ADAM LIPTAK2026年5月26日The men who drafted the Constitution knew they were playing with fire when they created a novel and powerful new office: the president of the United States.签署宪法的人很清楚，当他们创造一个崭新且强大的新职位——美利坚合众国总统时，他们是在玩火。“The first man put at the helm will be a good one,” Benjamin Franklin said at the Constitutional Convention in June 1787, referring to George Washington. “No body knows what sort may come afterward. The executive will be always increasing here, as elsewhere, till it ends in a monarchy.”1787年6月的制宪会议上，本杰明·富兰克林在谈到乔治·华盛顿时说：“第一个掌舵的人会是个君子。但没人知道后面会迎来什么样的人。这里的行政首长会像其他地方一样不断膨胀，直到以君主制告终。”The framers were not blind to the danger that they were creating a new kind of king, and the Constitution they adopted a few months later tried to strike a balance in inventing what was then a wholly novel office. They wanted a president who was decisive, responsive and responsible. But they also sought to establish a constitutional structure able to constrain a president who aspired to be a monarch.制宪者们并非没有意识到存在这种创造一个新国王的危险，几个月后他们通过的宪法试图在发明这个当时完全崭新的职位时取得平衡。他们希望总统既有决断力、能顺应民意，又能承担责任。但他们也试图建立一个宪法结构，以此来约束有称王野心的总统。They differed about how to achieve that balance. Alexander Hamilton, who argued in favor of an exceptionally strong president at the convention — he proposed, for instance, that they should serve for life — wrote in the Federalist Papers that there was more to fear from populists than from those committed to a firm and efficient government.他们在如何实现这种平衡上存在分歧。亚历山大·汉密尔顿在会议上主张赋予总统极其强大的权力——例如，他曾提议总统应当终身任职——他在《联邦党人文集》中写道，与那些致力于建立坚定且高效政府的人相比，民粹主义者更令人恐惧。“Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics,” he wrote, “the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.”他写道：“在那些推翻共和国自由的人当中，大多数人开始其政治生涯时都是对民众极尽谄媚之能事；他们以煽动家开始，以暴君告终。”The Constitution’s framers were doubtless brilliant, and the document they drafted has endured. It is the oldest written national constitution still in force anywhere in the world. But, as the nation commemorates its 250th anniversary, some constitutional scholars say the second Trump presidency is calling into question whether the nation’s founding charter and sacred text truly provide the balance the founders wanted.宪法的制宪者们毫无疑问是卓越的，他们起草的文件也历经了考验。它是世界上所有目前仍在生效的国家宪法中最古老的一部。但是，就在国家隆重纪念建国250周年之际，一些宪法学者表示，特朗普的第二任总统任期正在引发质疑：国家的建国宪章和神圣文本是否真正提供了先贤们所期望的平衡。President Donald Trump has used the power of the federal government to bully universities, law firms and news outlets; undermined the independence of the Justice Department by instructing it to prosecute his political enemies; defied Congress by impounding money it had instructed him to spend; flouted countless court orders; and cut off funding to states led by Democrats.唐纳德·特朗普总统利用联邦政府的权力恐吓大学、律师事务所和新闻机构；他通过指示司法部起诉其政治敌人来破坏该部门的独立性；他通过扣留国会指示他支出的资金来对抗国会；他蔑视了无数的法院命令；并切断了对民主党执政各州的资金支持。That list is hardly exhaustive, and it is certainly possible to quarrel with given items in the bill of particulars. And it is not as if other presidents have always been punctilious in following the Constitution’s commands.这份清单绝非详尽无遗，而且对具体细节清单中的特定项目当然也存在争议。况且，其他总统也并非总是小心翼翼地遵循宪法的指令。Still, the second Trump presidency is different in kind, legal scholars said, one that approaches the maximalist view of presidential power that Franklin and other founders feared.