“My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works. Our great Republic is a government of laws an
d not of men. Here the people rule.” —Gerald Ford, 1974
What did President Gerald Ford mean when he said “our Constitution works”? How did the U.S. Constitution effectively resolve the crisis caused by President Nixon?
For the answer to the question above, li thinks it means that a republic is a government of laws, that have been going over and printed out and you cannot argue with it. but men can argue and fight and not makeup such a great republic. In many countries as politically polarized as our own, the resignation of its leader amid scandal after winning re-election by an electoral landslide might have triggered insurrection if not civil war, but the wise leaders whose collective genius framed our Constitution had anticipated even this unthinkable event. Nixon accepted the consequences of his actions with such grace as he could salvage, his vice-president took over the reins of government as provided for by law, and even those who might have been less than completely satisfied with this result accepted it and got on with the nation's business pretty much as they had done before.
