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“Sovereign is he who decides the exception.”
— Carl Schmitt (Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, 1922)
Cincinnatus and the Constitutional Ideal of Temporary Power
The Roman statesman Cincinnatus has long symbolized the constitutional principle that extraordinary powers should be exercised only when genuinely necessary and relinquished once the crisis has passed. His enduring legacy illustrates one of the oldest and most important safeguards of constitutional government: that emergency authority derives its legitimacy not only from necessity, but from its temporary character.