I’ll take constitutional crisis for 200, please, Alex

Generally defined as a problem or controversy that cannot be resolved by the Constitution, we in the good ol’ U.S. of A. have had our share of constitutional crises. These events involve one political force or another tugging on our Constitution to find a weak point for its own advantage.

We have historically tackled these crises in one of four ways. Either the elected branches of our government have compromised, the judicial branch has arbitrated by decision, we have amended our Constitution, or, as in the case of Civil War, we resolved the crisis through force of arms and bloodshed. Lots of bloodshed.

The first of these kerfuffles occurred in 1803 over a question of federal appointments. The Constitution was silent on the issue, so Chief Justice John Marshall, in Marbury v. Madison, decided the issue, and established the precedent of Supreme Court primacy over constitutional interpretation, and gave the judiciary branch its cojones.

This precedent affirmed the judiciary as a co-equal branch of government in our republic, arbiters of the Constitution and not merely clerks.

The Judiciary Act of 1793, signed by President George Washington, fleshed out the judicial branch by establishing a system of lower courts to adjudicate legal questions around the country. Both Marshall’s Marbury decision and the Judiciary Act have often raised hackles on Congress and the White House in subsequent years.

This tug-of-war over power among the branches of our government prevails to this day and embodies the dynamic tension that I think our Founders, in their wisdom, had firmly in their minds.

Throughout our history, we Americans have stumbled occasionally on what the Constitution says and means, and how we should behave as citizens under it. From time to time, the document has not been crystal clear on this point or that point about some controversy, but we have always found our way by its light.

When the Constitution’s letter has been ambiguous, we have survived as a nation by relying upon its spirit. The elegant wisdom in our system is that the three branches of government serve as checks and balances on one another. Thus, no single branch of government can make too much of a mess of things without another branch jerking the reins back, and returning it to our constitutional roots.

During every constitutional crisis in our history, I’ll bet a dollar to a donut that savvy citizens have said, “This is the worst one yet.” And history replies, “Hold my beer!”

From the aforementioned events through President Andrew Jackson’s forced relocation of Native Americans from the southern states and the “Nullification” controversy, the succession of John Tyler to the presidency, the question of newly-admitted states being free soil or slave, the Civil War, the civil rights movement and up to Watergate, the United States has weathered every constitutional crisis we have faced.

Our Constitution has survived every attack upon it mounted by political excess. When needed, we have amended it to fit new circumstances,  thereby proving that it is a living document.

It is with this in mind that I applaud members of the Wyoming Bar Association for their recent letter to the Wyoming congressional delegation that warns of a new political attack on our Constitution and challenges the delegation to rise to the defense of the rule of law.

When the executive branch, aided and abetted by a silent, impotent Congress, threatens federal judges with impeachment for purely political reasons, our system of checks and balances is under attack. If the attack succeeds, the slippery slope down toward despotism is greased. Without the protections of the rule of law, we are no longer citizens of a republic, but serfs to a tyrannical system.

If we, as citizens, are sick and tired of a pesky judiciary monkeying around in our lives, we can simply amend our Constitution and repeal Article III, placing our future squarely in the hands of the executive branch. But that decision is up to us, not the president.

So once again, thank you Wyoming Bar Association for planting your feet and standing your ground for the rule of law. Here endeth the lesson.