Political Thought and the Origins of the American Presidency

Description

This volume examines the political ideas behind the construction of the presidency in the U.S. Constitution, as well as how these ideas were implemented by the nation's early presidents. The framers of the Constitution disagreed about the scope of the new executive role they were creating, and this volume reveals the ways the duties and power of the office developed contrary to many expectations. Here, leading scholars of the early republic examine principles from European thought and culture that were key to establishing the conceptual language and institutional parameters for the American executive office. Unpacking the debates at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, these essays describe how the Constitution left room for the first presidents to set patterns of behavior and establish a range of duties to make the office functional within a governmental system of checks and balances. Contributors explore how these presidents understood their positions and fleshed out their full responsibilities according to the everyday operations required to succeed. As disputes continue to surround the limits of executive power today, this volume helps identify and explain the circumstances in which limits can be imposed on presidents who seem to dangerously exceed the constitutional parameters of their office. Political Thought and the Origins of the American Presidency demonstrates that this distinctive, time-tested role developed from a fraught, historically contingent, and contested process. Contributors: Claire Rydell Arcenas Lindsay M. Chervinsky Fran�ois Furstenberg Jonathan Gienapp Daniel J. Hulsebosch Ben Lowe Max Skj�nsberg Eric Slauter Caroline Winterer Blair Worden Rosemarie Zagarri A volume in the Alan B. and Charna Larkin Series on the American Presidency Contents List of Figures Foreword Acknowledgments 1. Political Thought and the Intellectual Origins of the American Presidency: Royalism, Executive Power, and the History of Ideas Part I. The European Origins of the American Presidency 2. Checks and Balances: The Cromwellian Origins of the Presidency 3. Party and Faction in Eighteenth-Century Political Thought from Montesquieu to Madison 4. Does the United States Need a Bill of Rights? Monarchs, Presidents, and the Persistence of a Political Genre in the Age of the American Revolution 5. Enlightened Despotism and the American Revolution: The Political Thought of Frederick the Great of Prussia Part II. The Politics of Constitution Making: The Executive and the Federal Union 6. National Power and the Presidency: Rival Forms of Federalist Constitutionalism at the Founding 7. Defending an Energetic Executive: Theory and Practice in The Federalist 8. Is the Electoral College the Fundamental Problem? New State Admissions and the U.S. Constitution Part III. Implementing an Ideal: Political Theory and Practice among the Early Presidents 9. The Political Practices of the First Presidents: The Cabinet and the Executive Branch 10. Mirror for Presidents: George Washington and the Law of Nations 11. Liberty and Power: The Classical Republicanism of George Washington and Mercy Otis Warren List of Contributors Index