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PRESIDENTIAL POWERS.   Term Paper ID:19387 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Constitutional definition & restrictions, relationship with Congress, examples in domestic & foreign policies.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Constitutional definition & restrictions, relationship with Congress, examples in domestic & foreign policies. Paper Introduction: This study will present an analysis and discussion of Presidential power and its limits in the government of the United States. There are certain powers which are spelled out in the Constitution with respect to the President with more specificity than other powers. The creators of the Constitution wanted to make sure that the President had enough legal power to be able to serve effectively as the leader of the Executive branch and the initiator of domestic and foreign policy. On the other hand, they wanted to make sure that there were limitations on the powers of the President in order to prevent him from accruing to himself and the Executive branch so much power that the delicate balance of power (particularly with respect to the relationship between Congress and the President) was upset. Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. 18-2 . As de Boinville writes, the writers of the Constitution sought toalter the imbalances of the Articles of Confederation: "No questiontroubled the convention more than the powers and structure to be given theexecutive in the new government. We see, then, that the power of the president is provided for in theConstitution, but only within the framework of guidelines which have to beworked out in the harsh reality of political and legal struggles. The President can maketreaties, with the advice and consent of the Senate. If the period is one of economic downturn and/or foreignturmoil, the people will want a more active and powerful president, and theexecutive leader will respond accordingly, or will at least try to. He must somanage the governmental machinery that we have good times and not hardtimes, and that the diverse sections of the economy be kept in reasonablebalance . If theperiod is stable and prosperous, the people will expect little from thepresident, and he will exercise power appropriate to those lowexpectations. (1981) The New Congress.Washington, D. and the expansionof congressional staff . What we see, then, is the evolution of Presidential power on acyclical basis. Truman, David. 12). "Thisconclusion of Nixon's was facilitated by his priorities --- foreign policyand the reduction of domestic programs. Time,pp. The founders of the country and creators of the Constitutiondeliberately left the powers of the presidency unspecified in part,realizing that practical situations would arise which would require activedebate and power struggle among the branches of government in order todefine, for that situation and based on the Constitutional guidelines, thatpower. Titled "A Tale of Two Bushes," the article declaring Bush the man ofthe year states that "One (Bush) finds a vision on the global stage; theother (Bush) displays none at home" (Church, 1991, p. . . It is also instructive to note the role of the judiciary---specifically the Supreme Court --- in settling the dispute between Nixonand the Congress over the disclosure of the secret tapes. In such a serious situation, one could argue that the system failedsimply because Nixon was able to commit so many abuses. The personal power of the president and his relationship with thepeople on a deep level also play a major role in determining thepresident's power. (1964). Among the most important werethe War Powers Act of 1973, the Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974,the several changes in party and committee systems . 13). The founders decided that suchlimitation would create an inordinate amount of power in the Congress. This is revealed in the concluding paragraph of EricGoldman's The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson: "Lyndon Johnson could win votes,enact laws, maneuver mountains. de Boinville, Barbara R. Thefounders ultimately tried to give each branch --- executive and legislative--- enough power that each would be able to effectively perform itsfunctions, but not so much power that one or the other could usurp theother's power and take over the nation. 2, pp. Bush, on the other hand, largely throughmilitary efforts, has had more success in foreign affairs than in handlingdomestic needs and problems. He kept the risks and costs of war hidden from the American people. (1982). C. 234). Tesich, Steve. This judicial role, as noted, is spelled out in theConstitution. He could not command that respect, affection and rapport whichalone permit an American President to genuinely lead. We see aswell that the power of the president, or the perceived power of thepresident, is in part determined by the wisdom of the president in decidingwhich battles he will fight and which battles he will avoid. The fear and hatred of the executiveauthority of England made the debate over executive authority in the newAmerican government intense to the very end of the ConstitutionalConvention. Just as Reagan concentrated on domestic issuesand Bush concentrated (through early 1992) on foreign policy, Nixon focusedon a particular blend of both. The people were complacent andsatisfied, for the most part, whatever pre-196 s fires were simmering underthe surface, and Eisenhower was effective as a passive