Chu Hwang
Professor Milkis
GFAP 331: American Presidency
6 May 2002
Since the conception of the executive, the position has evolved from the Constitutional presidency to the partisan presidency and finally to the modern presidency. Changes in the executive to create a partisan and a modern presidency have displaced the original Constitutional presidency. George Washington, who exemplified the Constitutional executive, had hoped to establish the precedents for respecting the separation of powers and maintaining nonpartisanship in the presidency and in government. His hopes, however, were not fulfilled: Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson signaled the rise of partisanship and erosion in the respect for the separation of powers; Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt shaped and engrained in American government the role of the modern presidency, which through the development of a strong executive led to further deterioration of the separation of powers. By conforming the role of the executive to important issues and situations of the period, the presidents following Washington have drastically altered the nature of the presidency from its original Constitutional framework.
The Constitutional presidency focused on the president as a “patriot king” or a disinterested gentleman who stood apart from the passions of the people and who refined and enlarged the public view. The president would be elected not based on popularity but on character and the main function of the executive would be to uphold the Constitution. The ideal patriot king was George Washington, who attempted to set an example of the Constitutional presidency for the future. He was the exemplary disinterested gentlemen and often sought the advice of friends on preserving his disinterestedness and Cincinnatus-like aura. His main goals as president were to establish respect for the separation of powers and to maintain
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nonpartisanship in government. In his first address to Congress, Washington emphasized the importance of respect for the powers of Congress: he did not lay out a program for Congress to follow; instead, he called for Congress to rise above partisanship and provincialism. He was also careful in his use of the executive veto power—he only vetoed legislation that was unconstitutional. Through Washington’s actions, a precedent was established for respecting the separation of powers. During his term, the Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties arose within Washington’s administration. Washington feared that partisan bickering and strife would destroy republican government in America; thus, he attempted to lead the nation as a national leader, not a party leader. In his Farewell Address, he specifically addressed the problem of parties and warned that parties will corrupt friendships between countrymen and ruin public administration. Although Washington left the precedent of a Constitutional presidency that respected the separation of powers and nonpartisanship, circumstances of the time period prevented the fulfillment of his Constitutional presidency.
Despite Washington’s attack on partisanship, the Federalists and Democratic-Republican parties continued to grow stronger because of their fundamental different views on the power of the federal government. The Revolution of 1800, signaled by the election of Thomas Jefferson to the office of the presidency, brought about a new era of presidential governance. Jefferson laid the foundation for the partisan president, who instead of the independent, energetic, and national executive of the Constitutional presidency, functioned as the party leader. Jefferson’s inaugural address called for the change in the role of the president: he established a party program for Congress and called his victory a popular mandate that was based not on character but on opinions. In turn, the power of the executive was based less on the Constitution and depended on his role as the party leader carrying out the platform. Jefferson, however, did not
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see the president as a permanent party leader; he believed that parties were only temporary institutions that were a necessary evil to debate opposing opinions. He hoped that once the differences were resolved, parties would naturally disappear and the country could return to being governed by a disinterested patriot king.
President Andrew Jackson, on the other hand, reveled in the party system and his role as party leader. With the help of Martin Van Buren, Jackson’s presidency solidified the two party system in American politics. Not only did the partisan presidency destroy Washington’s hopes for nonpartisanship, Jackson as party leader also disregarded the separation of powers. His liberal use of vetoes for legislation he deemed unconstitutional or unsound and his disregard for
Supreme Court decisions such as Worcester v. Georgia and the national bank ruling undermined the respect for separation of powers for which Washington had attempted to set a precedent. He challenged Congress as the people’s representative. Instead of the disinterested patriot king that sought to refine and enlarge the public views (as established in the Constitutional presidency),
Jackson saw himself as a tribune of the people. Under Jackson, republican government, which had formerly dominated American political thought, gave way to democratic government. The party caucus in Congress, which had been developed over 20 years ago to nominate presidential candidates, declined in power and mass elections with the counting of popular votes began. The partisan presidency established the party as a mediator between the executive and the people.
Party press published the president’s party program and the spoils system was used by party leaders to reward party loyalists in national and local levels. Parties became a permanent and important structure through which the executive could come in contact with the common people in the democratic government. This idea of the party as a mediator between the executive and the people is portrayed most clearly in Andrew Johnson’s unsuccessful “swing around the
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circle,” in which he tried to cut around the party system that had been antagonistic towards his presidency and his Reconstruction policies and speak directly to people. This attempt to bypass the party system backfired—there was a public outcry on the inappropriateness of the executive appealing directly to the people and he became the first president to be impeached. The partisan presidency focused on the executive as a party leader with a party platform and the importance of the party as a mediator between the president and the people.
The modern presidency, on the other hand, no longer depended on the party as a mediator. The modern presidency carried the partisan presidency one step further: the modern president was the principal instrument of popular rule and could go directly to the people rather than use the party. Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressives laid the foundation for the modern presidency. During his term, Roosevelt also attempted a “swing around the circle,” in which he called for the passage of the Hepburn Act in Congress. Roosevelt campaigned around the country and used the mass media, as opposed to the party media, effectively to rally up support for railroad reform and to force Congress to pass the bill. Roosevelt’s dramatic use of the mass media, which was developing during this period, was the beginning of the rhetorical presidency, which emphasized on the use of popular rhetoric as presidential leadership and was an important feature of the modern presidency. Roosevelt also brought about strong, unilateral action by the executive in the modern presidency: during his term, he issued over a thousand executive orders as president. The modern presidency encouraged the president to overcome or discount constitutional limits and take matters into his own hands in the name of the people. Woodrow
Wilson further integrated the modern presidency in American politics. He placed an emphasis on a strong presidency and popular leadership. Wilson sought a more direct connection with the people through the use of the mass media. He broke the tradition of Jefferson’s written State of
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the Union messages to Congress and delivered his State of the Union in person, which was brought to the people by the mass media. Wilson’s role in World War I threatened the respect for the separation of powers that Washington had hoped to establish. Wilson’s use of executive power demonstrated the strengths of the modern presidency; however, the failure of the League of Nations exposed the limits of the modern presidency. The dominant role that Wilson insisted on playing in the war and his effort to push the United States to enter the League of Nations treaded upon powers that the executive and Congress were supposed to share. After Franklin D.
Roosevelt and his use of executive power to propose and establish New Deal programs, political leadership became centered on presidential power. The New Deal, which was enacted to booster the American economy during the Great Depression, strengthened executive power but in turn weakened the party system; thus, the modern presidency was so firmly engrained in American government that to return to the partisan presidency or the Constitutional presidency would be nearly impossible. Indeed, presidents after Franklin Roosevelt have continued to use a broad range of executive powers.
The modern presidency is a far departure from the original Constitutional presidency, exemplified by George Washington. The principles important in the Constitutional presidency that Washington stressed were the separation of powers and nonpartisanship. Washington served as a disinterested patriot king who did not pander to the interests of the people. Jefferson and
Jackson replaced the Constitutional presidency with the partisan presidency, in which the president was the party leader and the respect for the separation of powers was challenged. A closer relationship was established between the people and the partisan president through the party. A more direct relationship with the public was developed with the development of the modern presidency, in which the executive communicated directly to the people through the
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mass media. Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt all successfully used to the media to build relationships with the public and all three used a broad range of executive power that was often seen as threatening the separation of powers. The partisan and modern presidencies, with its lack of respect for the separation of powers and its overt partisanship, was exactly what George Washington was trying to avoid during his presidency.
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