Understanding Our Constitution: #5 - The President Was Not Supposed to be the Nation's Leader
It is commonplace to talk of the president as the leader of the nation (indeed, of the free world). His every move (and today, tweet) is reported extensively. He is seen as the spokesman for the country, the architect of national goals, the initiator of programs, and the decisive force for what becomes law. Yet this was not commonplace talk in 1789, when George Washington launched the presidency. It was certainly not what the Constitution's framers intended.
The executive branch was Article II of the Constitution. Article I - because it was deemed important it be first - created the legislative branch, the voice of the people. Having just overturned the rule of a king, Americans were not about to create another one. Early in the debates over what became the presidency, Roger Sherman of Connecticut made it clear that the singular role of the chief magistrate was to carry out the will of the legislature, and Edmund Randolph of Virginia worried that a unitary executive could be the "foetus of monarchy."
Indeed, most of the debate on the executive during the convention focused on how to constrain his power (so far it has only been "he"). He could be Commander in Chief of the armed forces but not declare war. He could negotiate treaties but not ratify them, nominate officials and Supreme Court justices but not confirm them. He could administer the laws but not pass them. He could veto laws but be over-ridden. His term was limited to four years - not long enough to amass too much power. The possibility of re-election would make him accountable, since, as Pennsylvania's Gouverneur Morris put it, limiting him to a single term would "Shut the Civil road to Glory" so that "he may be compelled to seek it by the sword."
The delegates also worried about how to choose the president. Giving that power to Congress would render him a tool of the legislature, rather than a check on its excesses, yet they feared direct election by the people would open the door to demagoguery. Virginia's George Mason opined that "it would be as unnatural to refer the choice of a proper character for chief Magistrate to the people, as it would, to refer a trial of colours to a blind man." Hence, we got the Electoral College, which allowed state legislatures (and now voters) to choose electors but not the president directly.
The concern about a monarchical presidency continued in the ratification debates, with New York's Alexander Hamilton devoting 11 of the 85 Federalist essays to arguing that the president was not equivalent to a king. The First Congress grappled with how to address Washington, firmly rejecting John Adams' proposal that he be called "His Majesty" or "His High Mightiness," and settling on the humble "President of the United States." Washington himself eschewed a fancy title and even viewed using the veto acceptable only if he felt a law was unconstitutional. Stepping down after two terms, he exemplified what Benjamin Franklin at the convention expressed: "In free Governments the rulers are the servants, and the people their superiors & sovereigns. For the former therefore to return among the latter was not to degrade but to promote them."
The history of the presidency has altered in practice what the framers conceived in theory. Presidents such as Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt played critical roles in expanding the power of the office, often enabled by war or other national emergencies. Presidential efforts to augment their power in recent years, due to the "war on terror" and such tactics as the increasing use of Executive Orders and signing statements, have gone largely unchecked by Congress. The growth of the Executive Branch (Washington had his cabinet officers and they a few clerks) has given the presidency access to expertise unmatched on Capitol Hill, and, given the pace and complexity of today's challenges, Congress has also been willing to cede more power to the president. A president's ability to command all forms of media, dominating the news, was impossible in 1787 when most Americans would know little about and lack direct access to those seeking the highest office.
For some, the growth of presidential power is welcome amidst a dangerous world and a Congress so divided it does little. For others, the worries of the founders are being realized. The challenge now, as it was in the eighteenth century, is one of balance. The framers of the Constitution wanted what they called "energy" in the executive, but they wanted constraints on it as well. The Congress and the courts, as designed at the Convention, still have the capacity to exercise that balancing function. Indeed, it is required by the Constitutional oath their members took. If they fail to do their Constitutional duty, we may become a country ruled by a king, who we just call a president.
Photo Credit: Dale Cruse
