You are not currently logged in. Please create an account or log in to view the full course.
Creating the US Presidency
- About
- Transcript
- Cite
Presidential Power
In this course, Dr David Andersen analyses the US Presidency, focusing particularly on the President’s formal and informal powers. In the first module, Dr Andersen discusses the US Constitution and the Founding Fathers’ intentions in creating the presidential office. Dr Andersen then ask, in the second module: what qualifications does someone need to become the US President? In the third module, we cover the formal powers of the US President as head of state in external matters (you may know this as foreign policy). Then, in the fourth module, Dr Andersen turns to the formal powers of the US President as head of government in internal matters (you may know this as domestic policy). In the fifth module, Dr Andersen then explains the institutional resources available to the President. Finally, in the sixth module, Dr Andersen explains the other informal powers and resources available to the President, focusing particularly on the importance of the media and the all-important role of public opinion. This course may be especially useful for students and teachers of US Politics, as well as those more generally interested in the US Presidency and the US Constitution.
Creating the US Presidency
In this module, Dr David Andersen discusses the creation of the US Presidency, focusing in particular on: (i) the origins of the American polity: the Articles of Confederation and the subsequent Constitution; (ii) the Founding Fathers’ concerns over bringing a “king-like” figure into the American polity; (iii) Shays’ Rebellion and its effects; (iv) the key problems associated with the presidential office in the late eighteenth century, and (v) the Founding Fathers' attempts to solve these problems, such as by establishing the Electoral College.
Hello.
00:00:05My name is David Anderson,
00:00:06and I am an associate professor of the United States politics at Durham University.
00:00:07And in this first section,
00:00:11I'm going to be talking about the origins of the United States presidency
00:00:12and a bit of the troubles the founders had in creating the office.
00:00:15Now the United States presidency is a very unique office,
00:00:19and part of the reason why it's so unique is that
00:00:22the United States originally tried not to have a president.
00:00:24So it's important to remember that when the United States declared independence
00:00:28from the United Kingdom in 17 76 in the Declaration of Independence,
00:00:32they originally conceived of a government without a president
00:00:36without an executive of any kind running the nation.
00:00:39The government of the United States was originally formed
00:00:42under a document called The Articles of Confederation.
00:00:45Now
00:00:48the United States declared independence in 17 76.
00:00:49The articles of Confederation only were ratified in 17 81
00:00:53nearly five years into the war of Independence,
00:00:58and the articles were designed to help the nation win the war
00:01:01but also retain the complete independence of the states.
00:01:05And it was a really bad document.
00:01:09What the articles of confederation did is it
00:01:11created the opportunity for a central government under
00:01:14a single Congress that was a deliberative body
00:01:18that had no executive and no judiciary.
00:01:21And this deliberative body was supposed to
00:01:24allow the states to coordinate their efforts,
00:01:26really just to win the war.
00:01:28And this Congress wasn't given much power.
00:01:30It was an opportunity for the States to send delegates to one central location
00:01:33where they would talk about what they needed to
00:01:38do together to win the War of Independence,
00:01:40but not do much else.
00:01:42See, the states didn't trust each other,
00:01:44and they didn't want to give any central
00:01:46government authority over their activities and behaviours.
00:01:48So they tried to limit the power of the central government, and actually,
00:01:52that kind of helped them win the war.
00:01:55Because five years into the war, when the articles of confederation were passed
00:01:57and
00:02:02the English government looked at what the United States had done,
00:02:03they thought it was ridiculous.
00:02:07In fact,
00:02:08most of the world thought this was ridiculous because most
00:02:09of Europe at this time was governed by monarchies.
00:02:12And the established political theory of the time
00:02:15is that any society that wanted to succeed and be stable,
00:02:17needed a strong king to rule them,
00:02:21and the United States threw that away.
00:02:24The United States said specifically,
00:02:26We do not want a king like figure in our government.
00:02:28We as a nation are going to operate as a series
00:02:31of semi autonomous states run by legislatures and with governors.
00:02:35But we're not going to have a Central King like figure.
00:02:40And when the British looked at this, they said, Well,
00:02:43that's absolutely ridiculous.
