Constitutional Responsibility For Us All

A letter to the Daytona Beach News Journal concluded by declaring, "I thank [then]President Bush for doing his best to fulfill his primary responsibility for providing security at home." Most of us, whether we favored or opposed that President’s policies, would agree that his primary responsibility is our security within our borders.

Most of us would be wrong. Here is the oath a new president takes, quoted in its entirety from Article II of the United States constitution:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Plainly the enduring Constitution, not We The [present] People, is the President’s primary responsibility. Even when our safety is at risk, our Commander in Chief may not erode, abandon and ignore the Constitution in order to better secure our sorry hides.

We in turn need to remember, even as the twin towers fall, that when the President raises his right hand we take the oath too – and the risks that go with it. We cannot, for instance, detain people indefinitely and otherwise torture them, even to save our selves, fellows and families from terror and death, else we dishonor our past and degrade the legacy due our children.

History shows we have forgotten before, to our later shame and regret . The Greatest Generation could have won World War II without interring American citizens of Japanese ancestry. Lincoln’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus cost the Confederacy less than the Union he preserved. The loyalty oaths and blacklists of the 1950's only hindered the unity and resolve which inspired and led the free world to contain and defeat the USSR.

At Guantanamo Bay we are writing another shameful chapter for the history books, though the Supreme Court has somewhat mitigated our gross folly. Meanwhile we have afforded ourselves the opportunity to learn anew that rights stripped from the least among us are loosened from all of us.

The lesson continues as President Obama, with agonizing slowness, attempts to close such places.

Still another unfolding story is the continuing surveillance of the actions and communications of ordinary Americans. It calls to mind the witch hunts following both world wars and the dossier days of the civil rights movement and Vietnam protests; unconstitutional all. (Only now the computers are far more powerful, their programs are impenetrably more complex, and the data bases much more massive and error prone.).

Again, the change in administrations has brought less relief from the prying and spying of the thought police than we deserve and the constitution requires.

We are in sum faced with a choice. Will we risk the rule of law or be ruled by fear and terror?
Article IV says, "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof, and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the Supreme Law of the Land. . ."

Article II, Section 3 says in part, ". . .he [The President] shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed. . ."

No part of the Constitution says, or even implies, that "The President shall keep us Safe, the Laws notwithstanding."

Nor should we let any president devalue any part of our Constitutional heritage in the name of security. Let old Ben Franklin have the last word, spoken over two hundred years ago: "Those who would trade their Liberties for Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."