[H-PAD] Fwd: Pls sign & circulate: HISTORIANS’ STATEMENT ON THE IMPEACHMENT

[Van Gosse]

Hello, H-PAD supporters,

We thought this was worth circulating, for those of you who may want to
sign on.

Van Gosse and Margaret Power, Co-Chairs

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Rick Shenkman <rickshenkman at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 6:48 PM
Subject: Pls sign & circulate: HISTORIANS’ STATEMENT ON THE IMPEACHMENT
To:


Dear Colleague,

We know you are as concerned as we are about the multiple offenses by
President Trump. The statement below is a historians' statement supporting
the President's impeachment and removal. If you agree with it, please sign
it as soon as you can by completing this form
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScorrGrlDoKp-BdaUfreuvDfQiidP2pIq84BwsAOrwKuWHcPg/viewform?usp=sf_link>,
circulate it along with this email to colleagues who might also agree to
sign, and ask them to circulate it among their colleagues as well.

The idea is to replicate a highly successful effort by legal scholars to
register their views, described in this CNN dispatch:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/06/politics/legal-scholars-letter-trump-impeachment/index.html

The same nonpartisan nonprofit that coordinated the collection of names in
that effort, Protect Democracy <https://protectdemocracy.org/>, is
coordinating this one.  That is the extent of the organization's
involvement. Signing the statement endorses the statement itself only,
nothing more.

Again, you can add your name to the statement using this form
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScorrGrlDoKp-BdaUfreuvDfQiidP2pIq84BwsAOrwKuWHcPg/viewform?usp=sf_link>.
If you sign, please include your primary institutional affiliation, which
may include a learned society. If you have none, please sign as author of,
and include a title of one of your publications. Affiliations will be
listed for identification purposes only.

We know this is an especially busy time of year, when it's difficult to
find extra time for anything. But if the statement is to have any effect on
the current proceedings, it is essential to get signatures collected as
soon as possible. Your speedy help will make all the more of a difference.

While we are unable to share an auto-auto updating list of signatories,
Protect Democracy will help keep us updated on our progress and will notify
everyone about the plans for publicly releasing the statement. Please do
not discuss the statement on social media or with press until then.
With thanks and best wishes,

Sean Wilentz
Brenda Wineapple

HISTORIANS’ STATEMENT ON THE IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT TRUMP




We are American historians devoted to studying our nation’s past who have
concluded that Donald J. Trump has violated his oath to “faithfully execute
the Office of President of the United States” and to “preserve, protect and
defend the Constitution of the United States.” His “attempts to subvert the
Constitution,” as George Mason described impeachable offenses at the
Constitutional Convention in 1787, urgently and justly require his
impeachment and removal.


President Trump’s numerous and flagrant abuses of power are precisely what
the Framers had in mind as grounds for removing a president. Among those
most hurtful to the Constitution have been his attempts to coerce the
country of Ukraine, under attack from Russia, an adversary power to the
United States, by withholding essential military assistance in exchange for
the fabrication and legitimization of false information in order to advance
his own re-election.

President Trump’s lawless obstruction of the House of Representatives,
which is rightly seeking documents and witness testimony in pursuit of its
constitutionally mandated oversight role, has demonstrated brazen contempt
for representative government. So have his attempts to justify that
obstruction on the grounds that the executive enjoys absolute immunity, a
fictitious doctrine that, if tolerated, would turn the president into an
elected monarch above the law.


As Alexander Hamilton wrote in *The Federalist*, impeachment was designed
to deal with “the misconduct of public men” which involves “the abuse or
violation of some public trust.” Collectively, the President’s offenses,
including his dereliction in protecting the integrity of the 2020 election
from Russian disinformation and renewed interference, arouse once again the
Framers’ most profound fears that powerful members of government would
become, in Hamilton’s words, “the mercenary instruments of foreign
corruption.”


It is our considered judgment that if President Trump’s misconduct does not
rise to the level of impeachment, then nothing does.


Hamilton understood that, as he wrote in 1792, the republic remained
vulnerable to the rise of an unscrupulous demagogue, “unprincipled in
private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of
considerable talents…despotic in his ordinary demeanour.” That demagogue,
Hamilton said, could easily enough manage “to mount the hobby horse of
popularity -- to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every
opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under
suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of
the day.”  Such a figure, Hamilton wrote, would “throw things into
confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.’”


President Trump’s actions committed both before and during the House
investigations fit Hamilton’s description and manifest utter and deliberate
scorn for the rule of law and “repeated injuries” to constitutional
democracy. That disregard continues and it constitutes a clear and present
danger to the Constitution. We therefore strongly urge the House of
Representatives to impeach the President and the Senate to remove him from
office.




-- 
Van Gosse
Professor of History and Chair of Africana Studies
Franklin and Marshall College
717-615-4708
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