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October 21, 2002 Something to Think About
by Gordon Francis Corbett
The term "commander-in-chief" means that the president, as head of the executive branch of government, commands the armed forces. Each armed force has its own commanders, but the Constitution grants the president authority superseding that given to any of them. In Mafia slang, the president is the capo di tutti capi: "the boss of all the bosses." "Commander-in-chief" does not mean that, in time of war or other national emergency, the president becomes a dictator. Even when the country is at war, our president must still obey the Constitution. Regardless, some past presidents, such as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, have usurped powers. These powers were either Congressional, as in Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, or expressly unconstitutional, as in Franklin Roosevelt's imprisoning, without trial, Americans of Japanese descent during World War II. The courts and the public have allowed these crimes. The courts allow them, probably, because they fear retaliation from the Executive; the public allow them because they fear losing the war, and they trust that "their" president will not abuse his power. This tendency will not abate soon. Our schools no longer teach the Constitution's history and philosophy; so, as the years pass, the percentage of Americans who understand them decreases. I graduated from high school in 1961, and mine may have been the last generation to learn the Constitution thoroughly. Even then, the textbook and the teacher taught that the Constitution's intended purpose of limiting governmental power had become passé, and, at least implicitly, had done so for good reason. I had to learn why the Constitution's intended role is good from my father and from author-commentator Dan Smoot. Therefore, when politicians and pundits talk about the president's role as "commander-in-chief," most of their audiences will think that they understand their subject, but will not really know. We must tell them.
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