--- title: What the Founding Fathers Said About Monarchy description: Trump declared himself “king”—something the crafters of the Constitution hoped the U.S. would avoid. canonical: https://time.com/7259662/king-trump-founding-fathers-constitution-monarchy-democracy-republic/ author: Miranda Jeyaretnam article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-02-20T04:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-01-19T19:29:05.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: What the Founding Fathers Said About Monarchy og:description: Trump declared himself “king”—something the crafters of the Constitution hoped the U.S. would avoid. og:url: https://time.com/7259662/king-trump-founding-fathers-constitution-monarchy-democracy-republic/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt06caf2886810dd26/6998c426e1ba002dd398d45c/king-trump-founding-fathers-monarchy.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Pam Bondi Sworn In As Attorney General In The Oval Office og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What the Founding Fathers Said About Monarchy twitter:description: Trump declared himself “king”—something the crafters of the Constitution hoped the U.S. would avoid. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt06caf2886810dd26/6998c426e1ba002dd398d45c/king-trump-founding-fathers-monarchy.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What the Founding Fathers Said About Kings > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: States Sue to Stop Trump Administration's Order to End Birthright Citizenship [Watch (HLS stream): States Sue to Stop Trump Administration's Order to End Birthright Citizenship](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/GRo6Y3Ez.m3u8) (2:40)  _Published 2025-01-21. New Jersey Democratic Attorney General Matt Platkin said Tuesday that he’s leading a group of 18 states, the District of Columbia and the city of San Francisco, in filing a lawsuit blocking Trump’s executive order ending the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship._  by [Miranda Jeyaretnam](https://time.com/author/miranda-jeyaretnam/)  ## Miranda Jeyaretnam Reporter Updated: Jan 19, 2026 7:29 PM UTCPublished: Feb 20, 2025 4:00 AM UTC  President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 5, 2025. President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 5, 2025. Andrew Harnik—Getty Images  by [Miranda Jeyaretnam](https://time.com/author/miranda-jeyaretnam/)  ## Miranda Jeyaretnam Reporter Updated: Jan 19, 2026 7:29 PM UTCPublished: Feb 20, 2025 4:00 AM UTC President Donald Trump has a fondness for giving himself nicknames: “[very stable genius](https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/06/politics/donald-trump-white-house-fitness-very-stable-genius/index.html),” “[Honest Don](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-nickname-for-himself%5Fn%5F65f04821e4b0bd5228d57b1b),” and now “the king.” The latest title gives critics the most pause. Trump bestowed on himself the monarchical moniker on Wednesday after proclaiming victory over New York’s [](https://time.com/7259564/trump-congestion-pricing-nyc-funding/)[new car-traffic toll plan for Manhattan](https://time.com/7259564/trump-congestion-pricing-nyc-funding/). Trump [posted on Truth Social](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/114032082899254855): “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!” White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich then [posted on X](https://x.com/Taylor47/status/1892292465194889397) a screenshot of Trump’s post, juxtaposed with an AI-generated image of Trump in a crown with the New York skyline behind him. Official White House social media [accounts](https://www.instagram.com/whitehouse/p/DGRDGQWxlhX/) also quoted Trump’s post and shared an illustration of Trump in a crown, with “TRUMP” in place of a familiar-looking magazine logo and the words: “Long Live the King.” The image resembles an [actual TIME cover from 2018](https://time.com/5303844/donald-trump-king-cover/), in which Trump is illustrated to be looking in a mirror and seeing his reflection crowned, with the headline “King Me” and sub-headline “Visions of absolute power.” Trump’s royal assertion has drawn criticism, including from Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who [said in a statement](https://x.com/GovKathyHochul/status/1892294071961448664), “We are a nation of laws, not ruled by a king.” She [added](https://x.com/NY1/status/1892330211443695751) that “New York hasn’t labored under a king in over 250 years. We sure as hell are not going to start now.” Rep. Don Beyer (D, Va.) [echoed](https://x.com/RepDonBeyer/status/1892310865774252075) Hochul’s reminder: “We don’t have kings in the USA.” