Conclusion

Abstract

In 1952 the US Supreme Court held that President Harry Truman’s seizure of the nation’s steel mills during the Korean War was an unconstitutional abuse of executive power. Concurring in that judgment, Justice Felix Frankfurter observed that the “long-headed statesmen” who drafted and ratified the Constitution “had no illusion that our people enjoyed biological or psychological or sociological immunities from the hazards of concentrated power.”¹ Barely a decade before the Philadelphia convention and the constitution’s ratification by the states, such naiveté may have influenced the rebellious colonials to believe that their liberties would be restored by the simple expedient of replacing monarchical rule with democratic governance. The founders of the new nation learned quickly, however, that elected officials and popular majorities would also abuse the awesome powers of government unless constrained. The Constitution of 1787, though partly an effort to make government power more effective, was designed to provide those constraints.