brainrow

At the end of the U.S. Civil War, a 71-year-old Virginia secessionist named Edmund Ruffin shot himself, proclaiming in his final diary entry his hatred for “the perfidious, malignant and vile Yankee race” and his wish that all future generations of southerners would feel just the same.

What was he thinking — “I don’t want to live in a world without slavery?”

I thought about old Mr. Ruffin when I saw this story:

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, and senior officials and career prosecutors at the Justice Department told associates this week that they were prepared to quit if the White House directed them to relinquish evidence seized in a bitterly disputed search of a House member’s office, government officials said Friday.

Mr. Gonzales was joined in raising the possibility of resignation by the deputy attorney general, Paul J. McNulty, the officials said. Mr. Gonzales and Mr. McNulty told associates that they had an obligation to protect evidence in a criminal case and would be unwilling to carry out any White House order to return the material to Congress.

The U.S. Constitution was written at a time when kings routinely disbanded legislatures and arrested troublesome legislators. No legislator can be above the law, but as an elected representative of the people, each member of the legislative branch has certain protections against overreaching by the executive branch.

If Rep. William Jefferson is a crook, he’s not the first crook ever to sit in Congress. But never before in the nation’s history has the executive branch broken into and searched a legislator’s office in this way. There’s an established procedure for situations like this — a procedure that may seem like a hopelessly formal and arcane dance. But the dance is designed to protect the legislative branch from a kingly executive. It’s important.

Attorney General Gonzales has been extremely zealous in protecting the powers and privileges of the executive branch from any encroachment by legislature or courts. With his legal advice, the Bush Administration has claimed that the president can order warrantless searches, hold citizens indefinitely without access to attorneys or courts, and ignore laws that don’t suit him.

His devotion to the constitutional separation of powers is a selective thing, however. He sees an executive branch with powers reminiscent of the old days of the Divine Right of Kings, and a legislative branch with no special protections at all. And if that view doesn’t prevail, then, by golly, Gonzales threatens to quit.

Go! Go, Alberto! Resign, please! Go, McNulty! Shoo! Go, Mueller! Get out of here, all of you. Give us a parting curse, and fall on your swords. Resign already, and good riddance to all of you.