The Disastrous Pardons of a President | The Saturday Evening Post
Join Executive clemency wasn’t meant to be controversial. The Constitutional power to “grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States” was intended for acts of compassion. In the Federalist Papers (no. 74), Alexander Hamilton wrote that justice could seem too cruel, too brutal if it never made exceptions for the “unfortunate” guilty. An act of clemency, he said, might “restore the tranquility of the commonwealth.” And since groups of men too often encouraged each other to be stubborn and harsh, “one man appears to be a more eligible dispenser of the mercy ...
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