00:02:46Why would we bother spending all this money sending our army into the United States
00:02:47to conquer them and retain them when we could just let them go?
00:02:53Let them try out independence under this ridiculous system of government
00:02:57and they'll fail.
00:03:01So that's part of what happened.
00:03:03Uh,
00:03:05the unhappy truth for Americans is that the British
00:03:06were willing to let the colonies go as an independent
00:03:09nation because they thought they would fail because of
00:03:12their system of government that had no strong executive.
00:03:15And they were right. The war for independence officially ends in 17 83.
00:03:19The states govern themselves, and within three years they fall apart.
00:03:24One of the most important historical events in the United States.
00:03:30History was something called Shay's rebellion,
00:03:33and Shay's rebellion happens in the state of Massachusetts.
00:03:36But it happens under circumstances that could have
00:03:40happened in any one of the states.
00:03:42So what had happened is, during the War of Independence,
00:03:44the United States didn't have its own monetary system,
00:03:47so the state's still had to pay soldiers to go fight for independence.
00:03:50But they couldn't really give them money, so instead, they gave them paper,
00:03:55a paper I owe you.
00:03:59That said, when we win our independence and our economy gets moving again,
00:04:01we will pay you what we owe you.
00:04:04Well, they didn't.
00:04:07After the war of Independence was over, the States had no money.
00:04:08And all these veterans who had fought for freedom and independence
00:04:11were left bankrupt.
00:04:15Well, most of them returned home to their farms.
00:04:17They continue to farming way of life,
00:04:19but they still had to pay state taxes,
00:04:22and the states had accumulated debts fighting the war.
00:04:24They need to pay those debts with gold. So they told these farmers, former veterans,
00:04:28that they now needed to pay their taxes in gold, which they didn't have
00:04:33in western Massachusetts.
00:04:38This led to rebellion.
00:04:40A formal colonel in the Revolutionary Army, a man named Daniel Shays,
00:04:42raised his old militia and fought back
00:04:46against the state government of Massachusetts.
00:04:49And he fought back in a really interesting way.
00:04:52As a student of democracy,
00:04:54he raised his militia and he seized courthouses in western Massachusetts and said,
00:04:56I am going to prevent these courthouses from foreclosing on
00:05:01these farmers property because they haven't paid taxes in gold.
00:05:06And I'm going to seize these courthouses and hold them until the next election.
00:05:10We are going to run for election.
00:05:13We're going to win office and then we're going to change the law.
00:05:15Well, this sounds very reasonable.
00:05:19But to the elected government in Boston, in Massachusetts,
00:05:21they saw this as an uprising, and it was,
00:05:25but they didn't have the ability to fight back.
00:05:28They contacted Congress,
00:05:32who was supposed to be a central authority of the United States,
00:05:33and Congress, said, Sorry, you're on your own.
00:05:36And this revealed a lot of the flaws
00:05:39of the Articles of Confederation system because each state
00:05:41fundamentally only cared about itself.
00:05:45Each of their delegates in Congress only cared about the state that they came from
00:05:48when one of those states faced a crisis and they called for help for others.
00:05:52Nobody came.
00:05:58And this made every state think about, well,
00:05:59who's here protecting the national interest?
00:06:02And this is where the first concept of an American president comes from.
00:06:05Its this event in western Massachusetts, Shay's Rebellion People realise
00:06:09that United States government requires a strong central leader
00:06:14who can react in a time of crisis.
00:06:19But the articles of confederation did not have that person,
00:06:23so a new document was required.
00:06:26This is what leads to the Constitutional Convention of 17
00:06:2887 and the Constitution begins discussing what a president is.
00:06:31But that leads to another problem.
00:06:38The framers of the American Constitution largely knew what they needed.
00:06:41A strong central figure who is like a king. But they knew they didn't want a king,
00:06:45and that creates a whole series of problems.
00:06:51Kings are actually a relatively simple solution for crisis,
00:06:53because kings are unrestrained in what they're allowed to do.
00:06:57A king generally gets to do whatever they want to do because they're the king.
00:07:01They have unlimited powers at their disposal.
00:07:06They're very easy to identify. Usually
00:07:09they've either conquered a land or they inherit the title
00:07:11so you don't have to walk around selecting them.
