Are We In A Constitutional Crisis? And Is That A Bad Thing?

     So now President Obama has taken unprecedented executive action to essentially grant legal status to millions of illegal aliens, in other words amnesty. And while those on the Left make a desperate attempt to justify the president's unconstitutional bestowment of authority upon himself that he does not have legitimately, those on the Right have vowed to stop him by using the Republican control of congress. Well, we shall see about that. My guess is that Republicans will pass a "comprehensive" immigration bill that the president will sign into law, essentially giving congressional enablement to the president's unconstitutional temper tantrum.
     I have previously written that the Republicans have already lost the immigration debate by accepting the Democrats position that the system is "broken" and a "comprehensive" solution is needed. My supposition is primarily supported by the fact that anytime one suggests a comprehensive government solution to anything, the resulting outcome is bigger government and smaller solutions. The executive action taken by President Obama last night was long on Leftist rhetoric but short on actual details about implementation.
     Some on the Right have decided to oppose the president's unconstitutional behavior by trying to convince the populace that it is the end of self rule under the guidelines of a representative republic that the Founders created. And while this president has taken extreme liberties with his authority granted under the constitution, it is not the first, and will surely not be the last time that a president stretches his authority to its breaking point. The nature of executive orders is as a constitutional power granted the president with few guidelines past the granting of a president being able to make such proclamations.
     Abraham Lincoln penned The Emancipation Proclamation without consent of congress, which freed all slaves residing in states that were in rebellion against the Union. I am by no means comparing President Lincoln's executive order to free slaves, to President Obama's to grant legal status to those residing in this country illegally. But to white slave owners in the South, President Lincoln's executive order, with its corollary outcome to free slaves being the destruction of an economic system based on the labor of those slaves, must have seemed as audacious and constitutionally unhinged as President Obama's executive order to issue amnesty to millions of illegal aliens appears to us today.
     Make no mistake, President Obama's executive action is unconstitutional because it usurps the constitutional power given to congress to make immigration law. It also does not follow the traditional purpose of executive orders, which is to support existing laws legitimately passed by congress. Be that it as it may, I do not believe that this executive order is the "End of our constitutional republic," as some on the Right have been lamenting. Since our inception as a nation we have been in constitutional crisis.
     Before those sanctified words were emblazoned on parchment which gave birth, not only to a new nation, but to a never-before-seen system of government, no one could have imagined the governed having the audacity to question the methods by which they were governed. As a nation we have been in a constant state of questioning the constitutionality of government actions. From John Adams signing into law the Alien and Sedition Act which jailed journalists for speaking out against the government, to Franklin Roosevelt interring Japanese-Americans during World War II, constitutional crisis has been the constant companion to Liberty and freedom. And that is not a bad thing, unconstitutional actions by any president are just guardrails on the road of self-governance that draw our attention back to the safety of the solid pavement of the constitution.