* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Sunday, June 22, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Netflix unveils Dallas immersive venue for fans of hit shows like ‘Squid Game,’ ‘Stranger Things’ – Houston Chronicle

    Step Inside Netflix’s New Dallas Immersive Experience Featuring Hits Like ‘Squid Game’ and ‘Stranger Things

    ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’: Civic Players bring ‘Young Frankenstein’ to life – Yahoo

    Civic Players Deliver a Hilarious and Unforgettable Performance of ‘Young Frankenstein

    ‘Wheel of Fortune’: Amputee Wins $60,000 After Breaking Incredible ‘Curse’ – Hastings Tribune

    Wheel of Fortune’ Amputee Breaks Incredible ‘Curse’ to Win $60,000!

    North Star Sports & Entertainment Network: Coming soon – KTTC News

    North Star Sports & Entertainment Network: Coming soon – KTTC News

    Safety concerns in Deep Ellum create apprehension as the entertainment district gains visitors – CBS News

    Safety Concerns Surge Amid Deep Ellum’s Booming Popularity and Growing Crowds

    Elisabeth Moss’ ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Emmy chances, by the numbers – Yahoo

    Elisabeth Moss’ ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Emmy chances, by the numbers – Yahoo

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Tech Champions with Leo Bletnitsky of Healthy Technology Solutions – Buzz Media Group

    Meet Tech Champion Leo Bletnitsky of Healthy Technology Solutions

    Crypto’s true revolution is about humanity, not technology – Cointelegraph

    Crypto’s Real Revolution: Transforming Humanity Beyond Technology

    $1 Billion Problem: New Technology Could Save Your Daily Cup of Coffee – SciTechDaily

    The $1 Billion Challenge: How New Technology Could Rescue Your Daily Cup of Coffee

    Canada’s construction industry gets serious about investing in technology as pressure mounts to do more with less – Yahoo Finance

    Canada’s Construction Industry Accelerates Tech Investments to Overcome Growing Challenges and Boost Efficiency

    Workforce Technology Eases Staffing Shortages in Rural Health Care – AJMC

    Workforce Technology Eases Staffing Shortages in Rural Health Care – AJMC

    Get the lead out: Putting new at-home lead testing technology to the test | Denver7 Investigates – Denver7

    Putting the Latest At-Home Lead Testing Technology to the Ultimate Test

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Netflix unveils Dallas immersive venue for fans of hit shows like ‘Squid Game,’ ‘Stranger Things’ – Houston Chronicle

    Step Inside Netflix’s New Dallas Immersive Experience Featuring Hits Like ‘Squid Game’ and ‘Stranger Things

    ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’: Civic Players bring ‘Young Frankenstein’ to life – Yahoo

    Civic Players Deliver a Hilarious and Unforgettable Performance of ‘Young Frankenstein

    ‘Wheel of Fortune’: Amputee Wins $60,000 After Breaking Incredible ‘Curse’ – Hastings Tribune

    Wheel of Fortune’ Amputee Breaks Incredible ‘Curse’ to Win $60,000!

    North Star Sports & Entertainment Network: Coming soon – KTTC News

    North Star Sports & Entertainment Network: Coming soon – KTTC News

    Safety concerns in Deep Ellum create apprehension as the entertainment district gains visitors – CBS News

    Safety Concerns Surge Amid Deep Ellum’s Booming Popularity and Growing Crowds

    Elisabeth Moss’ ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Emmy chances, by the numbers – Yahoo

    Elisabeth Moss’ ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Emmy chances, by the numbers – Yahoo

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Tech Champions with Leo Bletnitsky of Healthy Technology Solutions – Buzz Media Group

    Meet Tech Champion Leo Bletnitsky of Healthy Technology Solutions

    Crypto’s true revolution is about humanity, not technology – Cointelegraph

    Crypto’s Real Revolution: Transforming Humanity Beyond Technology

    $1 Billion Problem: New Technology Could Save Your Daily Cup of Coffee – SciTechDaily

    The $1 Billion Challenge: How New Technology Could Rescue Your Daily Cup of Coffee

    Canada’s construction industry gets serious about investing in technology as pressure mounts to do more with less – Yahoo Finance

    Canada’s Construction Industry Accelerates Tech Investments to Overcome Growing Challenges and Boost Efficiency

    Workforce Technology Eases Staffing Shortages in Rural Health Care – AJMC

    Workforce Technology Eases Staffing Shortages in Rural Health Care – AJMC

    Get the lead out: Putting new at-home lead testing technology to the test | Denver7 Investigates – Denver7

    Putting the Latest At-Home Lead Testing Technology to the Ultimate Test

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Science

The contentious history of U.S. presidential pardons

August 9, 2023
in Science
The contentious history of U.S. presidential pardons
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

History & Culture

Ever since George Washington, presidents have bestowed mercy on both the treasonous and their own allies. But there’s still one kind of pardon that no one has ever tried.

