Power Sharing
Americans pray for the health of their president but not every prayer is answered. William Henry Harrison caught a bug shortly after his inauguration. He never recuperated and passed away only a month into his presidency. James Garfield was shot in 1881 and died from blood poisoning 80 days later. Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke during his second term. Dwight Eisenhower had a heart attack early in his presidency. Circumstances like this paralyze the commander in chief, something we can hardly afford in this day and age.
Scandals sidetrack presidencies as well. Watergate rattled Richard Nixon. Warren Harding struggled through Teapot Dome. Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson were impeached. Presidential indiscretions have become a part of our national lexicon. All of this leaves our command vehicle sputtering along tenuously on one wheel, when with five wheels we could blow a tire and keep on going.
Lately, presidents have argued that their role as commander in chief during “wartime” affords them extraordinary Constitutional rights. With the role of commander in chief in the hands of a National Defense Council, presidential powers would stay the same in war as in peace. The president would have no right to unilaterally suspend laws related to domestic spying, detentions or treatment of war time prisoners.
The United States has embassies around the world and we need the Marines on site to protect our diplomats. A National Defense Council could oversee this type of deployment with minimal Congressional oversight. But before we train our big guns on another country’s security forces, the most representative branch of our government should declare war, as required by the Constitution.
The current imbalance of power in our federal government threatens to undermine the very principles on which our country was founded. A structural adjustment would diversify the executive branch and strengthen our democracy.
federalism, commander in chief, executive branch
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