Presidential Power as a Unique Kind of Personal Authority - Research Paper Example

?Presidential power, especially in the context of the President of the United s, is a unique kind of personal ity that one bears over the most powerful country in the world. Throughout the history of the country, its presidents have grappled and struggled with how to manage this power properly. Stepping outside the precise limits of presidential power as given by Article II of the United States Constitution, there is a wide variability in how individuals treat the office. Some presidents, like Thomas Jefferson, have found the office to be a challenging place to maintain both one’s principles and one’s power; others, like Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, have used the authority vested in the office to pursue their particular political agendas and enlarging the scope of the presidency. Decisive issues in the history of the United States, such as territorial expansion and slavery, have played a crucial role in determining the scope and nature of expanding presidential power through the centuries. In order to understand the rise of presidential power, one must first set a standard to which that rise is measured. That standard is the first president of the United States, George Washington, who was inaugurated on April 30, 1789. In many ways, Washington set the standards for his successors: setting up a cabinet system, giving an inaugural address, and serving as a two-term president. He took over the presidency of a country emerging fresh from its quest for independence, and he immediately faced the problems of any newly established nation. Recognizing the need to sign major treaties for foreign powers and to ratify the Bill of Rights, Washington signed a large slate of legislative measures that set up channels of commerce, state militias, the judiciary, the United States Mint, and the first immigration laws. Each of these acts stood in concert with the newly signed Constitution, which Washington used as justification for his veto of the Apportionment Act of 1792 (Washington). By all accounts, Washington represents the classic president with his respect for the precise limits of his power. Washington held federalist sentiments, aligned for the most part with his Secretary of the Treasury, cabinet member, and friend Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton’s intellectual influence on Washington was so great that Washington’s famous Farewell Address is thought to have been crafted, at least in part, by Hamilton’s hand. The federalists like Washington and Hamilton viewed states rights as less important and a hindrance to an effective, efficient central state. The Articles of Confederation, which had been discarded in favor of the Constitution, stressed the value of states’ rights above a central state but to a degree that made the federal government incapable of carrying out its necessary, executive functions. In his Farewell Address, Washington makes it clear that a stronger central government, at the expense of states’ rights, is a necessary movement toward reducing deadly factions in American government. To that end, Washington urges support for the new constitutional government. A weak government, he warns, is one that cannot defend itself from factions, or enforce its laws, or protect the rights of citizens, which is implied as an argument against overemphasizing the sovereignty of individual states. After the presidency of John Adams, another federalist, Thomas Jefferson became the third president in March 1801. As a Democrat-Republican with anti-federalist leanings, Jefferson wrote in favor of state rights, believing that the size of the federal government ought not to be maximized (Schlesinger 23). Instead, he thought, states’ ought to have a greater degree of sovereignty because they are more responsive to diverse groups of people. Looking at the divergent interests of Southerners and Northerners, even in the early 1800s, Jefferson identified a potential source of conflict—a factionalism that might emerge on the highest level of government. Accordingly, he endorsed a political system to maximize individual liberties; on this point, a limited central government (removed from the monarchical design of British rule) would bring Americans closest to happiness. However, Jefferson’s political principles and ideals became a troublesome inconvenience in his first term, faced with the prospect of doubling the area of the American nation. Territorial acquisition was not a topic addressed in the Constitution, leaving the door open for Jefferson’s administration to weigh the benefits and costs of expanding into Louisiana. Despite being committed to a small central government, Jefferson acted outside of the traditional channel—that of Amendments to the Constitution—to colonize a new territory. Having absorbed the power to expand, the federal government became fundamentally altered by the precedent set by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson realized the contradictions between his former principles and his practices with regard to Louisiana. Rhetorically, Jefferson tied the Louisiana Purchase to “Discovery” as it pertains to the exploration of politically unclaimed lands (Miller 69), while ignoring the conflict between his principles and the thought of France and Spain having the power to block American access to the Gulf of Mexico. In the process, Jefferson became a monarch over the newly acquired territory and exercised executive privilege. Jefferson’s inability to practice what he