The Founding of the
American Presidency
Please discuss in small groups:
If you were designing a new government,
what powers would you give the executive
branch? Which are easiest to grant? Which
would give you most pause?
You will hand in notes from your group discussion
for participation credit.
Today:
• What were the framers’ personal
experiences with executive power?
• How did those experiences shape their
views of executive power?
• What were the main controversies over the
construction of the Executive branch at the
Constitutional Convention?
Framers’ Experiences with the
Executive
• Colonial Governors
• King George
The Declaration of Independence
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He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public
good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance,
unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so
suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant
from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into
compliance with his measures.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the
amount and payment of their salaries.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our
legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
…continued
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For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they
should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering
fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to
legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging
War against us.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the
works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty &
perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of
a civilized nation.
The Articles of Confederation
(1777)
• No executive branch
• Execution of laws left to states
• Members of Congress chosen, paid, and
recalled by state legislatures
• Each state has one vote
• Congress cannot levy taxes or regulate
interstate commerce
• No national army, only state militias
Debates over the executive
branch at Philadelphia
Major debates
• How to elect the president (and how long will he
serve)?
Electoral College
• Electors meet in own states
• Cast two votes
– (12th Amdt: one for President, one for Vice President)
• Person with majority of electoral votes becomes
president
• If no majority, House of Representatives (one vote
per state delegation) selects president from among
top three Electoral College vote-getters
Debates over the executive
branch at Philadelphia
Major debates
• How to elect the president (and how long will he
serve)?
• Will there be one or several presidents?
• Appointments
Minor debates
• The veto power
• War powers and treaties
• The ‘executive power’
The Vesting Clauses
• The executive Power shall be vested in a
President of the United States of America.
– Article II, Section 1
• All legislative Powers herein granted shall
be vested in a Congress of the United States
– Article I, Section 1
Debates over the executive
branch at Philadelphia
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How to elect the president (and how long will he serve)?
Will there be one or several presidents?
Appointments
The veto power
War powers and treaties
The ‘executive power’
• Impeachment
• Requesting advice from department heads
Debates and Ambiguities
• “a single man would feel the greatest
responsibility and administer the public
affairs best.” (John Rutledge)
• “the executive magistracy [i]s nothing more
than an institution for carrying the will of the
Legislature into effect” (Roger Sherman)
More debates among the framers
• I “wish that at the end of the four years they
had made [the president] forever ineligible a
second time” (Thomas Jefferson)
• [I wish the convention had] “given more
power to the President and less to the
Senate” (John Adams)
Opposition to the executive
“Your president may easily become a King. If your
American chief be a man of ambition, how easy it
is for him to render himself absolute: The army is
in his hands, and if he be a man of address it will
be attached to him…and what have you to oppose
this force? What will then become of you and your
rights? Will not absolute despotism ensue?”
--Patrick Henry, opposing ratification by the
state of Virginia
Hamilton’s Defense
“Energy in the executive is a leading character in
the definition of good government. It is essential
to the protection of the community against foreign
attacks; it is not less essential to the steady
administration of the laws; to the protection of
property…to the security of liberty against the
enterprises and assaults of ambition, faction and
anarchy.”
– Federalist Papers No. 70
Would the Framers Approve of
the Modern Presidency?