Powers of the President During Crises
1960
Powers of the President During Crises
1960
This 1960 examination of presidential emergency powers arrives with startling prescience in the current moment. Malcolm Smith traces how American presidents have accumulated extraordinary authorities during crises from the New Deal through the Cold War, building a constitutional architecture that blurs the line between democracy and autocracy. The book dismantles the comforting notion that emergency powers are merely temporary measures: instead, Smith demonstrates how crisis authorities tend to calcify into permanent fixtures of executive power, often expanding rather than contracting once the threat subsides. Through careful analysis of constitutional law, historical precedent, and real-world applications, the author maps the delicate balance between national security and civil liberties, revealing how each generation's 'temporary' emergency powers become the next generation's accepted reality. For anyone seeking to understand how the modern presidency acquired its vast surveillance, detention, and interventionist capabilities, this book provides the essential historical framework. It is required reading for citizens who suspect that the trade-off between security and freedom has been made far more often than acknowledged.
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“Dispute not with her: she is lunatic.””
— J. Malcolm Smith
“So wise so young, they say, do never live long.””
— J. Malcolm Smith
“And thus I clothe my naked villainyWith odd old ends stol'n out of holy writ;And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.””
— J. Malcolm Smith
“Out of my sight! Thou dost infect mine eyes.””
— J. Malcolm Smith
“And therefore,”
— J. Malcolm Smith
“Now is the winter of our discontentMade glorious summer by this sun of York;And all the clouds that lour'd upon our houseIn the deep bosom of the ocean buried.””
— J. Malcolm Smith
“What do I fear? Myself? There’s none else by.Richard loves Richard; that is, I and I.Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am.Then fly! What, from myself? Great reason why:Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any goodThat I myself have done unto myself?O, no! Alas, I rather hate myselfFor hateful deeds committed by myself.I am a villain. Yet I lie. I am not.Fool, of thyself speak well. Fool, do not flatter:My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,And every tongue brings in a several tale,And every tale condemns me for a villain.Perjury, perjury, in the highest degree;Murder, stern murder, in the direst degree;All several sins, all used in each degree,Throng to the bar, crying all, “Guilty! guilty!”I shall despair. There is no creature loves me,And if I die no soul will pity me.And wherefore should they, since that I myselfFind in myself no pity to myself?””
— J. Malcolm Smith
“I have set my life upon a cast,And I will stand the hazard of the die.””
— J. Malcolm Smith
“Conscience is but a word that cowards use,Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe:Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.March on, join bravely, let us to't pell-mell;If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.””
— J. Malcolm Smith
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Smith, J. Malcolm. Powers of the President During Crises. Lex, lex-books.com/book/powers-of-the-president-during-crises-5bc998df-58cf-4dbb-8248-4b9d5c2074da.Smith, J. M. (1960). Powers of the President During Crises. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/powers-of-the-president-during-crises-5bc998df-58cf-4dbb-8248-4b9d5c2074daSmith, J. Malcolm. Powers of the President During Crises. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/powers-of-the-president-during-crises-5bc998df-58cf-4dbb-8248-4b9d5c2074da.