The creation of the US presidency

At no time in our history has there been so illustrious a gathering as the corps of delegates who came together in the State House (Independence Hall) on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia late in the spring of 1787 to frame a constitution for the United States of America. Yet, distinguished though they were, they had only the foggiest notion of how an executive branch should be constructed. Not one of them anticipated the institution of the presidency as it emerged at the end of the summer.

One frightful goblin haunted their deliberations. The study of history—ancient to modern—instructed them that republics were always short-lived, and they feared that America might quickly adopt kingship. From Paris, commenting on his experience of three years abroad, Thomas Jefferson wrote to George Washington: “There is scarcely an evil known in these countries which may not be traced to their king as its source.” Decades of struggle against royal governors had taught Americans that the executive was their enemy, that legislative assemblies spoke for the people.

Despite the fulminations of the Framers of the Constitution against George III, the idea of a strong executive struck a responsive chord. The theorists they read—Blackstone, Locke, Montesquieu—all accepted executive authority. John Locke had written, “The good of the society requires that several things should be left to the discretion of him that has the executive power.” Monarchy was the form of government with which Americans were most familiar and hence an inescapable template. Every one of the delegates had been born under the British Crown.

The scaffolding of a presidential office first presented to the delegates for their consideration by James Madison fell far short of majestic. The president was to be chosen not by popular election but by the National Legislature, and for only a single term. Foreign policy and the appointment of officials such as a national treasurer would also be entrusted to the legislature.

Though Madison was on his way toward recognition as father of the Constitution, Scottish-born James Wilson was staking a claim to be regarded as father of the presidency. Wilson, speaking with a marked Scottish burr, rose to move that a national executive of a single person be established, for a single magistrate could be held accountable to the people. Steel-rimmed spectacles low on the bridge of his nose, Wilson urged broad authority for an executive who would be a tribune of the people and would give “energy, dispatch, and responsibility to the office.” This motion brought the delegates up short, for numbers of them saw in a single executive “the foetus of monarchy,” but they accepted Wilson’s recommendation. Wilson had considerably less success in urging popular election of the executive. The assembly rejected Wilson’s motion resoundingly and approved instead choice of the executive by the national legislature (not yet called “Congress”) for a single term of seven years. In the course of the convention, the delegates were to go through sixty ballots before resolving how to choose a president. No sooner did they come to a conclusion than they voted to undo it.

In the first week of September, the Framers revised many of their previous decisions, especially in order to adjust the imbalance between the chief executive and Congress. They authorized the president to appoint major officials, including ambassadors and Supreme Court justices, and they turned over to him the right to make treaties, though with the advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senate. By agreeing to a proposal that the president “shall, by Virtue of his Office, be Commander in Chief of the Land Forces of U.S. and Admiral of their Navy,” they gave him immense power to determine strategy in wartime and other national emergencies.

The convention made a critical move in taking choice of the president from Congress and vesting it in an “electoral college.” It refined a proposal that James Wilson had aired earlier by requiring that electors meet in their respective states. Thus “college” was a misnomer from the outset; it was never intended to be a deliberative body that debated the merits of candidates. The convention fixed a president’s term at four years, but, altering its previous arrangement, agreed that a president would be perpetually eligible for re-election.

Once these large matters had been disposed of, the delegates made a quick meal of the remaining details. The president was required to be “a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution,” at least thirty-five years of age, and a resident of the United States for fourteen years. He could be removed by impeachment for, and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

The delegates assigned the task of polishing the draft of the Constitution to a committee of style chaired by the redoubtable Gouverneur Morris. After a spat with the governor of New York, Gouverneur Morris had removed to Philadelphia. Despite a peg leg, “The Tall Boy,” stomping about on his wooden limb while brandishing a cane, cut an impressive figure. Commentators reported that he had numerous sexual conquests. (It was rumored falsely that he had lost his leg by leaping from a balcony to elude an irate husband. “I am almost tempted to wish,” commented John Jay, that the rake “had lost something else.”) No one doubted that he was bright. He had enrolled at King’s College (which would become Columbia University) at twelve and was graduated at sixteen. As the most important member of the Committee on Style and Arrangement, Morris did more than tidy up straggling sentences. He imparted his own ideas of proper government. In particular, Morris’s committee crafted the portentous opening sentence of Article II.

Article II begins, “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” The sentence seems innocuous, merely descriptive. But it contrasts starkly with a companion sentence in Article I: “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” Is the absence of the restriction “herein granted” in Article II merely chance phrasing, or is it evidence of Gouverneur Morris’s cunning? No matter—for presidents have seized upon this phrasing to claim powers not enumerated in the Constitution. They have issued proclamations, acted in emergencies without seeking Congressional approval, and entered into executive agreements with foreign nations. Article II further provides that “he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” another innocent-sounding clause pregnant with potential for amplifying the presidential realm.

When the document drafted by the Framers was submitted to the states for ratification, relatively few of the ensuing objections voiced were directed at provisions for the presidency—in large measure because of the universal assumption that the first incumbent would be George Washington. If hesitant delegates brooded about granting authority that might be abused, all they needed to do was look at the reticent figure who took his seat in the high-backed chair on the dais each morning at the convention and quietly presided, almost never intruding into the debates. The prospect that Washington would be the country’s first chief executive may well account for why, though sometimes by very narrow margins, the states ratified the Constitution, a consummation formally announced on July 2, 1788.

_{Featured image by Junius Brutus Stearns, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.}