The Founding of the American Presidency

1. The Founding of the American Presidency

2. What were the framers worried about? • Not ending up with a monarchy (elected, hereditary, or achieved through violence) • Checking the legislative branch • Minimizing corruption, maximizing responsibility • Mustering support of 9 states

3. The Declaration of Independence • 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:

4. …continued • 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.

5. 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

6. Article II • Article. II. • Section. 1. • The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows: • Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector. • The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President. • The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States. • No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. • In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected. • The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them. • Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

7. Article II • Section. 2. • The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment. • He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. • The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session. • Section. 3. • He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States. • Section. 4. • The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

8. 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?

9. A plural executive? • “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…the Legislature should be at liberty to appoint one or more [executives] as experience might dictate.” (Roger Sherman)

10. A Plural Executive? • “Unity in the executive magistracy ..is the fetus of monarchy…[I do not see why] the great requisites for the Executive department, vigor, dispatch and responsibility, could not be found in three men as well as in one man.” --Mr. Randolph, June 1, 1787

11. Federalist 70 • “A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government…[The convention delegates] have declared in favor of a single executive…That unity is conducive to energy will not be disputed. Decision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch will generally characterize the proceedings of one man in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number.”

12. 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

13. Appointment power • Agreement that Congress should create offices (not the president) • Who appoints government officials and military officers? Judges? Could members of Congress serve? • June 5-13: judges should be chosen by Congress • Aug. 6: Congress appoints the Treasurer; Senate appoints ambassadors, judges; Presidents appoint everyone else

14. Appointment power (final version) • The president…shall nominate and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public minister and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. Article 2, section 2

15. 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’

16. 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

17. Debates over the executive branch at Philadelphia • 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

18. 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)

19. 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

20. 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

21. Ambiguities • What does “the executive power” mean? • How political can the president be? • If the president can appoint, can he remove? • Who is to have control over the bureaucracy? • What are high crimes and misdemeanors? • Who’s in charge of initiating limited wars?