ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 It\u2019s what one historian calls an \u201celaborate, clunky machine,\u201d one that\u2019s been fundamental to American democracy for more than two centuries.<\/p>\n
The principle of \u201cchecks and balances\u201d is rooted in the Constitution\u2019s design of a national government with three distinct, coequal branches. <\/p>\n
President Donald Trump<\/a> in his first 100 days<\/a> tested that system like rarely before, signing dozens of executive orders<\/a>, closing or sharply reducing government agencies funded by Congress, and denigrating judges who have issued dozens of rulings against him. <\/p>\n \u201cThe framers were acutely aware of competing interests, and they had great distrust of concentrated authority,\u201d said Dartmouth College professor John Carey, an expert on American democracy. \u201cThat\u2019s where the idea came from.\u201d<\/p>\n Their road map has mostly prevented control from falling into \u201cone person\u2019s hands,\u201d Carey said. But he warned that the system depends on \u201cpeople operating in good faith … and not necessarily exercising power to the fullest extent imaginable.\u201d<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a look at checks and balances and previous tests across U.S. history. <\/p>\n A fight over Jefferson ignoring Adams\u2019 appointments<\/p>\n The foundational checks-and-balances fight: President John Adams\u2019 made last-minute appointments before he left office in 1801. His successor, Thomas Jefferson, and Secretary of State James Madison ignored them. William Marbury<\/a>, an Adams justice of the peace appointee, asked the Supreme Court to compel Jefferson and Madison to honor Adams\u2019 decisions.<\/p>\n Chief Justice John Marshall concluded in 1803 that the commissions became legitimate with Adams\u2019 signature and, thus, Madison acted illegally by shelving them. Marshall, however, stopped short of ordering anything. Marbury had sued under a 1789 law that made the Supreme Court the trial court in the dispute. Marshall\u2019s opinion voided that law because it gave justices \u2013 who almost exclusively hear appeals \u2013 more power than the Constitution afforded them.<\/p>\n The split decision asserted the court\u2019s role in interpreting congressional acts -\u2013 and striking them down \u2013- while also adjudicating executive branch actions.<\/p>\n Hamilton, Jackson and national banks<\/p>\n Congress and President George Washington chartered the First Bank of the United States in 1791. Federalists, led by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, favored a strong central government and wanted a national bank that could lend the government money. Anti-Federalists, led by Jefferson and Madison, wanted less centralized power and argued Congress had no authority to charter a bank. But they did not ask the courts to step in.<\/p>\n Andrew Jackson<\/a>, the first populist president, loathed the bank, believing it to be a sop to the rich. Congress voted in 1832 to extend the charter, with provisions to mollify Jackson. The president vetoed the measure anyway, and Congress failed to muster the two-thirds majorities required by the Constitution to override him. In 1836, the Philadelphia-based bank became a private state bank. <\/p>\n Lincoln and due process<\/p>\n During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus<\/a> \u2014 a legal process that allows individuals to challenge their detention. That allowed federal authorities to arrest and hold people without granting due process. Lincoln said his maneuver might not be \u201cstrictly legal\u201d but was a \u201cpublic necessity\u201d to protect the Union. The Supreme Court\u2019s Roger Taney, sitting as a circuit judge, declared the suspension illegal but noted he did not have the power to enforce the opinion.<\/p>\n Congress ultimately sided with Lincoln through retroactive statutes. And the Supreme Court, in a separate 1862 case challenging other Lincoln actions, endorsed the president\u2019s argument that the office comes with inherent wartime powers not expressly allowed via the Constitution or congressional act.<\/p>\n Reconstruction: Johnson vs. Congress<\/p>\n After the Civil War and Lincoln\u2019s assassination, \u201cRadical Republicans\u201d in Congress wanted penalties on states that had seceded and on the Confederacy\u2019s leaders and combatants. They also advocated Reconstruction programs that enfranchised and elevated formerly enslaved people (the men, at least). Johnson, a Tennessean, was more lenient on Confederates and harsher to formerly enslaved people. Congress, with appropriations power, established the Freedmen\u2019s Bureau to assist newly freed Black Americans. Johnson, with pardon power, repatriated former Confederates. He also limited Freedmen\u2019s Bureau authority to seize Confederates\u2019 assets. <\/p>\n Spoils system vs. civil service<\/p>\n For a century, nearly all federal jobs were executive branch political appointments: revolving doors after every presidential transition. In 1883, Congress stepped in with the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act<\/a>. Changes started with some posts being filled through examinations rather than political favor. Congress added to the law over generations, developing the civil service system that Trump is now seeking to dismantle by reclassifying tens of thousands of government employees<\/a>. His aim is to turn civil servants into political appointees or other at-will workers who are more easily dismissed from their jobs. <\/p>\n Wilson\u2019s League of Nations<\/p>\n After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles<\/a> called for an international body to bring countries together to discuss global affairs and prevent war. President Woodrow Wilson advocated for the League of Nations<\/a>. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Republican Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, brought the treaty to the Senate in 1919 with amendments to limit the League of Nation\u2019s influence. Wilson opposed the caveats, and the Senate fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to ratify the treaty and join the League. After World War II, the U.S. took a lead role, with Senate support, in establishing the United Nations and the NATO alliance.<\/p>\n FDR and court packing<\/p>\n Franklin D. Roosevelt met the Great Depression with large federal programs and aggressive regulatory actions, much of it approved by Democratic majorities in Congress. A conservative Supreme Court struck down some of the New Deal legislation as beyond the scope of congressional power. Roosevelt answered by proposing to expand the nine-seat court and pressuring aging justices to retire<\/a>. The president\u2019s critics dubbed it \u201ca court-packing scheme.\u201d He disputed the charge. But not even the Democratic Congress seriously entertained his idea. <\/p>\n Presidential term limits<\/p>\n Roosevelt ignored the unwritten rule, established by Washington, that a president serves no more than two terms. He won third and fourth terms during World War II, rankling even some of his allies. Soon after his death, a bipartisan coalition pushed the 22nd Amendment<\/a> that limits presidents to being elected twice. Trump has talked about seeking a third term despite this constitutional prohibition.<\/p>\n Nixon and Watergate<\/p>\n