How a long-ago fight over a dormant constitutional weapon echoes today

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Opinion
How a long-ago fight over a dormant constitutional weapon echoes today
Controversies over presidential power and recessing Congress aren’t new. See: Andrew Jackson.

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By Jason Willick and Philip Huff
Jason Willick is a Post columnist. Philip Huff is an independent researcher.

A willful president claiming expansive executive power clashes with the Senate, including over his unorthodox appointments. The president’s clever allies point to a constitutional clause he might invoke to unburden himself of the recalcitrant upper chamber. Language tucked away in Article II, Section 3 says that if the House of Representatives and the Senate disagree “with Respect to the Time of Adjournment,” the president “may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper.”

Voilà, say proponents: If the Senate goes too far in defying the president, he can summon the more pliant House to call for Congress to adjourn. When the Senate disagrees, the president can send them both packing. The president’s opponents, of course, warn of a constitutional crisis: “What principle of morality — what code of laws — what provision of the constitution,” one newspaper asks, would this president “not sweep away like a cobweb?”

This state of affairs could, of course, describe Washington in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s 2024 election. It actually describes Washington in 1834, during President Andrew Jackson’s second term, as his battle with the Senate over the Bank of the United States reached a crescendo.

The 1834 debate over the scope of the president’s power to adjourn Congress has been largely forgotten. But it can shed light on a troubling constitutional clause that a bold or desperate president might try to exploit. The history also contains broader lessons for America’s current era of populist politics and constitutional hardball: that fears of a dictatorial presidency extend far back in the country’s history, and that any quasi-monarchical powers the Constitution does afford American presidents are best left untested at their limits.

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By Jason Willick
Jason Willick is a Washington Post columnist focusing on law, politics and foreign policy.follow on X@jawillick

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Cromwellian

Prorogue Parliament.

He promised Day One Dictator. He didn't say it ended on Day Two. He said we won't need elections anymore. So dissolving Congress is not off the table.