Pres. Theodore Roosevelt “intervened in the United Mine Workers strike in 1902, ordering the mine owners to agree to arbitration. Should they instead remain obstinate, he threatened to order the army to take over and operate the coal mines. Well known is TR’s outburst, when told that the Constitution did not permit the confiscation of private property: ‘To hell with the Constitution when the people want coal!’ Less well known is that at one point TR summoned General John M. Schofield, instructing him: ‘I bid you pay no heed to any other authority, no heed to a writ from a judge, or anything else excepting my commands.’ He was to stand ready, at TR’s command, to seize the mines from the operators and run them for the government.

“When House Republican Whip James E. Watson heard the plan, he objected to the Republican president’s face: ‘What about the Constitution of the United States? What about seizing private property without due process of law?’ Roosevelt shot back, ‘The Constitution was made for the people and not the people for the Constitution.’”

–Thomas E. Woods, Jr., *33 Questions About American History You’re Not Supposed to Ask* (New York: Crown Forum, 2007), p. 138.

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