In Kata Alvidrez’s editorial from Tuesday, Jan. 12, she regurgitates one of the poorest arguments one could use as a reason for being against trying the president in a Senate trial. Her argument is that “most of us (the public) don’t think Clinton committed crimes against the country,” and that “opinion polls don’t support a conviction or a long trial or testimony from Monica Lewinsky, Vernon Jordan and Betty Currie,” thus Senators who vote against the majority opinion are “subverting the Constitution” and “committing crimes against the country.”

My response, quite simply, is that just because there is a majority does not always mean that their opinion is right or that it should be blindly followed.

The majority of Americans at one time believed that blacks should not be allowed to attend the same schools as white children or that blacks should not have equal rights. Thankfully, judges and congressmen did not stubbornly follow the majority public opinion, and they did what was right despite what the majority of people wanted.

The point is, then, that just because the majority of the public wishes for there to be no trial of the president doesn’t mean that Senators are subverting the Constitution by voting for impeachment, for a trial or even for a conviction against the majority’s wishes. Sometimes, as evidenced by the civil rights era, the majority public is just plain wrong and incorrect.

This country, thankfully, is not blindly ruled by the public’s majority opinion and our government was purposefully set up this way. Thus, while congressmen may be playing political games, they aren’t undermining the Constitution by going against the majority wishes of the public as Alvidrez would have you believe. Instead, they are supporting the Constitution by making sure that what is right and correct procedurally is followed.

While it may be the case that the president should not be removed, it is a poor reason to not remove simply because of a majority public opinion.

Matthew Stanford

Senior

Philosophy