preached came as a contrast to George Washington’s commitment to federalist ideals. Andrew Jackson, the United States’ seventh president, took office in March 1829, after 27 years of Democrat-Republicans aligned with Thomas Jefferson’s anti-federalist tendencies. Born in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a rich slaveholder who rhetorically appealed to the middle- and lower-classes of voters looking for greater access to the American political system. Like Jefferson, Jackson stood in vocal favor of a small central government; however, his actions suggested a different belief. Although generally in favor of states’ rights, Jackson found that the Nullification Crisis of 1832, which nullified tariffs at the level of the state, would lead to disunion and treason. In response, he invoked the Constitution as a defense of why states are bound to the federal government (Jackson). Actions like deploying federal troops on American soil to enforce the tariffs cemented Andrew Jackson as a staunch defender of the power of the presidency; like Jefferson, Jackson took unprecedented steps to create a justification for future presidents to take similar actions. Jackson also held the view that the president is a direct representative of the people, vigorously exercising his powers to veto, to interpret the Constitution, and to establish control over the entire executive branch (Yoo). For Southern Democrats, who largely supported Jackson, Jackson represented the virtues of the frontier: brutal, forceful, and just. This kind of personality extended to Jackson’s treatment of slaves, which he owned many of, and his treatment of Native Americans in Florida, for which he has earned criticism by historians. Generally, Jackson is seen as a great defender of American democracy for American citizens, while abusing and marginalizing those in American society who did not have a say (Yoo). In addition, his actions marginalized some of his supporters, who took his attack on states’ rights to be an attack on Southern culture. Ultimately, Jackson’s time as president enlarged the power of the president, both in terms of his ability to dictate above states and in terms of how slaves ought to be treated. Jackson and Jefferson’s contribution to the size of government and states’ rights principles stood in contrast to the emerging Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president of the United States. Lincoln took office in March 1861, inheriting a “house divided against itself.” On his way to the presidency, Lincoln reaffirmed his conviction that slavery was indeed morally wrong and that laws banning it in his home state of Illinois were just (Thomas 148-152). In addition, Lincoln’s opposition to slavery won him criticism from his debate partner Stephen Douglas in their famous debates for Senator. Lincoln accused Douglas of wishing for slavery to be spread into the free states, challenging him on moral grounds and thereby showing his own opposition to the use of territorial expansion as a means of expanding slavery across the country. Lincoln, unlike his Democrat predecessors, did not nominally emphasize states’ rights as an important part of his belief system. The debates between Douglas and Lincoln focused a great deal of attention on Lincoln as an advocate for anti-slavery and on Douglas as an advocate for states’ rights. Early on, one could see that these issues were not entirely separate; that is, the attack on the South’s right to slave labor and the attack on the proposals to expand slavery into the free states was an abridgement that opponents ascribed to a large central government, which Lincoln stood in favor of more so than the rights of individual states. Lincoln’s election spurred the secession of states from the Union, which Lincoln did not recognize as their right. Instead, he thought the difference between “secession” and “rebellion” was a meaningless one and that the South’s actions would lead to the destruction of the Nation as a whole (Krannawitter 145). On this basis, Lincoln engaged the South in military action, setting the precedent that the Union actually takes priority over the individual states and their interests. This kind of idea, instantiated in the works and beliefs of Hamiltonian federalists like George Washington, became realized in the bloody and destructive violence of the Civil War. During the Civil War, the reason for engaging the South in battle was given as a crusade against unholy slavery. However, Lincoln’s original reasoning centered on the attempt to reestablish the security of the Union, and to prevent its destruction. Today, the belief that Lincoln fought for the slaves is a commonly held, albeit false belief (DiLorenzo). It does carry weight in examining how Lincoln’s actions aided the expansion of presidential powers in the 19th century. Lincoln’s opposition to territorial expansion led to an opposition of slavery in general, recognizing that slavery’s institutional presence would inevitably lead to its transfer into free states. The secession of the South led to an opportunity for Lincoln to bring the Southern states back into the Union, but also to prevent slavery from spreading into new territories. A decade after Lincoln’s assassination, Rutherford B. Hayes took office in 1877. His contribution to this debate was not his actions, but what he said. He warned, “Although American chief executives had to that point been conservative men wedded both to precedent and to modesty in the exercise of presidential power, a future president committed to concentrating power in