00:07:15Uh, and they're relatively present.
00:07:19Always, Uh,
00:07:22the fact is that monarchies tend to be
00:07:23rather stable over time because one king replaces another
00:07:25in the United States. They knew they didn't want this system.
00:07:29But how do you answer the question then,
00:07:33of what is a president and how do you find them and what powers do you give them?
00:07:35Well, in the United States, they turned to three basic solutions to these problems.
00:07:40The first solution
00:07:47was actually a person
00:07:49was George Washington.
00:07:50If you have this question of how are we going to identify a king,
00:07:52what powers are we going to give them and how
00:07:57could we restrain them if they become overbearing or dictatorial?
00:07:59George Washington is a perfect solution.
00:08:04George Washington was the leader of the
00:08:08American forces during the Revolutionary War.
00:08:11He was also the wealthiest person in the United States.
00:08:13He was well known, uh, and he had a reputation
00:08:16for being honourable towards the end of the war,
00:08:21when it was clear that America was going to
00:08:24win its independence and would become an independent nation,
00:08:27the hierarchy of the American military
00:08:30decided to turn against the articles of confederation
00:08:33and this group, the Order of Cincinnatus,
00:08:37turned to George Washington and said, General Washington,
00:08:40we think the articles of confederation are ridiculous,
00:08:44and we all know we need We need a king and
00:08:47we would like to anoint you as the King of America
00:08:50and George Washington turned them down.
00:08:54He actually confronted his own officers who wanted to make him king
00:08:57and said, Gentlemen,
00:09:01if this is what you want,
00:09:03I resign as the general of the armies
00:09:05and further, I am going to raise a new army
00:09:07and I will fight you because this nation is not about King's.
00:09:10That's an amazing thing for a human being to do.
00:09:15And this is the kind of man George Washington was.
00:09:19So if you're going to create this new position of president
00:09:22and you're really nervous about giving uncertain powers
00:09:26and uncertain leadership roles to a person,
00:09:31what better human being to turn to than George Washington?
00:09:34Uh, you've already seen that you can offer him
00:09:37a kingship, a monarchy,
00:09:41and he'll turn it down.
00:09:44So he's a safe outlet.
00:09:45He's also committed to honourable behaviour.
00:09:47So when he gets in the office, you can trust that he'll figure it out,
00:09:50and he'll set a good example for everybody who will follow after him.
00:09:54He's a great example
00:09:57for other presidents to follow,
00:09:59and the other thing that Washington has that nobody else really has
00:10:02is he has an international reputation.
00:10:06One of the problems under the articles of confederation was that other
00:10:08nations complained that when they tried to talk to the United States,
00:10:12they didn't have anybody to talk to.
00:10:16They would send an ambassador.
00:10:18But ambassadors are used to talking to kings and their representatives,
00:10:20and the United States didn't have somebody to serve as the face of the nation.
00:10:24Well, George Washington was respected within the United States. He was revered,
00:10:28but he was also respected abroad
00:10:34internationally. He was considered famous because he had led the American forces,
00:10:37and the story of him renouncing the monarchy
00:10:42of America had made its rounds around Europe.
00:10:45In fact, King George, the third,
00:10:48who was the British king during the War of Independence,
00:10:50once said that George Washington was the most impressive human
00:10:54being he'd ever heard of because he'd been offered a monarchy
00:10:58and had the dignity and respect to turn it down.
00:11:02So you can make George Washington the president,
00:11:05and you could trust he would figure it out.
00:11:08And other countries would still respect him as a figure head of the nation.
00:11:10He was a very safe alternative.
00:11:15So that's one solution that the United States found to creating the presidency.
00:11:16The second solution.
00:11:22How to deal with powers.
00:11:24What powers are you going to give to somebody who has to respond to crisis?
00:11:25Uh,
00:11:31it's really hard to figure out because you don't know what powers they're going
00:11:32to need because you don't know what crises are going to crop up.
00:11:35So the United States kind of punted on this.
00:11:39There are some powers listed in the U. S.
00:11:43Constitution, and I'll talk about those later. But largely
00:11:47what the Constitution does in creating the presidency is it says
00:11:51Congress will figure out what powers the presidency needs
00:11:55in consultation with the president,
00:11:59and they will then delegate powers
00:12:02to the president.