但法律学者表示，即便如此，特朗普的第二任期在本质上也是不同的，它正在逼近富兰克林和其他创始人所担心的总统权力极大化观点。Saikrishna Prakash, a law professor at the University of Virginia and the author of “The Living Presidency: An Originalist Argument Against Its Ever-Expanding Powers,” said the modern presidency would be unrecognizable to the framers.弗吉尼亚大学法学教授、《活的总统制：对不断膨胀权力的原意主义抗辩》(The Living Presidency: An Originalist Argument Against Its Ever-Expanding Powers)一书的作者赛克里希纳·普拉卡什表示，现代总统制对制宪者来说已经面目全非。“I think they’d be astonished, not merely by Trump, but by the breadth of the executive power in the modern era,” he said.他说：“我认为他们会感到震惊，不仅是对特朗普，还有现代行政权力的广度。”Less Powerful Than a King权力弱于国王国会内的一幅呈现宪法签署场景的画作。The office the framers created — the American president — was unlike any other chief executive in any other nation at the time. And while other aspects of the Constitution have been quite influential, few modern democracies followed its vision of executive power.制宪者创造的这一职位——美国总统——在当时与其他任何国家的任何行政首长都不同。虽然宪法的其他方面极具影响力，但很少有现代民主国家遵循了其对行政权力的构想。The exceptions were mostly in Latin America, where strong presidencies created in the 19th century often degenerated into dictatorships. Parliamentary models, in which the executive — there, the prime minister — emerges from and is accountable to the legislature are more common.例外情况主要集中在拉丁美洲，那里在19世纪建立的强势总统制往往会蜕变成独裁统治。议会制模型更为普遍，在这一模型中，行政首长——即总理（或首相）——产生于立法机构并对其负责。In a parliamentary system, the executive and the legislature are in dialogue rather than structural opposition. Prime ministers generally do not serve fixed terms and may be removed by a vote of no confidence.在议会制体系中，行政机构和立法机构处于对话状态，而不是结构性的对立。总理（或首相）通常没有固定任期，并可能因不信任投票而被罢免。The framers rejected that model for something new. They were looking for a sweet spot. They wanted a president less powerful than the king they had rebelled against but more effective than the state governors of the time, who were all but powerless, or prime ministers, who were creatures of the legislature.制宪者拒绝了那种模型，转而寻求某种全新的东西。他们当时在寻找一个黄金平衡点。他们希望总统的权力弱于他们曾反抗的国王，但要比当时几乎毫无权力的各州州长、或是身为立法机构附庸的总理（或首相）更有效率。The framers were trying to solve a puzzle, Michael W. McConnell, a law professor at Stanford University, wrote in “The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution.” “How could the delegates achieve the independence, vigor, secrecy and dispatch necessary for an effective executive without rendering him an elected monarch?” he asked.斯坦福大学法学教授迈克尔·W·麦康奈尔在《不会成为国王的总统：宪法下的行政权》(The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution)中写道，制宪者们当时试图解开一个谜题。他问道：“代表们如何在不使行政首长成为民选君主的情况下，实现一个高效行政首长所必需的独立性、活力、保密性和高效执行力？”Few Checks on a Demagogue对煽动家的约束寥寥无几The framers believed that the threat of impeachment and removal would be a decisive check on the president. They envisioned a Congress that would be jealous of its institutional power and would muster, when appropriate, not only a simple majority vote in the House of Representatives to accuse presidents of misconduct but also a two-thirds vote in the Senate to convict and remove them.制宪者相信，弹劾和罢免的威胁将是对总统的决定性约束。他们设想的国会应当对这一职位的制度权力心怀嫉妒，并在适当的时候，不仅能组织起众议院的简单多数票来指控总统的失职行为，还能组织参议院三分之二的选票来定罪并罢免他们。“To the extent that they’re worried about a demagogue, they think impeachment will be the mechanism,” Prakash said. “They expected that impeachment would deal with scoundrels.”普拉卡什说：“就算真的担心出现煽动家，他们也认为弹劾的机制足够了。