The American Presidency

American Presidency

McDonald, Forest. The American Presidency. Lawrence, University of Kansas Press,

According to historian and scholar Forest McDonald, the American Presidency was and is a unique institution. Although other nations have since developed elected executives called presidents, the American presidency has evolved along its own special course, because of the birth of America as a new nation without a long-standing tradition of previous history, monarchy or common law. Some of the Founding Fathers, particularly James Madison, were initially reluctant to invest the new executive office with much power, for fear of creating a new king. Madison, for example, wished to prohibit unilateral executive action in foreign affairs (238). This would, according to McDonald, have made it impossible for the United States to engage effectively as a nation on the world stage, although of course it would also have limited some of the military actions not officially declared 'wars' by Congress as well. From Madison onward, McDonald has nothing but contempt for those individuals who would limit the power of the presidency, an office, he says, "has been responsible for less harm and more good, in the nation and in the world, than perhaps any other secular institution in history" despite the relatively short history of America (481).

Since Madison's vision of a president severely hampered by checks and balances, the presidency as an institution has evolved, over the course of American history to one of the most powerful and dominant political positions in the world as well as the nation, often led by a king-surrogate in deed in not in name, a development that the author sees as positive rather than negative (459). McDonald attempts to answer the question of how this supposed shift in the conception of the presidency from weak to quasi-monarchial occurred, and provides a timely overview of an institution from the point-of-view of the modern voter, as well as the modern American reader's standpoint. McDonald believes that the increasing centralization of presidential power was necessary, and actually not that far an evolution from the original concept of Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father that McDonald most admires, as opposed to Madison.

The modern presidency, according to McDonald, arose by an impossible challenge set for themselves by all of America's Founding Fathers: they wished to create an ideal government that fused the best elements of aristocracy, which they defined as the wisest elements of society, with a democratic process. The Founding Fathers did not wish to create a new monarchy, by and large, despite the enthusiasm of some people to make Washington a new king, and because the main parliamentary model offered to them was based upon an untenable notion of British kingship, they instead created the tripartite governmental structure as it now exists today. They separated the legislature from the executive branch, a distinction that America still maintains with Great Britain and many European powers. The U.S. Supreme Court, the third, unelected judicial branch, is praised by the author for its bolstering of executive power during the 19th century (the era, amongst other decisions, of Dred Scott) although McDonald despises the court's behavior during the 20th century, which he sees as overtly activist in its orientation.

To show America's uneasy relationship with executive power, rather than taking a strictly chronological, linear, and historical approach to tracing the history of the presidency, McDonald uses more of a philosophical methodology. His book is divided into three sections, delineating what he sees as the different functions of the office. The first section of his book chronicles how English common law, English philosophers like the 17th century John Locke, a 13th century legal commentator, John Bracton, and the 16th century Italian Nicolo Machiavelli, as well as the historical events leading up the American Revolution, influenced the founders. The second section examines the processes of the Constitutional Convention, the rectification of the weak Articles of Confederation, the ratification of the new Constitution, and the Washington and Jeffersonian Administrations. The first presidents had to try to make sense of the wording of the new document and put the presidency's ideals into practice. The third section examines the evolving role of presidents from Jackson to the present and how they defined the role in relationship to the legislative and judicial branches, public opinion, historical events, and foreign affairs.

McDonald notes that although Democrats today tend to be most critical of so-called imperially styled presidents, it was Republicans who decried the increasingly powerful office of the presidency during the Roosevelt and Johnson administrations, and only later did the two parties flip-flop, after Nixon created what would later be called the imperial presidency by Democrats. This suggests that there is less of a real dislike of executive authority in America as there is a dislike of specific presidential authority and ideology.

Of all the modern presidents, McDonald approves most enthusiastically of Nixon and Reagan, despite their evasion of congressional approval for many of their actions while in office. He instead criticizes Congress for lacking a sufficiently national perspective, stating that congressmen and women today are more interested in reelection than serving the nation, which is exactly the opposite to the reasoned, aristocratic oversight that the founders desired. Congress' outlawing of providing funds to the Nicaraguan Contras, for example, was interfering with the executive's discretion, and Reagan's actions during the Iran-Contra affair were therefore justified, and only mildly questionable, legally. McDonald calls Reagan the greatest president since Jefferson, for Reagan's curtailing of big government, and restoring faith in a very powerful chief executive, especially in foreign affairs.

To explain his beliefs, McDonald cites the Founder's inspiration in Jon Bracton's idea that in "certain areas the king's power was absolute" (18). He thinks that the actions of recent Republican presidents were no more quasi-monarchial than FDR's during the Depression and World War II. In fact, sometimes it is necessary for Chief Executives to exert such control over the country in the name of -- of course -- national security. He often echoes Alexander Hamilton's sentiment that presidents may, under extreme circumstances, pursue "extensive and arduous enterprises" despite "the various checks and balances" of the Constitution (185). America must be a "presidential government" rather than a legislative government to be taken seriously in the world today (185).