Despite the intentions of the framers of the Constitution and the subsequent roles laid out for the president therein, the President of the United States of America has assumed roles and powers that somewhat challenge these intentions. Since the forming of the Union there has been a continuing struggle over the powers of the president and whether he should take a reserved legalist position or a more activist role.
The legalist and activist positions are embodied perhaps no more deservedly in Presidents Taft and T. Roosevelt, respectively. It was Roosevelt's position that it was not only the President's right, but duty to do "anything that the needs of the Nation demanded, unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws" (Fisher, p. 23). Taft on the other hand maintained that the President "can exercise no power which cannot be fairly and reasonably traced to some specific grant of power or justly implied and included within such express grant as proper and necessary to its exercise. Such specific grant must either be in the Federal Constitution or in an act of Congress passed in pursuance thereof" (Fisher, p. 23). These two figures represent the dichotomy herein: the contraction of Presidential power and its opposing expansion. If Taft had had his way, the President's role today might have been more closely aligned with what the original intentions of the Constitution were: a chiefly reactionary role to the initiative position (with reference to legislation) of Congress (Egger, p. 2).
One of the main problems with regard to defining Presidential power is defining what indeed the intentions of the Constitutional framers were. The American constitution, with reference to the office of the executive, is a ...
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...ailable from: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/war.tracker/index.html [15 May 2003].
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As the President of the United States, a president have powers that other members of the government do not. Presidential power can be defined in numerous ways. Political scientists Richard Neustadt and William Howell give different views on what is presidential power. These polarized views of presidential powers can be used to compare and contrast the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Since its very conception, the Constitution of the United States has while holding great reverence, been a great topic of debate amongst the political scholars left to analyze it in all its ambiguity. Two such scholars, John Roche and Charles Beard, in their analyses of the Constitution aim to tackle a layer of the uncertainty: how democratic the Framers truly intended the Constitution to be. John Roche speaks in unquestionably high regard of the Framers in advocating that they so evidently compromised their own values in order to create a democratic document that would strengthen the US as a whole. Charles Beard conversely insists that as the economic elite of their time, the Framers were influenced primarily by their private interests to
The views of the presidency by the first sixteen presidents varied widely but all of their actions set precedents for their successors to use, expand, or even curtail the power of the office. Some believed in the Whig theory of strict adherence to the constitution, while others believed the president was the steward of the people with a loose interpretation of it. The power of the office expanded through the years, however it only expanded as far as the public and congress allowed.
During and after the turmoil of the American Revolution, the people of America, both the rich and the poor, the powerful and the meek, strove to create a new system of government that would guide them during their unsure beginning. This first structure was called the Articles of Confederation, but it was ineffective, restricted, and weak. It was decided to create a new structure to guide the country. However, before a new constitution could be agreed upon, many aspects of life in America would have to be considered. The foremost apprehensions many Americans had concerning this new federal system included fear of the government limiting or endangering their inalienable rights, concern that the government’s power would be unbalanced, both within its branches and in comparison to the public, and trepidation that the voice of the people would not be heard within the government.
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By the late eighteenth century, America found itself independent from England; which was a welcomed change, but also brought with it, its own set of challenges. The newly formed National Government was acting under the Articles of Confederation, which established a “firm league of friendship” between the states, but did not give adequate power to run the country. To ensure the young nation could continue independently, Congress called for a Federal Convention to convene in Philadelphia to address the deficiencies in the Articles of Confederation. While the Congress only authorized the convention to revise and amend the Articles the delegates quickly set out to develop a whole new Constitution for the country. Unlike the Articles of Confederation, the new Constitution called for a national Executive, which was strongly debated by the delegates. There were forces on both sides of the issue trying to shape the office to meet their ideology. The Federalists, who sought a strong central government, favored a strong National Executive which they believed would ensure the country’s safety from both internal and external threats. The Anti Federalists preferred to have more power in the hands of the states, and therefore tried to weaken the national Executive. Throughout the convention and even after, during the ratification debates, there was a fear, by some, that the newly created office of the president would be too powerful and lean too much toward monarchy.
I will start with explaining Neustadt’s arguments about presidential power in his book. Then further my answer to the extent in which compare other political scholars, Skowronek, Howell and Edwards in response to Neustadt’s points of view about American presidency.
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Romance, Joseph. Political Science 6 class lectures. Drew University, Summer 2004.
Presidential power has become a hot topic in the media the in recent years. There has been extensive debate about what a president should be able to do, especially without the involvement of Congress and the American people. While this debate has become more publicized since the Bush administration, similar issues of presidential power date back to Truman and the Korean War. As with much of the structure of the U.S. government, the powers of the president are constantly evolving with the times and the executives.
The United States of America is one of the most powerful nation-states in the world today. The framers of the American Constitution spent a great deal of time and effort into making sure this power wasn’t too centralized in one aspect of the government. They created three branches of government to help maintain a checks and balance system. In this paper I will discuss these three branches, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial, for both the state and federal level.
The first issue that will be discussed will be in regards to the power the president holds, inherently and expressly. This will then be followed by how our presidents have used and challenged their powers throughout history. Finally, we will turn our attention to Congress. We will look at how congress has taken power into its ...
Richard E. Neustadt, the author of Presidential Power, addresses the politics of leadership and how the citizens of the United States rate the performance of the president's term. We measure his leadership by saying that he is either "weak or "strong" and Neustadt argues that we have the right to do so, because his office has become the focal point of politics and policy in our political system. Neustadt brings to light three main points: how we measure the president, his strategy of presidential influence, and how to study them both. Today we deal with the President himself and his influence on government action. The president now includes about 2000 men and women, the president is only one of them, but his performance can not be measured without focusing on himself.
The first citizen of a nation can be seen as an individual who is at the head of his institution and also one of his own citizens. It may seem ironic or even impossible that a person can assume such high standing while maintaining the typical image of his fellow men. But with the unique structure of the American Government and the many interesting facets of its President, the American Presidency can assume such roles. Since the military is headed by civilian control, the President’s status as Commander-in-Chief declares him as one of and head of the civilian population. The American President is the leader of his political party as chief of party, the ceremonial head of the American Government as chief of state, and a representation of the American People as the Chief Citizen. But since the President’s power is granted to serve his people, his status is also that which is in a way equal to or even subordinate to the citizens.
The changes that formed the modern presidency shaped a presidency that uses power aggressively and significantly. The modern presidency
American politics is often defined by a continuing power conflict between the executive and the legislative branches of the government. This struggle for political power between the two stronger branches of the three is inherent in the Constitution, itself. The concepts of separation of powers and checks and balances ensure that the branches of government will remain in conflict and provide a balance that keeps the entire government under control. As it was first established, the executive branch was much smaller and weaker than as we know it today. Consequently, the legislative branch was unquestionably dominant. Over the course of history, the executive branch grew in both size and power to the point where it occasionally overtook the legislative and today rivals the legislative in a much closer political battle. Today both branches have major factors that contribute to their power, but on the whole the legislative remains the lastingly dominant branch.