SEN. ANGUS KING: Trump is trying to govern unbound by law or Constitutional restraint

Almost 75 years ago, the junior Republican Senator from Maine, Margaret Chase Smith, delivered a speech from her heart about a crisis then facing our country: a crisis not arising from a foreign adversary, but from within. A crisis that threatened the values and ideals at the base of the American democratic experiment. 

Her ‘Declaration of Conscience’ turned out to be one of the most important speeches of the 20th Century and defined Smith as a person of extraordinary courage and principle.

Reflecting back on the speech, she later told me that she was so nervous about the speech—this was the height of the Red Scare of the early fifties—that she told her chief aide, Bill Lewis, not to hand out the copies of the text to the press until she actually started talking on the floor, because she was afraid she might lose her nerve.

But she went through with it, and the rest is, literally, history.

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Here is how she began that speech:

“Mr. President, I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition. It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear. It is a condition that comes from the lack of effective leadership either in the legislative branch or the executive branch of our government.”

She continued,

“I think that it is high time for the United States Senate and its members to do some real soul searching and to weigh our consciences as to the manner in which we are performing our duty to the people of America and the manner in which we are using or abusing our individual powers and privileges.”

Later in the speech, Smith concluded,

“It is high time that we stopped thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and started thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedom. It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques – techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.”

Sen. Margaret Chase Smith (R. Maine) walks across the Capitol Plaza in this undated photo.  (Getty Images)

I fear that we are at a similar moment. 

Echoing Senator Smith, the ‘serious national condition’ we are facing today should not be viewed as a partisan issue; it’s about the idea of America and the system of government that has sustained us for more than two centuries. It’s not about the president’s agenda (and yes, I disagree with most of it), but it’s about the manner in which he is pursuing it. This roughshod non-process endangers all of us, his detractors and supporters alike.

Although many of my colleagues seem determined to ignore it, this president is engaged in the most direct assault on the Constitution in our history, and we in this body, at least thus far, are inert. And therefore complicit.

It’s worth pausing for a moment to look at the terms of Article II, which outline the powers and responsibilities of the president: the power to issue pardons and the role of commander-in-chief of the armed forces in wartime. But even this latter power is constrained by the reservation to the Congress of the power to declare war in the first place.

The United States Constitution  (iStock)

The principal responsibility of the president, however, is spelled out explicitly: the chief executive “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” The job of the president is simply to execute the laws passed by Congress, without exception—a responsibility this president is spectacularly failing to meet.

The administration has also taken a series of apparently unconnected actions which, taken together, spell out our rapid path toward one-man rule.

While this is the most serious breach, the administration has also taken a series of apparently unconnected actions which, taken together, spell out our rapid path toward one-man rule.

Here’s a partial list:

• He has enabled the dismemberment of agencies providing essential services to the American people, most particularly in the Social Security and Veterans Administrations;
• He has attempted to cut off funds to a single state—my own—because he took personal umbrage at our governor’s refusal to bend to his policy preference, which was inconsistent with state law. Tellingly, during that exchange, he said, “We are the law,” a statement which is wholly inconsistent with our form of government.
• He has compromised national security by dismantling agencies charged with defending our nation against the clear and present danger of cyberattacks and firing many of those individuals;

This is not a complete list, but it does present a disturbing pattern—that this president is attempting to govern unbound by law or Constitutional restraint.

To those who like the policies of the president and are therefore willing to ignore the unconstitutional means of effectuating them, I (and history) can only say: watch out. Today, the target may be federal workers, but tomorrow (perhaps under a different president), it could be you.

President Donald Trump at the White House on April 21, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

So what can we do? 

The first guardrail is the Congress itself. But unfortunately, the majority in Congress has wholly abdicated these fundamental responsibilities.

The second guardrail is the courts, which are generally holding up their end of the constitutional bargain. As easy as it may be to rely entirely on the courts, that’s a cop-out; reclaiming power must be a joint project.

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The final guardrail is the people, who more and more are speaking up—in rallies, in correspondence, in town halls, and in conversations at the grocery store.

We can’t escape the responsibility of our oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;” [and that we would] “bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” 

So, with thanks to Margaret Chase Smith for her example and inspiration, this is my ‘Declaration of Conscience.’ I don’t relish this moment, but feel I have no choice but to call out the clear implications and dangers of President Donald Trump’s first 100 days.

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Many years ago, President Abraham Lincoln came to the Congress at a time when our forebears—like us—were reluctant to face the responsibilities that had been thrust upon them. At that critical moment, this is what he said,

“Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.”

I deeply hope that amid our fiery trial, we will choose honor—and the Constitution.