December 3, 2025

An insightful reader of this column, an exercise in civic education, recently suggested that readers may need to be persuaded of the importance to our nation of the restoration of a constitutional presidency. Why, indeed, should Americans rebuke the long rise, under both Democrats and Republicans, of Presidential Government, which is currently riding the rails of authoritarianism under Donald Trump, and embrace the concept of a chief executive, cabined by constitutional limitations, who will willingly comply with the metes and bounds of the office? In considering the essential “why?” behind this question, let’s consider the impact of a rehabilitated presidency on the lives of Americans and the life of America.

For starters, the question is akin to asking about the value of the rule of law. In Reid v. Covert (1957), Justice Hugo Black gave voice to the first principle of American Constitutionalism: “The United States is entirely a creature of the Constitution. Its powers and authority have no other source. It can act only in accordance with all the limitations imposed by the Constitution.” The principle that the government, including the president, has only those powers—express or implied—granted to it by the Constitution was an article of faith for the founders, and should be, I submit, a constant for every generation of American citizens.

Governmental subordination to the Constitution, what the framers regarded as the essence of the rule of law, is critical to a political system committed to government based on the “consent of the governed.” That doctrine, indispensable to republicanism, declares, in the words of John Adams, principal author of the world’s oldest constitution—the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780—and four other state constitutions drafted at the founding, “The people have a right to require of their magistrates an exact and constant observance” of the “fundamental principles of the Constitution.”

The passage of time has disturbed neither the force nor the vitality of that requirement. If it were otherwise, it would be necessary to acknowledge that we have abandoned governance based on preestablished rules and embraced governance grounded on the whims of those who wield power. In the case of the presidency, this would result in government based, not on law, but on the will of the executive. “That might result in a benevolent despotism,” Justice Benjamin Cardozo rightly observed, “if the judges,” or presidents, for that matter, “were benevolent men.” In any case, “it would put an end to the reign of law.” And not merely an end to the rule of law, we should insist, but to republican principles as well.

“In a government of laws,” Justice Louis Brandeis justly cautioned, “existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously.” It is for this reason, as James Madison pointed out, that “it is our duty to take care that the powers of the Constitution be preserved entire to every department Government; the breach of the Constitution in one point, will facilitate the breach in another.”

While achievement of the rule of law more than occasionally escapes our grasp, owing largely to the interests of those who exercise power, it is worthy of our effort and admiration, as victims of Auschwitz and Buchenwald would attest. The rule of law maintains the principle of limited government, promises to thwart arbitrariness, pledges government conduct in accord with known laws and procedures, applies brakes to unlimited discretion and power, provides a sense of certainty and predictability, and fulfills the will of the people, as manifested in their ratification of the Constitution. In practice, the rule of law means that government officials may not undertake acts that are prohibited by the Constitution. 

The virtues of the rule of law apply with equal force to the presidency. A lawless presidency would be accountable, not to known rules and laws, but only to the president’s ego, which would unleash a parade of horribles. Such a president might unilaterally take Americans to war, risking the blood and treasure of the nation for meritless causes, grant self-serving pardons, arbitrarily order troops to the streets, violate with impunity the Bill of Rights, and order the arrest of citizens without concern for due process of law. By slipping the chains of the Constitution, such a president could destroy the principle of government by consent of the people. A constitutional presidency is far more appealing.

-David Adler