his hands could make of the office what he wished” (Wood). Although Hayes seemed to skip over the legacies of Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln, each of whom set large precedents about what a United States president could do, this “future president” he spoke of came in 1901 with the election of Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt, known for his robust masculinity and cowboy persona, inherited the presidency after the assassination of William McKinley, and he almost immediately began following his own agenda. His first action as president was to deliver a speech before Congress addressing the problematic issue of “trusts,” and the need to curb the power of corporations. To accomplish this, he worked to increase the regulatory power of his presidential office by means of the Attorney General’s office. Roosevelt gained a definite connection to Andrew Jackson’s concept of the president as a direct representative of the people. He also drew parallels to Abraham Lincoln in his belief in the responsibility of America to spread democracy throughout the world. This idea of spreading democracy is connected to the idea of Manifest Destiny, which is a dramatized support of territorial expansion. Roosevelt held true to Manifest Destiny, even though the usage of that term had declined by the 1900s. Instead, his Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, released in 1904, declared the United States to be an “international police power” that must now focus on interventionism as opposed to expansionism. Accordingly, in both his domestic and foreign policies, Roosevelt took on the responsibility as president to both regulate big business and to expand the power of the American federal government. Despite the emphasis on interventionism as opposed to expansionism expressed in the Roosevelt Corollary, territorial expansion remained a formative piece of Roosevelt’s picture of his role as president. He writes, “Thus the American people began their work of western conquest as a separate and individual people, at the moment when they sprang into national life. It has been their greatest work ever since” (Roosevelt 33). By praising it as “[Americans’] greatest work,” Roosevelt is highlighting the expansion of the federal government (the nation) as a supremely admirable act. Roosevelt is neither criticizing Thomas Jefferson for abandoning his principles of states’ rights nor praising particular states for advancing the frontier westward; instead, he is praising Americans as a whole for adding territories under the label of “America.” This extended to the “large policy” of the imperialist cabal, annexing the Philippines into the new empire (Raico). Such a policy was the ideal of Roosevelt: bring democracy to more lands, furthering “America’s greatest work,” and expanding the president’s role as Commander-in-Chief (Raico). Roosevelt wrote, “I do not believe that any considerably number of our citizens are stamped with this timid lack of patriotism… These men prate about love for mankind, or for another country, as being in some hidden way a substitute for love of their own country” (Roosevelt 321). Roosevelt’s nationalism fully informed his view of the presidency. From Washington to Roosevelt, ideas about the functional role of the presidency have been key in enlarging and expanding the powers of the office. Mostly derived from the precedents these men set, these broadening responsibilities of the president have resulted either from a conflict of principle and practice (Jefferson), or from a direct conviction that the federal government is legitimately authoritative over the states (Lincoln). Either way, the result is the same as one follows the general trend in the explicit philosophies and the louder-than-words actions of past presidents. Bibliography DiLorenzo, Thomas J. "Another Big Lincoln Lie Exposed." 9 April 2011. Lew Rockwell. 2 November 2011 . Hofstadter, Richard. The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It. New York: Vintage, 1989. Jackson, Andrew. "President Jackson's Proclamation Regarding Nullification." Washington, D.C.: The Avalon Project, 10 December 1832. Krannawitter, Thomas. Vindicating Lincoln: Defending the Politics of Our Greatest President. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010. Milkis, Sidney M. and Michael Nelson. The American Presidency: Origins and Development, 1776-2007. 5th. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2007. Miller, Robert J. Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis & Clark, and Manifest Destiny. New York: Praeger, 2006. Raico, Ralph. "American Foreign Policy — The Turning Point, 1898 –1919." April 1995. The Future of Freedom Foundation. 2 November 2011 . Roosevelt, Theodore. Thomsen, Brian M. The Man in the Arena: The Selected Writings of Theodore Roosevelt. New York: Macmillian, 2004. 35-36. Schlesinger, Arthur M. The Imperial Presidency. New York: Mariner Books, 2004. Theodore Roosevelt's Annual Message to Congress. By Theodore Roosevelt. United States Congress, Washington, D.C. 6 December 1904. Thomas, Benjamin P. Abraham Lincoln: A Biography. Chicago: Southern Illinois University, 2008. Washington, George. "Farewell Address." Philadelphia, PA: American Daily Advertiser, 19 September 1796. —. "Washington's Veto Message." Philadelphia, PA: University of Virginia, 5 April 1792. Wood, Thomas E. "The Limits of Presidential Power." The Daily Reckoning Special Position Paper 22 October 2009. Yoo, John C. "Andrew Jackson and Presidential Power." Charleston Law Review 2 (2008): 521. Read More