leader. OnceReagan had to try to deal with foreign affairs, he was exposed as a weakleader. . Whether or not the abuses of the president with respect to power andpersuasion are reversed by the Congress depends in part on the demand bythe people for such a reversal. When we consider the foreign affair successesof Nixon and the domestic successes of Johnson, it is difficult to see themas weak, but the reverses of Watergate and Vietnam stand out as thedominant events of their presidencies Nixon's fundamental paranoia led toWatergate, and Johnson's arrogant refusal to see the reality of Vietnam'squagmire before it was too late resulted in two ruined presidencies. For example, Reagan wasoperating with a Democratic Congress, but he was able to push his proposalsthrough Congress because the Congress knew that the people wanted them toenact his various economic and regulatory reforms and changes. And yet, nothing happened. New York:Dell. The specific powers of a specific president, then, are determined inpart by the particulars and limitations of power spelled out in theConstitution, but also by the personal power of the president, hischarisma, the mandate he receives or is perceived as having received in theelection, the relative weakness of the Congress, the desire of the peoplefor change, the relative power or weakness of the previous president, andmany other "unwritten" factors. . and of the militia .. Embodying the national myths andpervaded with tradition, yet imperfectly defined by law and peculiarlyreflective of the personality of the incumbent, the presidency defiesprecise characterization. (He) is expected to keep us at peace with other nations and,when that proves impossible, lead us to victory" (Truman, 1964, pp. . . As long as the three stuck to the areas inwhich they were most effective, they appeared to be powerful leaders. " (Constitution Article II). That dispute wasone essentially of power, and the Supreme Court came down on the side ofthe Congress and the special prosecutor in forcing the president to releasethe tapes. The creators of the Constitution, in determining the powers of thePresident, did not want such a weak leader that the government wasparalyzed in a stalemate between the branches, but they also wanted toguard against the kind of autocracy which ruled over them from England andbrought on the Revolutionary War and the ultimate establishment of theConstitution itself. He is notseen, in retrospect, as a weak President, but rather as a President who wasnot required to use the powers of the office to their fullest. The people were enjoying a prosperousperiod at home and had no heart or stomach for much involvement in foreignaffairs, aside from the Korean War. . Reagan declared that he was not aware of the abusesof the executive branch and effectively avoided the curtailment of hispowers, although he was at the end of his second term when the abuses werediscovered and investigated by Congress. Hissuccess in doing so was in part a matter of having persuaded those entitiesthrough the use of effective anti-Saddam Hussein propaganda. . For example, Bush needed to win thesupport of both people and Congress in his Persian Gulf war policy. The latter is aseemingly innocuous little power which in fact contains the essence of thepower of the President to make policy at home and abroad. 398-399). For example, the presidency of Dwight D.Eisenhower came after the World War and after the post-War disturbances hadsettled down into the Cold War. A government of lies. Ronald Reagan, on the other hand, entered office with tremendousexpectations and a popular mandate to re-make the office and its powers inthe wake of Jimmy Carter, who was perceived as a weak leader who was notable to use the considerable powers of the office for his own purposes.Reagan was an example of a potent personality, for better or worse,combined with high expectations and desire for radical change at home andabroad, which resulted in a President using the powers of the office to theutmost. . In the aftermath of the disgrace of Nixon in the Watergate scandal,Congress made a number of moves to limit the powers of the Presidency. Again, the clue to the power of the office of the president seems torest in the wisdom of the president to know his strengths and hisweaknesses, and to fight his fights accordingly. In The Washington Spectator, we read, for example, that LyndonJohnson avoided trying to persuade Congress or the people of thecorrectness of his desire to wage war in Vietnam, simply because it waslikely that he would not have been able to persuade them of thatcorrectness: "The president (Johnson) never asked for a declaration of war(in Vietnam). The sources note unanimously that the powers spelled out hold truefor all presidents. But on July 25, 1965, Lyndon Johnson went to war in Vietnam. The office did not exist under theArticles of Confederation, which placed the executive function in Congress"(de Boinville, 1982, p. If there is one area in which thedebate is most heated with respect to the power of the president, it is thearea of war. Mann, Thomas, and Norman Ornstein (Eds.). The power of the Congress is also a matter, in part, of the successof his specific programs. Time magazine proclaimed Bush the man of the year for199 , but saw his presidency as one marked by power in foreign affairs andweakness in domestic matters. The Constitution spells out other powers. The power of the office, we can then see,depends on a number of factors which are both spelled out in theConstitution