OPINION:
Thomas Cromwell was the chief minister of England for much of the reign of King Henry VIII.
He engineered the convictions and downfall of many whom Henry wanted out of the way, including his two predecessors in power — one of whom, St. Thomas More, was executed, while the other, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, died in custody before trial — and even the king’s second wife, Queen Anne Boleyn.
When an executioner for Queen Anne Boleyn was sent for from France a week before her trial concluded, it revealed that her guilt had been preordained and her executioner prepaid before the proceedings even began.
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The king nevertheless required a jury to give the appearance of legitimacy to her conviction and prevent the public perception of “the tyranny of one man’s opinion.”
In America, we have a Constitution not only to prevent the perception but also the reality of the tyranny of one man’s opinion. The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment makes clear that if the government wants life, liberty or property, it cannot take it by executive command, but only by due process — a fair jury trial and all its constitutional protections.
Article I makes clear that if the government wants war, it cannot commence it by executive command, but only by congressional declaration.
We also have a Constitution to ensure the separation of powers in the federal government. Congress writes the laws, appropriates taxpayers’ money and funds borrowed in its name, and declares war when the United States is in imminent danger from a foreign threat.
The president enforces the laws, spends money as Congress directs and wages the wars Congress has authorized.
The judiciary decides what the Constitution and the laws mean and, if properly challenged, determines whether the president and Congress, or the states, have exercised their duties lawfully and constitutionally.
The central constitutional question is not whether a president sincerely believes that his policies are necessary. It is whether the Constitution permits personal liberty and limited government to depend upon the opinion of one man. That is the danger of executive government without effective legislative and judicial checks.
A fair reading of the Constitution begins with a truism: Presidential power is not whatever the president believes it to be. It is only what the Constitution and laws actually confer.
Consider the administration’s attacks on alleged drug trafficking boats. President Trump says he has directed military forces to strike narcotrafficking vessels and describes the operation as part of his campaign against fentanyl and cartels.
But the constitutional question is separate from the president’s characterization of the targets. A person suspected of being a drug trafficker — or even a mass murderer — does not thereby become condemned to death. Criminal guilt always requires accusation, evidence and adjudication according to law, before punishment.
These boat killings are unlawful extrajudicial executions. In the language all Americans can understand, they are murders.
The same principle applies to Iran. The framers deliberately divided the war powers. Article I gives Congress the power to declare war, authorize the use of military force, regulate the armed forces and control appropriations. Article II makes the president commander in chief. The distinction matters.
The president commands forces; Congress determines where and under what circumstances the president does so.
Mr. Trump has openly declared an American blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and said that the U.S. controls which ships pass through it. He has also imposed sanctions that deny food, medicine and currency stability to millions of innocent Iranians. He even threatened to murder all Iranians if a peace agreement is not soon reached.
Those statements highlight what the Constitution was designed to prevent one individual from addressing alone: whether the United States should wage military and economic hostilities against the population of another nation.
Congress has repeatedly resisted treating the Iran conflict as a matter solely for presidential discretion. Just two weeks ago, support for Mr. Trump’s war failed to muster majorities in both houses of Congress. Nor can the president’s personal assessment of Iran’s nuclear intentions settle the matter.
In 2018, State Department nonproliferation assessments and U.S. intelligence reports maintained that Iran had halted its structured nuclear weapons program in 2003. Subsequent intelligence assessments through 2025, including testimony by the director of national intelligence, consistently confirmed to Congress that the intelligence community did not evaluate Iran as actively building a nuclear weapon.
Those facts alone establish something constitutionally important: The president’s personal belief, whether informed or not, is not evidence, law or a substitute for congressional authorization.
The same textual principle reaches domestic spending and taxation. Article I provides that only Congress can impose taxes and money may be drawn from the Treasury only pursuant to appropriations made by law.
Even though the Supreme Court has invalidated Mr. Trump’s tariffs, the president continues to impose them. Even though Congress has not authorized funds for Mr. Trump’s vanity projects, he continues to spend tax dollars on them.
The Constitution does not grant any branch of government carte blanche. It has separated powers precisely because legislators, presidents and judges can all succumb to the corruption of power — and can all be wrong.
That is the deeper meaning of the tyranny of one man’s opinion. The danger is not merely that one president might be wrong. It is that a constitutional system becomes meaningless if one man’s conclusions about war, crime, taxation, spending, foreign threats or national security become the sole basis for government actions — particularly actions that kill innocents.
The Founders separated the sword from the purse and divided governmental power because they understood a truism: Personal liberty and limited government cannot long survive when entrusted to one man’s opinion.
• To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.
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