ByErin Blakemore

Published August 8, 2023

• 9 min read

Presidential pardons are once again in the news as Donald Trump—former president and likely GOP candidate for the 2024 presidential election—contends with a third federal indictment charging him with election interference. Could Trump pardon himself if he is re-elected? Or will another future president pardon him, as Gerald Ford did for his disgraced, scandal-ridden predecessor Richard Nixon?

A U.S. president’s pardon authority is as old as the office itself, but controversy over whether and how the chief executive should exercise the privilege has persisted since the nation’s founding. Despite a rich history of pardoning controversial figures after and even before they’re convicted of federal crimes, there’s still one kind of pardon of that no president has ever tested: the self-pardon.

Why we have presidential pardons

At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Alexander Hamilton proposed the president be given the power to pardon those who have committed crimes or reduce their sentences, later explaining that pardons might help “restore the tranquillity of the commonwealth” in times of rebellion. The concept wasn’t new: English laws had long given monarchs the power to grant mercy to their subjects, and the practice extended to the governors of British colonies in America.

Most of the framers agreed with Hamilton and subsequently voted down a competing last-minute proposal to deny the president the ability to grant pardons in cases of treason. Article II of the Constitution gives a president “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States.” The one exception enumerated in the Constitution is that presidents may not use their clemency powers to stop themselves or others from being impeached by Congress.

(How the Founding Fathers defined treason and other high crimes.)

President have four kinds of pardon power which apply only to federal—not state—crimes. They may issue a pardon that wipes out the crime entirely, shorten or do away with a criminal sentence with a commutation, release a person from a legal obligation like a fine with a remission, or put off a person’s sentence, known as respite.

The issue of a president’s almost unlimited pardon power was contentious enough that it factored into the decision of George Mason, a Virginia delegate who feared a strong federal government, to abstain from signing the Constitution. A president with the power to pardon the treasonous, he warned, “might make dangerous use of it” by pardoning crimes in which he was a co-conspirator—which Mason believed could destroy the republic.

Earliest presidential pardons

As it turned out, the first presidential pardons did offer mercy to men who committed treason. In 1795, President George Washington pardoned two men who had organized the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion, an uprising in western Pennsylvania in response to a costly federal tax on spirits; it took a militia of 13,000 to quell. Washington pardoned the last of the insurgents on the final day of his second term in 1797, indicating his “desire to temper the administration of justice with a reasonable extension of mercy.”

The tradition of pardoning rebels and polarizing figures continued through the years. After his election in 1800, Thomas Jefferson pardoned all of those convicted under the Sedition Act of 1798, a law passed during his predecessor’s term that made it illegal to defame the government.

One early presidential pardon was rejected by the person it was designed to save. In 1833, President Andrew Jackson pardoned George Wilson, who had been sentenced to death for stealing U.S. mail and putting the life of a mail carrier in jeopardy. For unclear reasons, Wilson refused the pardon. The case was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that a pardon can be rejected. Wilson was later executed by hanging. 

(These American suffragists also refused a presidential pardon.)

Mass pardons

In 1862, Abraham Lincoln made another controversial—if unofficial—pardon when he refused to authorize the executions of 265 Dakota men in Minnesota. Suffering from hunger and repeated treaty violations, these men had attempted to drive white settlers from Native ancestral lands by burning settlements and murdering civilians. Between 600 and 700 settlers were killed in what was the worst massacre in American history. More than 500 Native Americans were killed in retaliation.

Lincoln’s decision not to order the execution was politically unpopular. But Lincoln, horrified by the unjust and unprofessional trials that led to the convictions of many obviously innocent men, said he “could not afford to hang men for votes.” (Still, the 1862 hanging of the 38 men who were not pardoned remains the largest mass execution in the nation’s history.)

In the wake of the Civil War in 1865, Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, waded into even more contentious territory by offering a blanket pardon to former Confederates, with exceptions for those who had personally helped orchestrate the South’s secession from and war against the Union. Soon after, Johnson began exercising his clemency power with abandon as he granted personal pardons to those exempted by the blanket pardon.

(North America’s Native nations reassert their sovereignty: “We are here.”)

Ultimately, Johnson granted pardons to up to 90 percent of applicants—more than 13,000 in all—including many high-level Confederate officials. By 1867, writes historian Jonathan Truman Dorris, Johnson had pardoned “86 members of the lower house of the Confederate congress, a smaller number of the upper house, and perhaps a dozen Confederate governors.” Many of those leaders later became the architects of Jim Crow, the racist laws designed to re-establish a brutal racial hierarchy in the former Confederacy.

Augustus Hill Garland, a former Confederate senator and attorney, received one of the pardons in 1865, but remained disbarred under a law passed earlier that year that stripped law licenses from former Confederates. He took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that he shouldn’t be subject to the law since his crime had been wiped away. The justices agreed, and in the ruling they affirmed the president’s broad power to issue pardons—including the power to grant a pardon before a person has been charged with a crime.

