I'm Christopher Leiden and this is open source. Call this one a recap of the civics lessons we got and forgot in the sixth grade, the deep secrets of freedom in the United States Constitution.

Our teacher this time is the capital I independent U.S. senator from the cranky Yankee state of Maine, Angus King.

You've been in the thick of the Trump II inaugural wars, Angus King, with some distinction

and your own style. Your tone on the Senate floor has been measured, your language old-fashioned,

and your message a deadly warning. What's at risk, you keep saying,

are the famous checks and balances around power itself in the Constitution.

This clumsy system of self-rule, you call it.

Chris, pleasure to be with you again.

Look, the Constitution divided power between the branches of government on purpose. The framers had just fought a brutal

eight-year war against a king, concentrated authority. And they didn't want a king. They didn't want a

monarch. They didn't want a dictator. And they realized that if you put all the power into one set of hands,

it's just dangerous. The ancient principle is power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

And they were trying to deal with that fundamental issue by putting certain powers in the Congress and certain powers

in the presidency. In fact, in Article 2, they severely limited the powers of the president

because, again, they were afraid of a king, of a monarch. The president does have the power

as commander-in-chief in time of war.

But interestingly, they even split that power and gave the power to declare war to Congress.

There was quite a debate at the Constitutional Convention in August of 1787 about the war power, and they split it because they didn't want a president running off and starting a war on

his or her own.

Now, the other piece was, who makes laws?

And they gave the power to make laws to the Congress.

And in Article 2, the president's responsibility, not power, but responsibility.

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