distribute power in such a way as to make unlimited power impossible so the reference isn't relatable.
The question is when there is a right or privilege in the constitution can it be held in such a way so that it is absolute and the answer to that question has been no.
The one right in the constitution that is the least ambiguous is the first amendment and through the years numerous exceptions have been made to it. Hence Justices Jackson and Goldberg using the phrase "The Constitution is not a suicide pact" writing for majority opinions.
It hasn't been tested because it hasn't been needed but if the act of the pardon were to be inherently part of the crime itself, and part of the obstruction to justice the courts would be very unlikely to advance the theory that using the pardon as part of a crime would be constitutional.
The Constitution clearly states that only an act of Congress allows for the suspension of Habeas Corpus during a rebellion but Lincoln did it by executive order during the Civil War.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-op-0829-pardon-power-20170828-story.html
As a lawyer and law professor, I can tell you there’s no such thing as an absolute anything when it comes to constitutional interpretation. If a case ends up in a federal appellate court — as many constitutional cases do — it means that smart lawyers identified a gray area in the law that lower courts could not resolve to everyone’s satisfaction.
In turn, when the Supreme Court issues a “split decision” in a case, it means the justices disagreed on something. If that something is how to read a provision of the Constitution, it logically follows that the constitutional provision itself was not clear-cut, absolute and obvious in the first place. Even so-called originalists, who purport to adhere to the plain meaning of the Constitution’s terms, must call balls and strikes — must exercise subjective judgment.
The main difference between originalists and those who advocate a so-called living Constitution is that the latter camp calls balls and strikes based on the goals, purposes and norms that underlie the Constitution; they don’t mask true intentions behind the fiction that words have a single absolute, definitive meaning.
To my eye, the pardon power is no different. Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution states that the president “shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.”
If the power to pardon was truly absolute then there would be nothing that would prevent the President from pardoning himself, something that you concede is illogical, or pardoning every contributor to the Republican Party en masse (Jimmy Carter pardoned all draft dodgers who went to Canada as a group), something I think everyone would agree is not constitutional.
The real question is where does the act of pardon approach the furtherance of a crime where a court would begin to question its limitations.
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