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, also a Democrat, [reiterated](https://x.com/GovPritzker/status/1892323818288320773) Beyer’s words in his State of the State address, adding “my oath is to the Constitution of our state and our nation. We don’t have kings in America, and I won’t bend the knee to one.” Some Trump defenders claim the posts are harmless trolling, a reference flown over liberals’ heads. “I’m going to be the king of New York real estate,” Trump told his peers when he was in college, a classmate recalled to the [_Boston Globe_](https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2015/08/28/donald-trump-was-bombastic-even-wharton-business-school/3FO0j1uS5X6S8156yH3YhL/story.html) in 2018\. “He used to think he was the king of New York,” former Trump Organization executive Barbara Res told the [_New York Daily News_](https://www.nydailynews.com/2021/06/13/the-self-proclaimed-king-of-new-york-in-exile-an-unwelcome-mat-remains-out-for-ex-president-trump-in-the-city-of-his-birth/) in 2021\. “The king of New York is back to reclaim the city that he built,” Donald Trump Jr. announced last year when his father held a [rally at Madison Square Garden](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/27/us/trump-msg-rally.html). Over the weekend, Trump [posted a Napoleon-inspired statement suggesting he’s above the law](https://time.com/7226686/trump-napoleon-post-saves-country-violate-law-reactions-constitutional-crisis/). He’s [repeatedly teased the unconstitutional idea of serving a third term](https://time.com/7222820/trump-third-term-president-explainer-pathways-constitution-courts-legal-experts/). And in an interview alongside adviser [Elon Musk](https://time.com/7213409/elon-musk-us-government-trump/) that aired on Fox News on Feb. 18, Musk [suggested](https://x.com/Acyn/status/1892039625532985758)—not for the first time—that Trump ought to have supreme authority, unrestricted by the courts. “If the will of the President is not implemented, and the President is representative of the people,” Musk said, “that means the will of the people is not being implemented, and that means we don’t live in a democracy, we live in a bureaucracy.” America’s Founding Fathers didn’t envision the U.S. as a bureaucracy or a democracy. They envisioned it as a republic—[defined](https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th%5Fcentury/fed39.asp) by James Madison as “a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior.” The very principle that the country would not be ruled by an all-powerful king was foundational to the Declaration of Independence and [guaranteed](https://archivesfoundation.org/newsletter/a-promise-from-the-founders/) in the Constitution, the latter of which was hammered out during a contentious convention in 1787. To be sure, not every Founding Father was against the idea of an authoritative executive branch leader. Some, including [Alexander Hamilton](https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/federalist-no-70), argued in favor of a single executive, rather than a group of people, which risked the “danger of difference of opinion,” as he wrote in the _Federalist Papers_. Others believed, as [Edmund Randolph](https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a2%5F1%5F1s4.html) put it during debate, that a unitary executive would be “the fetus of monarchy.” Amid public concerns that the crafters of the Constitution would create a monarchy, according to the [University of Houston’s Digital History Project](https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp%5Ftextbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=3240), a Philadelphia newspaper reported on the negotiations, quoting a delegate, who said: “Tho’ we cannot, affirmatively, tell you what we are doing, we can, negatively, tell you what we are not doing—we never once thought of a king.” The Constitution that resulted outlined a separation of powers between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, serving together as a system of checks and balances to prevent the kind of tyrannical rule that the colonies fought to free themselves from. [Thomas Paine](https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/paine-on-the-idea-that-the-law-is-king-1776) had written in _Common Sense_ in 1776: “For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.” “There were so many issues where the founders disagreed, but this was not one of them,” historian Holly Brewer told [ABC News](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nations-founders-pushed-elected-king-framing-presidential-powers/story?id=111621798) last year of the consensus that a President would not be effectively made “an elected king.” “The American solution,” summarized writer Richard Hurowitz in an [essay for TIME in 2018](https://time.com/5459916/american-monarchy/), was “an executive strong enough to be effective but checked enough to prevent tyranny.” But even the Founders realized that such a solution, as Hurowitz put it, “remains unfortunately dependent to some degree on the character of the President and the electorate that supports him.” When Benjamin Franklin was asked on the last day of the convention in 1787whether the delegates had created a monarchy or a republic, Franklin [famously responded](https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/constitutionalconvention-september17.htm): “a republic, if you can keep it.” In 1814, John Adams, by then a former President, [wrote](https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-6371) that unchecked democracy can be just as pernicious as monarchy and “never lasts long.” “It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet, that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy.” “Absolute power intoxicates alike despots, monarchs, aristocrats, and democrats,” Adams [also wrote](https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/john-adams-on-how-absolute-power-intoxicates-those-who-excercise-that-power-1814), warning that dissatisfaction with the state of government