他们指望弹劾能解决无赖之徒。”But they failed to anticipate a development that would make impeachment improbable: the rise of political parties.但他们未能预见到一种会让弹劾变得难以企及的发展：政党的兴起。The classic account of this constitutional blind spot is “Separation of Parties, Not Powers,” a 2006 article in The Harvard Law Review by Daryl J. Levinson and Richard H. Pildes.针对这一宪法盲点的经典解释，是达里尔·J·莱文森和理查德·H·皮尔德斯于2006年在《哈佛法律评论》上发表的一篇名为《政党分立，而非权力分立》(Separation of Parties, Not Powers)的文章。“To this day, the idea of self-sustaining political competition built into the structure of government is frequently portrayed as the unique genius of the U.S. Constitution, the very basis for the success of American democracy,” they wrote. “Yet the truth is closer to the opposite.”他们写道：“时至今日，内置于政府结构中的自我维持的政治竞争观念仍经常被描绘为美国宪法独特的卓越之处，是美国民主成功的基石。然而，事实却更接近于相反的情况。”“As competition between the legislative and executive branches was displaced by competition between two major parties,” they added, “the machine that was supposed to go of itself stopped running.”“随着立法机构与行政机构之间的竞争被两大主要政党之间的竞争所取代，”他们接着说。“原本应该自行运转的机器停止了运行。”Many presidents have tested the Constitution’s limits. Thomas Jefferson pulled off the Louisiana Purchase even though he believed it was unconstitutional. Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus. Richard Nixon created a culture of executive lawlessness that culminated in the Watergate scandal and his resignation.许多总统都曾试探过宪法的极限。托马斯·杰斐逊促成了路易斯安那购地案，尽管他认为这是违宪的。亚伯拉罕·林肯暂停了人身保护令。理查德·尼克松营造了一种行政违法的文化，这种文化最终导致了水门事件和他的辞职。路易斯安那州共和党参议员比尔·卡西迪2021年接受电视采访时谈及自己为何在弹劾唐纳德·J·特朗普的合宪性问题上改变了投票立场。本月早些时候，卡西迪在一次党内初选中输给了一位由特朗普支持的挑战者。This suggests the founding generation may have been unduly optimistic about the power of norms and expectations, grounded in part in Washington’s sterling character. “I do think that they expected that the president would be bound by a sense of duty to the law and to the Constitution,” McConnell said.这表明，建国一代对规范和合理期待的力量可能过于乐观了，而这种乐观部分建立在华盛顿高尚的人格之上。麦康奈尔说：“我确实认为，他们曾指望总统会受到对法律和宪法责任感的约束。”The rise of political parties, to say nothing of the current extreme polarization between them, has made other forms of congressional supervision of the president vanishingly rare. There have been four presidential impeachments in the history of the United States, of Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and, twice, Trump. In none of the four cases did the Senate muster the required two-thirds vote to convict.政党的兴起，更不用说目前两党之间极端的两极分化，使得国会对总统的其他形式监督变得极其罕见。在美国历史上曾发生过四次总统弹劾案，分别是对安德鲁·约翰逊、比尔·克林顿以及两次对特朗普。参议院对这四案均未能组织起定罪所需的三分之二选票。Today, Prakash said Congress would be entitled to tell the executive branch that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents must display badges and not wear masks. Lawmakers could, he added, forbid the president from using the National Guard to enforce the law.普拉卡什说，在今天，国会有权告诉行政机构，移民和海关执法局特工必须佩戴徽章且不得戴面具。他还说，立法者可以禁止总统动用国民警卫队来执法。“They have a lot of authority,” he said. “It’s just that, in the modern era, it’s very hard for them to flex it, because half the Congress is in the president’s pocket and the president has a veto.”“他们拥有很大的权力，”他说。“只是在现代，他们很难去动用它，因为国会的一半人都站在总统那一边，而且总统还拥有否决权。”Adam Liptak是《纽约时报》首席法律事务记者，也是关于法律动态的新闻电邮The Docket的主笔。他毕业于耶鲁大学法学院，在2002年加入《纽约时报》之前曾从事律师工作14年。翻译：经雷点击查看本文英文版。获取更多RSS：https://feedx.net https://feedx.site