To the Citizens of the United States,

Federalist No. 86

The diligent reader of these papers, who has with patient scrutiny followed our arguments for a more perfect Union, will recall our admonitions against the perils inherent in popular governments. We labored to demonstrate that while liberty is the very air of a republic, it requires a judicious structure to prevent its own self-destruction by the very passions it unleashes. We spoke of factions, of the dangers of concentrated power, and of the necessity for a government tempered by reason, bound by law, and sustained by a common regard for the public good. We warned that demagogues, by flattering the people, commence their ascent, only to conclude as tyrants.

Now, alas, we find ourselves compelled by urgent necessity to address a new and grievous affliction that has befallen our young Republic. For a second time, the supreme magistracy has been seized by one who, by his actions and declarations, evinces a startling disregard for those very principles upon which our shared experiment in self-governance rests. We behold a spectacle most disquieting: a President who questions the very Constitution he swore to uphold, asserting a boundless authority where our design plainly intended limitation.

It was our fervent hope that the tripartite division of powers—legislative, executive, and judiciary—would serve as an inviolable bulwark against usurpation, each department acting as a sentinel over the others. We conceived of a system where "ambition must be made to counteract ambition". Yet, we witness a Chief Magistrate who attempts to cast aside the deliberative process, issuing dictates that usurp legislative authority, and employing the instruments of government to punish those who exercise their most fundamental rights, whether in legal counsel, public dissent, or the very administration of justice, thereby threatening the independence of the legal profession and the public's confidence in an impartial legal system.

Consider the recent proclamations concerning the removal of foreign persons, enacted under a strained interpretation of ancient statutes, which deny even the most basic rights of due process. Our forefathers, in casting off the yoke of a distant monarch, decried the denial of trial by jury and the transportation of individuals beyond seas for pretended offenses. Is this not a return to that very grievance, masked by the cloak of executive prerogative, and assailed by the very courts established to uphold the law? Indeed, the judicial branch, though often called "next to nothing" and possessing "neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment", is now constrained to confront actions that appear to violate the very spirit and letter of our compact, with some judges finding "probable cause to hold the government in criminal contempt of court for defying his orders".

Moreover, we observe the targeting of those civic associations and endeavors—whether in the halls of academe, the pursuit of commerce, or the very fabric of our public service—that seek to foster the common good by promoting diversity and equitable principles. This assault on the free association of citizens and the imposition of a singular, undefined ideology by executive fiat, contravenes the essence of a free society, where the multiplicity of interests and opinions, not their suppression, is the true safeguard of liberty, as our wise Madison warned against the dangers of faction. To compel compliance through the threat of withholding public funds, as has been attempted with the States and institutions, is a perilous subversion of that delicate balance between national and local authority, threatening to reduce our compound republic to a consolidated despotism.

Furthermore, the very idea of a fixed term for the Chief Magistrate, enshrined as a protection against the "perpetuation in office," is openly mocked by suggestions of a third term, flying in the face of constitutional amendment wrought by prudent experience. The 22nd Amendment, ratified to prevent the "perpetuation in office" and guard against the rise of a "dictatorship or some totalitarian form of government," stands as a clear bulwark against such ambitions. Such pronouncements, coupled with an apparent disdain for the established processes of law, poison the wellspring of public confidence and invite a dangerous contempt for the very framework that secures our freedoms.

The strength of our Republic lies not in the unbridled will of any single individual, but in the faithful adherence of all, especially those entrusted with power, to the limits prescribed by the Constitution. It is a testament to the foresight of our convention that mechanisms exist to correct these excesses, yet these mechanisms require the courage and fidelity of those charged with their execution. The federal judiciary, though often hindered by procedural niceties and the weight of political considerations, and at times appearing to use "highly technical and narrow procedural decisions to avoid directly confronting" seemingly unconstitutional actions, thereby providing a "longer runway" for executive overreach, must stand as the ultimate arbiter, lest the innovations of the executive become irreversible changes to our constitutional order.

Let us, therefore, reflect deeply upon these accumulating dangers. Let the citizens, ever the ultimate guardians of their own liberty, demand that their representatives and judges fulfill their sacred duty. For if the spirit of faction is permitted to consume the lamp of reason, and if the pursuit of personal aggrandizement is suffered to undermine the foundations of our common law and constitutional design, then indeed will the grand experiment of this Republic be jeopardized, and the bright promise of self-governance extinguished. The question remains, as pertinent today as it was in our founding: Can a people, once enlightened, keep their Republic? The answer rests upon our present resolve.

PUBLIUS