Republican Virtue
Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 5:09 am
Sounds like the founders expected more from all of us...not just the leaders. I would still submit that monied influence renders many of these ideas useless, ignoring the plight of the common man.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... e=facebookHamilton made these points even more bluntly elsewhere. In “Federalist No. 68,” he argued for choosing the president through an electoral college, rather than by parliamentary election or direct democracy, in order to maximize the odds of electing presidents with “the requisite qualifications”—not men with “talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity,” but “characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue.”
Perhaps Hamilton’s subtlest argument for republican virtue in the presidency is found in his famous essay on the judiciary, “Federalist No. 78.” Here, in his discussion of the judicial branch’s relative weakness, Hamilton observed that the courts “must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.” That is, the Constitution gives presidents at least some legitimate authority not to enforce judicial decisions with which they disagree, if only when necessary for presidents to carry out their constitutional duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” But Hamilton’s balance of judicial and presidential power is sustainable only if presidents restrain themselves from disregarding judicial decisions whenever they feel like it; presidents’ power can coexist with the Constitution’s judicial power and independence only if they use their non-enforcement power sparingly, if at all.
