrated that even when the Court's authority was summoned, if the Chief Executive chose not to heed it and the Senate would do nothing, the Justices were impotent even if they chose not to be blind.
Of course, they chose to be blind sufficiently frequently along the way that relying on them has seemed pretty futile too much of the time, anyway. ( Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, Buck v. Bell, Korematsu v. United States, Chae Chan Ping v. United States, McCleskey v. Kemp, Kelo v. City of New London, Bennis v. Michigan... and that's without getting into Citizens United or Berghuis v. Thompkins or Gore v. Bush.) (
At least Dred Scott and Plessy have been reversed. Korematsu has been declared bad law, yet its practices seem to be allowed to continue. I suspect that under this Court that Buck would pass again, depending upon the population being involuntarily sterilized. Ditto Chae Chan Ping.)
But... the practices that brought us President Hayes are almost demanded of a "true patriot," who believes that only one individual can save the nation.
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