No Kings Day Protest

One of the defining features that set the United States apart from much of the world 250 years ago was our decision to reject autocratic rule. This principle is clearly articulated in the Declaration of Independence, which asserts that people possess inherent rights—rights that may be suppressed by force but never truly taken away.

After the Revolution, many proposed making George Washington a king—a position he repeatedly declined before becoming our first president. In his farewell address, Washington warned against the dangers of political parties, cautioning that they could become tools for “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men” to subvert the power of the people and usurp control of the government.

However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

The power of the U.S. government—and of the presidency—was always intended to be limited and accountable to the will of the governed.