Presidential Rule

by Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

The common assumption that the Office of the President of the United States is the most powerful position in the free world is false.  It was never intended to be that way by the Founding Fathers.  Thanks to a series of historical moves by statists, however, some presidents have acted like being the resident of the White House gives them one-man rule.  Barack Obama treated the office that way.  Some believe Trump did, as well.  I am not so sure Biden even knows he's President.

The whole process of strengthening the power of the Office of the President of the United States began with Alexander Hamilton.  In fact, during the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Hamilton called for the President to be a king.

The Jeffersonian Republicans battled with the Jacksonians during the 1820s, creating a split in the party.  The original Republican Party (not the one that became the GOP in 1854) that had once been the champions of the U.S. Constitution became the Democratic Party, and those who opposed Andrew Jackson's view that the United States should be more democratic fled and formed the Whig Party.  The Democrats pushed for a stronger executive branch, while the Whigs argued that the legislature must be the strongest part of government.

Under Abraham Lincoln the presidency was made even stronger, and coupled with judicial activism, pushed an even stronger idea of federal supremacy that far surpassed what the Constitution allowed.

Theodore Roosevelt argued, "Unless I can't, I will".  Woodrow Wilson considered any executive order or action that was never successfully challenged as constitutional precedent.

While the political and judicial classes have rewritten the order of power, public education personnel and pretty much all of the members of the media proclaim that we are supposed to have "three co-equal branches of government."  That is as untrue as the idea that the President is the most powerful man in the free world.  I challenge the "three co-equal branches of government" myth in my first book, 25 Myths of the United States Constitution.

The powers delegated by the U.S. Constitution, which includes the reality that Congress can override vetoes and through the exceptions clause make judicial rulings and opinions null and void, reveals that the original intent was for Congress to be the strongest of the three.  In addition, through Congress, the State Legislatures also originally exercised a considerable amount of oversight over the federal House of Representatives, the President, and the judicial branch.  Unfortunately, those mechanisms of oversight have vanished over time, partly due to the ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913.

If we are to restore the Constitution, among the first orders of business will be to repeal the 17th Amendment, and restore power back to the legislature as originally intended.

Other interesting resources regarding the presidency are as follows:

https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/04/05/historian-explains-how-6-presidents-fought-washington-swamp/

5 best presidents in history Brion McClanahan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYQXayar4Tc 

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary