CSCH 3213 Law & the Presidency
On the day he took the oath of office as President of the United States in 1897, William McKinley said to outgoing President Grover Cleveland, "What an impressive thing it is to assume tremendous responsibilities!" McKinley's successor, Theodore Roosevelt, famously called the Presidency "a bully pulpit," and he added that "I have thoroughly enjoyed it, for it is fine to feel one's hand guiding great machinery." More recently, however, many Presidents have seemed to agree with Harry Truman when he said that "there is no exaltation in the office of the President of the United States -- sorrow is the proper word." The Presidency of the United States - an office invented by our founding fathers and tested over two centuries through wars, economic depressions, and other crises - has today evolved into an institution of unprecedented power and prestige. And yet, the Presidency is part of the Constitution and our whole system of law. As such, the President is checked by our fundamental law, even as the President plays a role in shaping the direction that the law and the Constitution will take. In this seminar, we will take an historical look at the American Presidency in relation to the American Constitution and the American system of law. After a brief introduction focusing on the perils and challenges of the Presidency today, we will look back at the sources of the framers' ideas of executive power - in the writing of state crafters and philosophers like Machiavelli and Locke, and in the experiences the framers had of prerogative power in England and colonies. Then we will take up the creation of the Presidency in the Constitution Convention of 1787. From there, we will move on to consider the contributions of several of our Presidents - from Washington and Jefferson to Lincoln, from TR and FDR to Truman and Reagan.