Here's the back half of Rod Rosenstein's public remarks yesterday...
Congressional oversight is important. Congress must be able to hold hearings, conduct inquiries, and require reports so that it knows the laws are being faithfully executed...
Congressional oversight is important. Congress must be able to hold hearings, conduct inquiries, and require reports so that it knows the laws are being faithfully executed...
and the money it appropriates is being properly spent. But oversight is not intended to eliminate the line between executive branch authority and legislative branch authority.
Our Constitution has provided us with the most stable and resilient legal system on Earth.
Our Constitution has provided us with the most stable and resilient legal system on Earth.
According to the World Bank, the average constitution has a lifespan of about 19 years. Ours has lasted more than 12 times that—and it has endured through the most dynamic period of change in human history.
It has served a big and diverse Union from the horse-and-buggy age to the space age to the digital age. No other Constitution has achieved that.
Our Bill of Rights, containing the first ten amendments, is often regarded as the pride of American government.
Our Bill of Rights, containing the first ten amendments, is often regarded as the pride of American government.
But the Constitution originally had no Bill of Rights. The issue was considered during the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, but the Constitution was ratified without it. The Framers were more concerned about our government’s structure...
than a written guarantee of rights, because a written guarantee is only as powerful as the system in place to protect it. Our constitutional structure, and the separation of powers embodied in that structure, represents our government’s defining feature.
Justice Scalia explained that “it is those other humdrum provisions—the structural, mechanistic portions of the Constitution that pit, in James Madison’s words, ‘ambition against ambition,’ and make it impossible for any element of government to obtain unchecked power --
— that convert the Bill of Rights from a paper assurance to a living guarantee.”
The Founders dispersed power both horizontally and vertically. The three branches of the federal government check one another. The states and the federal government check one another.
The Founders dispersed power both horizontally and vertically. The three branches of the federal government check one another. The states and the federal government check one another.
And the people check both the federal and the state governments.
Separation of powers can be frustrating. Prosecutors are sometimes disappointed when the judicial branch acquits someone it thought was guilty of a crime. But that is part of the genius of our system.
Separation of powers can be frustrating. Prosecutors are sometimes disappointed when the judicial branch acquits someone it thought was guilty of a crime. But that is part of the genius of our system.
Prosecutors collect evidence and decide whether it establishes a crime that warrants prosecution. We do not determine guilt.
I know that judges and legislators are sometimes frustrated by executive branch decisions, such as prosecutorial charging decisions.
I know that judges and legislators are sometimes frustrated by executive branch decisions, such as prosecutorial charging decisions.
The push and pull among and between the branches is bipartisan. It exists regardless of which party is in power. Justice Scalia explained that Americans should “learn to love the separation of powers,” even though it frequently leads to controversy.
That tension – the power of each branch to say no – is one of the things that protects liberty.
Each of us has a role to play in protecting this unique and indispensable feature of our constitutional order.
Each of us has a role to play in protecting this unique and indispensable feature of our constitutional order.
Ultimately, in our system, sovereignty rests in the people. When “We the People” established the Constitution, it was a relatively novel concept. And “We the People” remain responsible for protecting it.
Our system of government is not self-executing. It relies on wisdom and self-restraint. In a democratic republic, liberty is protected by cultural norms as well as by constitutional text.
Lawyers and judges bear great responsibility for implementing and explaining those principles. The further we get from the founding generation, the less we appreciate how much everything depends on people rather than paper.
Abraham Lincoln believed that the best way to ensure the survival of our “edifice of liberty and equal rights” is to enshrine reverence for the rule of law in the hearts of the citizens.
“Let reverence for the laws,” he implored, “be breathed by every American mother … let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs --
— let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice.”
And, Lincoln concluded, “let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions” keep the rule of law.
We are privileged to live in a country that is governed by the rule of law. It is easy to take for granted. I am thankful for Law Day and events like this because they provide us with an opportunity to reflect on the genius of the American Constitution.
Thank you.
Thank you.
