The Power Of The US Presidency

The power of the US Presidency has continued to increase from the very beginnings of our country.  Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase.  James Polk finished the job with the Mexican American War to fulfill our Manifest Destiny.  Abraham Lincoln added Alaska by purchasing it from Russia.  Teddy Roosevelt gave us an empire in the Pacific by defeating Spain in the Spanish American War.  Hawaii became an American territory and eventually an American state.  Clearly, various Presidents have used Presidential power, usually with the consent of Congress, to grow the United States of America to what it is today.

However, this notion of using Executive Orders to "interpret laws" is now out of control as Socialist Emperor Pinocchio Obama just used an Executive Order to give legal status to 5 million Illegal Aliens.  The courts will decide if this is Constitutional; but let us hope that the Supreme Court says NO.  If not, we effectively have a Dictator so why bother with electing members of Congress.  If the President is able to act alone, in complete disregard of the Separation of Powers, enumerated in the Constitution, we have a King or Emperor.  To be fair, this trend has been growing for years. 

Abraham Lincoln suspended rights in the Constitution during the Civil War making it easy to arrest anyone for anything.  Lincoln also initially freed the slaves without Constitutional Authority, which is the reason it actually took the 13th Amendment to the Constitution to do it properly.  Presidents regularly send our armed forces into wars without any Declaration of War by the Congress as required by the Constitution.  Our freedoms are under attack as President Obama has ordered the National Security Agency to spy on all Americans.  Where will all of this end. 

History teaches us that power corrupts.  The more power the President, any President takes, the more he or she will take.   Our Founders feared a Dictator.  In writing the Constitution, they had just fought a long Revolutionary War to get rid of King George.  The last thing they wanted was King Obama; but that is where we are headed if Congress and the Courts do not assert their proper authority in accordance with the Separation of Powers.  Let us hope that Members of both political parties in Congress see Obama's Executive Orders as the threat to our freedom that they really are.  Greater and greater Presidential Power will lead to an outright Dictatorship.  And, if this is allowed to continue the day will come when some President just suspends Congress and takes complete power.  Don't think it can't happen because it did happen with Adolf Hitler who was first elected as the Chancellor of Germany and then took complete Dictatorial power.  And, we all know the end of that horrible story.