Word: jefferson
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...precedents." Never before has Congress subpoenaed a President. Only once has the Judiciary Branch issued a subpoena to a President. That was in 1807, when Chief Justice John Marshall, performing his collateral role as a district-court judge in Richmond, was trying Aaron Burr for treason. Burr wanted Thomas Jefferson to produce letters written to him by one of the prosecution witnesses...
...although subject to the general rules which apply to others, may have sufficient motives for declining to produce a particular paper ... I can readily conceive that the President might receive a letter which it would be improper to exhibit in public, because of the manifest inconvenience of the exposure." Jefferson handled the problem by denying that the court had a right to subpoena his papers; then he went ahead and produced the letters anyhow. Thus the issue was never forced to a final test...
Some experts believe that Nixon should have followed the Jefferson example, and in the end, of course, he may yet do so along the way to the Supreme Court. But in a letter to Judge Sirica, in which he declined to produce his tapes for Cox, the President argued: "I follow the example of a long line of my predecessors who have consistently adhered to the position that the President is not subject to compulsory process from the courts." He quoted an 1865 statement of then U.S. Attorney General James Speed: "The President of the United States, the heads...
...figures, dressed for the humid summer in silk shirts, knee breeches and buckle shoes, rested against the Monument wall inside the wide circle of flags. One of the figures was the ghost of Thomas Jefferson, that noble idealist who symbolizes the dream of the American Revolution; the other was the ghost of Alexander Hamilton, who, perhaps more than any other single person, was the architect of the modern American system of government...
Ervin is fond of citing a subpoena for certain papers and testimony issued to President Thomas Jefferson. But Jefferson's information was sought not by Congress but by a court for the criminal trial of Aaron Burr on treason charges. The situation is different when the Legislative Branch is locked in direct conflict with the Executive. Only last year Justice William O. Douglas argued that it is "no concern of the courts, as I see it whether a committee of Congress can obtain [an Executive Department document]. The federal courts do not sit as an ombudsman, refereeing the disputes...