President John Adams prosecuted journalists who uncovered his misdoings and schemed to deny Electoral College votes to Thomas Jefferson, his opponent in the 1800 election. James Buchanan colluded with the Supreme Court to deny constitutional personhood to African Americans, Andrew Johnson urged violence against his political opponents and Richard Nixon ordered his aides to make off with evidence of his political misdeeds.
However, presidential miscreants didn’t have the last word nor did democracy fall to their authoritarian aspirations because ordinary people fought back.
In his new book, The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It, Corey Brettschneider, noted constitutional theorist, chronicles the abuses of power of five presidents — and the citizen movements that brought the country back from the precipice.
He joins us to talk about presidential assaults on democracy and citizens like Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells and Daniel Ellsberg, who mustered their moral sensibilities, political skills and persistence to restore constitutional order.
Dr. Brettschneider teaches constitutional law and politics at Brown University. The author of one prior book, he received the American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award for The Presidents and the People.