Preemptive pardons

That power was put to the test during the nation’s most controversial pardon of all—that of a former president. In September 1974, a month after President Richard Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal, his successor Gerald Ford granted him unconditional pardon for all offenses that he may have committed.

Although Nixon had not been formally charged with any crimes, he was now a private citizen and could be prosecuted for his involvement in covering up the attempt to surveil the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters. Ford, who had served as Nixon’s vice president, believed the nation could not withstand the divisiveness of a potential criminal trial of the disgraced president. But his decision backfired, prompting a public and Congressional backlash, and is thought to have cost Ford his political career.

The Nixon pardon was followed by another high-profile preemptive pardon. On President Jimmy Carter’s first day in office in January 1977, he issued unconditional pardons to most people who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War, including those who had not yet been prosecuted. Although the pardon was an attempt to heal the deep rifts caused by the war, it was condemned by veterans’ groups.

Can a president self-pardon?

When it comes to presidential pardons, there’s only a sliver of truly untested territory: whether a president can pardon himself.

The issue is hotly contested among legal scholars since it has never been attempted. There isn’t anything in the Constitution explicitly barring a president from self-pardoning—or preventing a president from temporarily stepping down so that his vice president can pardon him while serving as acting president.

Some legal scholars note that the lack of a specific Constitutional safeguard against self-pardon could be interpreted as meaning that a president has the right to do so.

But others believe a self-pardon would be explicitly illegal given the Constitution’s prohibition of serving as one’s own judge. They also point to precedent that prevents a chief executive from obstructing federal criminal investigations. That opinion was shared by former deputy attorney general Mary C. Lawton, who researched the matter in 1974 at Nixon’s behest. If a president were to grant a self-pardon, the act would likely trigger a legal challenge to settle this debate once and for all.

If a president ultimately did grant some form of clemency to themselves, it would not be a blanket protection against prosecution. Since the power only applies to federal crimes, states can still bring criminal charges against recipients of federal pardons—no matter who they might be.

Editor’s note: This story was originally published on December 4, 2020. It has been updated.

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : National Geographic – https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/presidential-pardons-contentious-history

Tags: contentioushistory’science
Previous Post

Are South Africa’s captive lions inbred? No—at least not yet

Next Post

‘Crushing’ chemical innovations at the heart of newly expanded NSF center

When Technology Meets Ecology: Charting a Bold Path for Our Planet’s Future

June 21, 2025
‘Jaws’ at 50: Scientists Are Still Studying the Mysteries of Sharks – The New York Times

Jaws at 50: Exploring the Timeless Mysteries of Sharks

June 21, 2025
A Cracked Piece of Metal Self-Healed in Experiment That Stunned Scientists – ScienceAlert

Self-Healing Metal: The Revolutionary Experiment That Amazed Scientists

June 21, 2025
How leading Bollywood actresses are adopting one transformative lifestyle shift – Times of India

How Leading Bollywood Actresses Are Fearlessly Embracing a Bold New Lifestyle Transformation

June 21, 2025
Muskego mom breaks world record in planking – WISN

Muskego mom breaks world record in planking – WISN

June 21, 2025
Russian Minister Warns of Recession as Officials Spar on Economy – Bloomberg

Russian Minister Issues Recession Warning Amid Heated Economic Debate

June 21, 2025
Netflix unveils Dallas immersive venue for fans of hit shows like ‘Squid Game,’ ‘Stranger Things’ – Houston Chronicle

Step Inside Netflix’s New Dallas Immersive Experience Featuring Hits Like ‘Squid Game’ and ‘Stranger Things

June 21, 2025
Breakfast key to meeting daily fiber needs amid American ‘health crisis’ – Fox News

How Breakfast Can Help You Crush Your Daily Fiber Goals During America’s Health Crisis

June 21, 2025
A Senator Who Was on a Hit List Fears the Fueling of Political Violence – The New York Times

Senator on Hit List Sounds Alarm Over Escalating Political Violence

June 21, 2025
Should You Buy Micron Technology Stock Before June 25? – The Motley Fool

Is Now the Perfect Moment to Invest in Micron Technology Before June 25?

June 21, 2025

Categories

Archives

June 2025
MTWTFSS
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30 
« May    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (696)
  • Economy (710)
  • Entertainment (21,611)
  • General (15,499)
  • Health (9,751)
  • Lifestyle (715)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (713)
  • Politics (717)
  • Science (15,930)
  • Sports (21,206)
  • Technology (15,695)
  • World (690)

Recent News

When Technology Meets Ecology: Charting a Bold Path for Our Planet’s Future

June 21, 2025
‘Jaws’ at 50: Scientists Are Still Studying the Mysteries of Sharks – The New York Times

Jaws at 50: Exploring the Timeless Mysteries of Sharks

June 21, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version