It has been 250 years since America was founded, how does our Constitution hold up now?
250 years is the average amount of time that empires stay around for, and this year–2026–marks America’s 250th anniversary. This might be the best time to look back and ask ourselves: does the Constitution need a rehashing?
Many people–including myself–would say yes to this question, and there is plenty of evidence to back it up. But there is also evidence that the United States Constitution is doing just fine, so I’ll be going over both in this article. To start off, I will assume that the readers know the basic first amendments to the Constitution and will not abbreviate what they mean unless I cover the lesser known ones–at least by number.
The most memorable case of the US Constitution not being able to hold its ground was during the aftermath of Worcester v. Georgia in 1832 when then President Andrew Jackson directly disobeyed court orders and seemed to be let off scott-free. He was the first president to do such a thing, and the lack of response to his disobedience sets the tone for what is to come. Notably, President Abraham Lincoln also defied a court precedent by suspending habeas corpus in 1861.
I would say, however, that to my knowledge the most blatant abuse of power–and what has caused the Constitution to seem weak in many people’s eyes–has taken place within the last year with the introduction of President Trump’s second administration. Their violations of the Constitution are large, so the only violations that will be covered are those from before President Trump’s inauguration to the start of the most recent major event–the war with Iran. This paper will also not cover every small instance and will only cover the large scale ones that are commonly known.
One of the very first violations of the Constitution that the Trump administration committed was on April 2nd, 2025 when President Trump introduced an executive order to raise a 10% tariff on most imported goods, with the president deeming this day “Liberation Day”. It took almost a full year for the Supreme Court to rule on this issue that went against Article 1 of the Constitution, the ruling being made public on February 20th of this year. The decision was 6-to-3, but the lengthy amount of time that the Supreme Court took to overrule one of President Trump’s first violations only makes the Constitution look weak, especially when you take into consideration that the president did not take too kindly to the ruling and even insulted the Supreme Justices. However, the saving grace is that the Court did respond and it seems that the tariffs are being refunded.
The next month, Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants sparked outrage when Kilmar Abrego Garcia was detained without any evidence of being an illegal immigrant, and it was proven that he was a United States citizen. Thankfully, though it still took a long time, Garcia was brought back after the Supreme Court unanimously ruled to bring Garcia back to the United States and he made it back safely on June 6th of 2025. The deportation of Garcia speaks volumes when you realize that he is not the only person to be deported without due process, and that many innocent people have been affected despite legally being in America. So while the Supreme Court acted, once again, to uphold the Constitution, the acts that they ruled against were most obviously a violation of the 14th amendment which guarantees the right to due process with an impartial jury, no matter the race, ethnicity or citizenship of the person.
In May of 2025, President Trump violated the Constitution again– this time violating Article 1 of the Constitution by accepting a gift from a foreign country without congressional approval. This gift was specifically a Boeing 747-8 from the Qatari government, which President Trump sought to convert into Air Force One. On top of this, President Trump and some of his administration has even dubbed him as a king, which I am sure I do not have to explain why this is worrying besides the fact that it violates Article 1. To my knowledge, the Supreme Court, or any other official government agencies, have not done anything to punish the president or revoke the plane, likely because they have larger issues to deal with regarding the Constitution and important cases. But nonetheless, the smaller violations are there to test the waters, and could be likened to a small crack in a sidewalk that only gets worse over time.
President Trump, in February of this year, has also teased the idea of going against Article 1 of the Constitution again, specifically the election clause that only allows states to oversee elections.
“If we don’t get [undocumented immigrants] out, Republicans will never win another election,” President Trump told Dan Bongino, a right-wing podcaster and President Trump’s former FBI deputy director. “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over.’ We should take over the voting, in at least, many, 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting,” President Trump continued.
According to CNN, the White House clarified that the “15 places” were places that have high reports of electoral fraud–which is miniscule at best with the highest only being 138 cases—but they did not expand further.
Once again, President Trump went against Article 1 two more times, but this time it had an instantaneous effect on people’s lives. In the first two months of this year two large-scale events occurred, both without congressional approval or even a heads-up. The first happened in early January when President Trump announced that they had kidnapped the leader of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro. Many people in Congress admitted that they were not aware of this event taking place, but President Trump admitted to tipping off oil companies the night of, making his intentions clear. This event, while it did take a corrupt leader out of office, has led to Venezuela becoming unstable and many people dying in the bomb attacks that happened that night.
The next event happened in February, and is likely still fresh in the minds of many. This was the killing of Iran’s supreme leader with, again, no congressional approval. Israel and America have been bombing Iran almost non-stop since that night, leading to the Strait of Hormuz being closed down which is what has caused the oil prices to skyrocket because around 20% of the world’s oil comes through that strait.
This is not to say that no president has ever done this type of thing before. America has not declared war since World War Two, actually. And every war since then has violated Article 1, leading to all of the presidents involved in the Korean War, the Vietnam War, The Gulf War and the wars following September 11th being just as guilty. There is a key difference, however, in that the majority of those wars were popular with the American people, at least the cause that the government told Americans was supported because of events like the Second Red Scare and the previously mentioned terrorist attack on September 11th. And when the wars began to become unpopular, such as the War on Terror and the Vietnam War, the presidents at the time began to remove troops–this is seen with President Biden’s roll back on troops in the Middle East. However, this is not to say that they should not be held accountable for their violations–unless they are dead, of course–but to put it into perspective, the blatant defiance of the American people and the Constitution by many of our recent presidents for continuing unpopular wars, even after the goal was achieved.
This topic is important because if the Constitution is falling apart, then the people of America need to start making major steps towards fixing it or refining it, lest this country fall apart and create a domino effect. The best ways that you can help is by voting, even in simple local elections, by signing up in person or online using the official New York State online voter registration form. And, if you want to do more, you can also participate in protests, sign petitions or call your representatives to make your stance known; the more people who call, the more important the issue will be to them during their sessions, especially with Midterms coming up.
If you have anything to add that I missed, be it a different president going against the Constitution or something similar, I would be glad to hear it because I have taken an interest in politics and history. So feel free to comment, however, you will have to verify your email for the comment to become public.