00:12:05So the Constitution does not set up a clear arrangement
00:12:06of powers that is meant to last over time.
00:12:10It sets up this dynamic where Congress and
00:12:14the presidency are going to battle Converse,
00:12:16they'll figure it out.
00:12:20What powers the President actually needs to have at
00:12:21his disposal in order to accomplish the job.
00:12:24So this is another solution?
00:12:28Uh,
00:12:30Congress is supposed to figure it out and
00:12:31delegate what presidents will need over time.
00:12:33The third problem is maybe the trickiest. How do you decide who becomes president
00:12:37now? In the early years of the Republic,
00:12:44it's easy.
00:12:47Everybody knows that George Washington is going to
00:12:49become the first president of the United States.
00:12:51But what happens when Washington steps down?
00:12:54How do you find another figure to assume the office? And this is really hard.
00:12:57And part of the challenge is putting yourself back
00:13:03in the shoes of somebody in the 17 eighties.
00:13:07You're asking the Republic to identify a single
00:13:10leader who is going to become the face of
00:13:14the nation and really be the one person who looks out for the nation as a whole.
00:13:15How do you identify who they are?
00:13:21Remember, there is no mass media back at this point,
00:13:23so the public are never going to hear about candidates.
00:13:26They're never going to be able to learn about people,
00:13:30and part of the whole point of American government is to rely
00:13:33on classic Republicanism where people are supposed to be elected from a place
00:13:37and that ties them to that place.
00:13:43And they will protect the interests of that place Well.
00:13:45Another principle of the American Republic is separation of powers, which means
00:13:49you want Congress and the president and
00:13:54the judiciary to be very separate institutions.
00:13:57So you cannot have the president elected by the people
00:13:59because the people won't know who the candidates are,
00:14:03and they also probably won't understand what a president is.
00:14:06But you also cannot have the president elected from
00:14:10Congress because then Congress would control the presidency.
00:14:13Candidates for president would probably have to
00:14:17go through Congress and make deals,
00:14:20broker arrangements and attached themselves to certain
00:14:23members of Congress to win election.
00:14:26You can't have that.
00:14:28So the United States has developed a very unique and weird system.
00:14:30What they turn to is actually the Roman Catholic Church
00:14:35and the College of Cardinals and how they elect a pope
00:14:39and the United States said Well, this has some merit to it.
00:14:44What we want
00:14:48is to have people who understand government
00:14:49select the best candidates for around the nation
00:14:53to be the lead person in government, the president.
00:14:56So they invented the Electoral College system,
00:15:01which gives each state a certain number of
00:15:04votes based upon how many people represent them.
00:15:07In Congress, every state has two senators,
00:15:10plus a number of House members based upon their population.
00:15:13So states were told, you will have this number of votes
00:15:17and you can figure out however you want to cast these votes.
00:15:22States were left really on their own to
00:15:26figure out how to cast Electoral College votes.
00:15:29The one restriction, they were told,
00:15:32is that the people casting Electoral College votes
00:15:34may not currently be in federal office,
00:15:37so they can't be senators.
00:15:40They can't be members of Congress, they have to be independent of the system.
00:15:42And the original plan was that state legislatures would come together
00:15:47and elect the wisest people they could find within their state.
00:15:52People who understood government
00:15:56those people electors would then travel to the nation's capital,
00:15:58meet and assess the candidates for the presidency, cast their votes,
00:16:03and that is how you would elect a president. It's a very indirect system
00:16:08that would allow the president
00:16:13to remain independent of the other branches
00:16:15and also independent of the people because the framers didn't
00:16:18believe the people would be smart enough to select a president
00:16:22in the next video,
00:16:25I'm gonna talk more about some of the formal powers of
00:16:26the presidency and what the roles of the president really involved.
00:16:28
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Andersen, D. (2022, November 08). Presidential Power - Creating the US Presidency [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/us-politics-presidential-power
MLA style
Andersen, D. "Presidential Power – Creating the US Presidency." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 08 Nov 2022, https://massolit.io/courses/us-politics-presidential-power