could give rise to a democratic public yearning for a strongman. “They soon cry, ‘this will not do; we have gone too far! We are all in the wrong! We are none of us safe! We must unite in some clever fellow, who can protect us all—Caesar, \[Napoleon\] Bonaparte, who you will! Though we distrust, hate, and abhor them all; yet we must submit to one or another of them, stand by him, cry him up to the skies, and swear that he is the greatest, best, and finest man that ever lived!’” ### More From TIME ## Transcript When President Trump was elected on November 5th, I made clear that it was my hope that he would act in ways that were in the best interest of our communities, of our residents, of our neighbors, of our friends. And I said very clearly that a he's a duly elected president. No one makes any bones about that. And B, he's entitled to enact a policy agenda that he sees fit for the country. But at the same time, I made it equally clear that as the attorney general of the state of New Jersey, I would stand up for the rule of law and for the rights of our residents. And when I took this job, I swore an oath to uphold the United States Constitution and the Constitution of this state. And I made a commitment to serve the people of the state of new Jersey, all 9.5 million of them. That's why today I'm announcing that new Jersey is leading a group of 18 states, the District of Columbia and the city of San Francisco, in filing a suit to block President Trump's executive order eliminating birthright citizenship for many Americans. The executive order renders many children born on American soil without citizenship, creating, for the first time, a class of American born children whose health and well-being are threatened by their own government. This is an extreme and unprecedented act, and this executive order is an assault on the rule of law. So many Americans who have poured blood, sweat and tears into serving and defending this nation, including attorneys in this office, our law enforcement officers, military service members, our educators, our firefighters, our neighbors, our friends and families are themselves immigrants or are children of immigrants. This executive order is an attack on all of them, and frankly, on all of us. Presidents in this country have broad powers, but they are not kings. We're in the state of Hamilton. We all know this. They are not kings. They do not have the power to unilaterally rewrite the Constitution. They do not have the power to unilaterally disregard our laws. That's true for Donald Trump. That's true for every president that came before him and every president who will come after him. We're the first case to present our full legal briefing and argument to the court, and we hope for a swift decision confirming what we've known all along that the 14th amendment and the subsequent Supreme Court precedents that followed are crystal clear that, quote, all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7259662/king-trump-founding-fathers-constitution-monarchy-democracy-republic/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7259662/king-trump-founding-fathers-constitution-monarchy-democracy-republic/"},"headline":"What the Founding Fathers Said About Kings","datePublished":"2025-02-20T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-01-19T19:29:05.000Z","description":"Trump called himself “king”—something the crafters of the U.S. Constitution hoped the country would avoid.","url":"https://time.com/7259662/king-trump-founding-fathers-constitution-monarchy-democracy-republic/","keywords":["republicans","Donald Trump","overnight","News Desk"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt06caf2886810dd26/6998c426e1ba002dd398d45c/king-trump-founding-fathers-monarchy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Miranda Jeyaretnam","jobTitle":"Reporter","url":"https://time.com/author/miranda-jeyaretnam/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt06caf2886810dd26/6998c426e1ba002dd398d45c/king-trump-founding-fathers-monarchy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Pam Bondi Sworn In As Attorney General In The Oval Office","caption":"Pam Bondi Sworn In As Attorney General In The Oval Office","creditText":"Andrew Harnik—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/republicans/","name":"republicans"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/7259662/king-trump-founding-fathers-constitution-monarchy-democracy-republic/","name":"What the Founding Fathers Said About Kings"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"States Sue to Stop Trump Administration's Order to End Birthright Citizenship","description":"New Jersey Democratic Attorney General Matt Platkin said Tuesday that he’s leading a group of 18 states, the District of Columbia and the city of San Francisco, in filing a lawsuit blocking Trump’s executive order ending the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/GRo6Y3Ez/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2025-01-21T20:10:45.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/GRo6Y3Ez.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/7259662/king-trump-founding-fathers-constitution-monarchy-democracy-republic/","duration":"PT2M40S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/7259662/king-trump-founding-fathers-constitution-monarchy-democracy-republic/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```