and which are not therein specified or clearly delineated. In Mann andOrnstein, then, we read: "If a competing institution --- Congress in thiscase---is of dubious legitimacy, then the country must be run without it."That, at least, was Nixon's view, in part shared by the people. Tesich goes on to note the lies told by Bush in drumming up supportfor the war against Iraq, and the same public desire not to know the truthseems to have prevailed there as well (Tesich, 1992, p. . References ----. Henever told them he'd been warned that hundreds of thousands of soldiersmight be needed, never prepared them for the struggle he knew might lieahead" (Washington Spectator, 1992, p. The outcome of the debate is spelled out in Article II of theConstitution. The Constitutional Convention in its earlier stages "conferred onlythree powers on the president: 'to carry into effect the National laws,''to appoint to offices in cases not otherwise provided for,' and to vetobills" (de Boinville, 1982, p. 628). Nixon, as we read in Mann andOrnstein, was successful as long as he was able to exclude Congress fromhis exercise of power. 18). The President, for example, "is expected to be 'thegeneral manager of the entire machinery of government . Loosely, the Constitution declares first that "The executivepower shall be vested in a president of the United States of America." TheArticle at length describes non-powerrelated aspects of the Presidency(election, length of term, eligibility, compensation, oath of office), andthen spells out more specifically the executive powers: "The presidentshall be commander in chief of the army and navy . As Truman writes, the Constitutional powers of the President perhapsmost importantly include his duty to put before the Congress those measureshe deems significant: "Above and beyond these powers, the exigencies ofrapid change and of social complexity and the accretions of custom havesurrounded the presidency with a series of widely held expectations thatare fully as exacting as if they were obligations defined by law" (Truman,1964, p. Even historical circumstances play an important role in the powers ofthe president, insofar as those circumstances affect the desires orexpectations of the people. As Tesich writes, "The high crimes and impeachable offenses committedby Ronald Reagan and his Administration . Quoting Louis Brownlow, Truman says that the expectations of thepower of the president include considerations of such important issues asthe economy and war. It seems to be an axiom of the presidency that each executive leader,with rare exceptions, do better in one arena or the other --- the domesticor the foreign. Accordingly, the presidency ofEisenhower was a relatively inactive one. . It is clear that many disputes, legal, political, ethical, andotherwise, have arisen in the past and will continue to arise with respectto the specifics of the powers of the President, often in relationship tothe powers of the Congress. in the Iran-contra scandalwere far more serious and un-American than the crimes for which Nixon waskicked out of office . This study will present an analysis and discussion of Presidentialpower and its limits in the government of the United States. The tragedy of Lyndon Johnson. On the other hand,it can be argued that the system worked, that the checks and balancesprovided in the Constitution worked, because the impeachment proceedings ofCongress and the decision of the Supreme Court with respect to the secrettapes brought the presidency back into the light, back down to earth, andrestored rightful power to the other two branches of American government. 398). It is more than the office described in thelegal formalities, and it is less than the symbol created of myth andlegend" (Truman, 1964, p. TheNation, pp. The WashingtonSpectator, Vol. The Constitution, as Truman points out, simplydid not spell out in total clarity these various powers: "The presidency ofthe United states is at once the most important and the most complexposition in the governmental mechanism. We can have different opinions about the desirability of thechanges Reagan wrought, but it is clear that he did indeed bring abouttremendous changes in the economic system, in the bureaucracy, inregulatory policies, in taxation practices, and elsewhere. New York: AlfredKnopf.----------------------- 9 232). reforms grew out of theexcesses of the Committee to Re-elect the President in handing campaignfunds and, of course, the focus of ethics in government following theWatergate revelations and the president's resignation" (Mann & Ornstein,1981, p. Goldman, Eric. . recommend to(the Congress) to their consideration such measures as he shall judgenecessary and expedient" (Constitution Article II). C.: American Enterprise for Public Policy Research. On theother hand, they wanted to make sure that there were limitations on thepowers of the President in order to prevent him from accruing to himselfand the Executive branch so much power that the delicate balance of power(particularly with respect to the relationship between Congress and thePresident) was upset. . After Watergate . These reforms followed the bolstering of Nixon'sself-image as a result of the 1972 election. With the same adviceand consent, he can appoint ambassadors, judges and others. . Nothing reallyhappened . Another aspect of presidential power not dealt with specifically inthe Constitution has to do with the interplay among interest groups whichhave helped the president attain office in the first