Madison’s Federalist Paper #51 was also top of mind for Barbara A. Perry, Director of Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, specifically the famous line: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. In order to protect the governed from each other, and protect the governed from the governors, you have to establish both a constitutional system with checks and balances, as well as a legal system as one of the three branches,” Perry says. “What I’d like to think would happen, by asserting the laws of the state of New York, people would one, recognize that even a President or a former President is not above the law, or two, that the system is worth keeping and preserving and not have a person who takes a constitutional oath to uphold the system actively trying to undermine it.”
Barbara Perry