Untrodden Ground: How Presidents Interpret the Constitution by Harold H. Bruff
By Harold H. Bruff
Reviewing the strategies taken via all forty-four presidents to shape new felony precedents and the constitutional conventions that experience constructed hence, Harold H. Bruff exhibits that the president is either extra and no more robust than many believe. He explores how presidents were guided through either their predecessors’ and their very own interpretations of constitutional textual content, in addition to how they enforce rules in ways in which statutes don't essentially authorize or forbid. yet whereas govt strength has multiplied some distance past its unique perception, Bruff argues that the trendy presidency is safely restricted by way of the nationwide political processtheir activities are legitimized through the assent of Congress and the yank humans or rejected via debilitating public outcry, judicial invalidation, reactive laws, or impeachment. Synthesizing over 200 years of presidential job and clash, this well timed booklet casts new gentle on government habit and the yank constitutional system.
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Extra info for Untrodden Ground: How Presidents Interpret the Constitution
Sample text
The nature of the presidency also created two great complexities that were seen dimly or not at all by the framers. First, the president would 22 durable consequences be both chief executive and head of state. Although the Constitution located ultimate sovereignty in “We the People” and then delegated parts of it out to three semi-Â�independent branches and to the states, only one person could represent and speak for the nation, and that would be the president. Accordingly, the real powers of the presidency would always exceed its paper powers and would rest to some uncertain degree on the head of state role.
Therefore, a bank could be formed only if it were “necessary and proper” to serve Congress’s explicit powers to tax, to regulate commerce, and so on. This raised the great issue of the implied powers of the entire federal government. For wherever Congress could legislate, the courts could adÂ� judicate and the executive could administer. And if Congress had enough implied power to create a bank, where would the argument stop? Questions about the constitutionality of federal support of internal improvements in the states would soon be debated, with a profoundly divisive question lurking in the background—Â� the extent of federal power to interfere with slavery.
Today, one can plausibly portray the vastly divergent activities of James Buchanan and Abraham Lincoln as consistent with the Constitution’s text and history. Second, Congress had substantial legislative powers that could result in too much or too little control of presidents. On the one hand, Congress might try to exert close control over the executive branch, to avert tyranny or to serve its own interests. On the other, presidents would hold substantial institutional advantages (including the veto) that might frustrate legitimate statutory controls.