place. When the president accrues to himself what the peopleand/or the Congress perceive as too much power, or if he deceives theCongress and the people in the exercise of that power, or if he abuses thepowers he has, then the machinery of government and politics, as expressedprimarily by actions of the Congress, moves to reduce that power. The power of the president is in part a result of his power topersuade --- to persuade both the people and the Congress of thedesirability of his various policies. He could not acquire that somethingbeyond, which cannot be won, enacted or maneuvered but must be freelygiven. (1992, January 15). President Reagan perceived correctly that the public reallydidn't want to know the truth" (Tesich, 1992, p. We seealso that the historical circumstances which prevail are an importantfactor in determining the precise power of any given president. . This latterelement is itself in part determined by the personality of the presidenthimself. Acting like a king. " Other powers are more understandably specified:"He shall have the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offensesagainst the United States, except in cases of impeachment" (ConstitutionArticle II). Why, then, are some presidents clearly more powerfulthan others? Thecreators of the Constitution wanted to make sure that the President hadenough legal power to be able to serve effectively as the leader of theExecutive branch and the initiator of domestic and foreign policy. The answer, as stated, is in part found in the historicalcircumstances prevailing when an individual becomes president. The Congress,in turn, demanded public debate in order to make clear that they would notbe pushed around and ignored as they had been by presidents who virtuallyunilaterally pursued war in Vietnam. (Ed.). The presidentis beholden to such groups and cannot ignore them once he reaches thepresidency. It is impossible for any president today to achieve thatoffice without becoming so beholden, and it is often true that some ofthose interest groups have conflicting demands to make upon the president.If he wants to have their support in his re-election bid, and if he wantsthem not to be estranged from his party in any case, he must juggle theirneeds and try to satisfy as many of them as he can. Bush, once the glory of victory in the Gulf War faded, was exposedas a weak leader in domestic affairs. . (1991, January 7). The Constitution goes on to give to the courts, ultimately to theSupreme Court, the duty and responsibility of determining any problemswhich arise with respect to the dictates of the Constitution, which ofcourse includes questions about the power, or absence thereof, of thePresident. Some of these specific powers seem unnecessarily spelled out: "He mayrequire the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of theexecutive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of theirrespective offices . Reagan was notas effective in his foreign policy efforts, and this may indicate oneaspect of the limits of the President's power which is beyond his control.The president does generally have more power, and can exercise it moreeffectively, at home than abroad. 398). For example, Nixon and Johnson are seen, in retrospect, as failedpresidents, as presidents who were never able to successfully mesh thepower of the office and their own personalities in such a way that thepublic saw them as powerful. There are certain powers which are spelled out in the Constitutionwith respect to the President with more specificity than other powers. . . 18, No. Themore the people expect of the president, and the more they support him, hisideas, and his programs in the election or the polls, the more the Congresswill be likely to respond to his proposals. 12-14. Had Nixon wished to enact anelaborate domestic program, he would have been less free to excludeCongress" (Mann & Ornstein, 1981, p. Infact, these Congressional steps were already being taken while Nixon wasstill in office: "This group of reforms is by far the most extensive and isassociated with Nixon's stated and implied challenges to the legitimacy andcompetency of Congress. . He is requiredto deliver state of the union addresses, and can present programs to theCongress for foreign and domestic policies: "He shall . (1992, January 6/13). A tale of two Bushes. Origins and development ofCongress. . The governmental process. When we consider the scandal of the Iran-contra affair, we findsomething different. 1-3. This approach on the part of Nixon was acceptableto the people for a period of time, because the Congress was held in lowesteem --- until Nixon became entangled in Watergate and decimated thepower of the presidency for the remainder of his term. Congressional Quarterly: Washington, D. 7 ). Church, George J. In his periods oftriumph and of downsweep, in peace as in war, he stood the tragic figure ofan extraordinarily gifted President who was the wrong man at the wrong timeunder the wrong circumstances" (Goldman, 1969, p. Nixon in the Watergate affair abused power in a number of ways andthe Congress saw those abuses as so serious that they started impeachmentproceedings which would have ousted Nixon had he not resigned. Clearly, when a good deal of his time and energy is spent trying tosatisfy these various constituencies, the president's powers will belimited. . Nixon would have also run intoserious resistance from a Democratic Congress as well. (1969). 75). . 1). . If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.