American Presidency, History & Becoming President

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Overview

In popular culture, the president of the United States has been an action hero (Air Force One, Independence Day), a romantic leading man (The American President), a dastardly villain (Absolute Power), a lovable ordinary guy (Dave), a buffoon (Wag the Dog), and a well-meaning do-gooder (The West Wing). Other movies explore the lives of actual presidents, including George Washington, Young Mr. Lincoln, Wilson, JFK, and Nixon.

In reality, being president of the United States is one of the most difficult jobs in the world. The president is under constant pressure to please many people, including members of his or her political party and the American people. Every move is examined under a critical microscope, and every gaffe is widely reported. For better or worse, the president becomes the face of the United States for the four-year term spent in office.

The History of the Presidency

The nature of the presidency has evolved considerably over the course of American history, from the limited role the framers of the Constitution had in mind to the rise of the president-centered government of the twentieth century.

The Framers’ Views of the Presidency (1789)

The framers of the Constitution were wary of executive power because they saw it as the most likely source of tyranny. King George III of Britain was, for many, the villain of the Revolutionary War; he was an example of executive power run amok. At the same time, the framers knew that the first president would almost certainly be George Washington, whom they all admired greatly.

As they wrote the Constitution, the framers decided not to provide great detail about the president. Instead, the framers gave the office only a few specific powers. They wanted a strong executive who could deal with emergencies, particularly those involving other nations, but who would not dominate the U.S. government. The framers expected that Congress would be the focal point of the national government, and they structured the Constitution accordingly. They made the president powerful enough to check and balance Congress but not so powerful as to overrun Congress.

King Caucus (1789–1830s)

For the first few decades of the republic, congressional delegations chose their party’s presidential candidate in a caucus, a meeting of political leaders to select candidates or plot strategy. As a result, the president was, to some extent, dependent on the representatives of his party in Congress. Critics derided this system as undemocratic, labeling it “King Caucus.” Starting in the 1830s, however, parties began using conventions to choose their presidential nominees. This change gave more power to party members outside of Congress, opening up the nomination process to increased public participation, a trend that has continued into the present day. The end of King Caucus gave more power to the president because he was no longer beholden to his party’s members of Congress and could act more independently.

Clerk in Chief (1840s–1900)

Even though the end of King Caucus opened up the possibility of greater presidential power, presidents refrained from seizing that power because of long-standing attitudes toward the presidency. For most of the nineteenth century, political leaders believed that political power should center on Congress and that the president’s job should be to execute decisions made by Congress. Some scholars have referred to the presidency during this era as a “clerk in chief” because the president was not expected to initiate or guide national policy. Many nineteenth-century presidents acted more like clerks in chief, exercising little initiative or independent power.

Assertive Early Presidents

Despite the general trend of weak presidents, several early presidents stand out for their assertiveness and importance. George Washington (president from 1775 to 1783) established the character of the office that nearly all his successors would emulate. Washington carried himself in a statesmanlike manner and set the standard of serving no more than two terms. He also created an indelible image of what a president should be: strong, capable, honorable, and above partisanship. Thomas Jefferson (president from 1801 to 1809), in contrast, acted without congressional approval a number of times, such as when he made the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Andrew Jackson (president from 1829 to 1837) was another assertive president and was the first to appeal directly to the average voter as a means of building support.

Abraham Lincoln (president from 1861 to 1865) took substantial control of the federal government in order to conduct the Civil War effectively. Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and other civil liberties, for example, and also spent money without congressional authorization. After the war, however, Congress reasserted itself as the dominant branch of the federal government.

The Rise of President-Centered Government (1901–1950s)

At the start of the twentieth century, the president began to emerge as the key political actor in the federal government. Both Theodore Roosevelt (president from 1901 to 1909) and Woodrow Wilson (president from 1913 to 1921) believed in a strong presidency, one in which the president would be assertive and initiate federal policy. After Wilson left office, however, presidents returned to acting as clerks in chief until Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected in 1933 during the Great Depression.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Roosevelt (president from 1933 to 1945) permanently changed the nature of the American presidency. Elected during the Great Depression, Roosevelt expanded the size and scope of the federal government. As a result, the government became involved in many aspects of its citizens’ lives. FDR’s New Deal policies included social security, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Works Progress Administration, and several other programs designed to give jobs to the unemployed.

World War II furthered the scope of the president’s power as commander in chief: Many people thought that because the president was the person best positioned to lead the war effort, power should be concentrated in the president’s hands. During the war, for example, FDR curtailed civil liberties, nationalized industries to aid the war effort, and decided how the war would be waged. When the Cold War began shortly after the end of World War II, the next president, Harry S Truman (president from 1945 to 1953) continued FDR’s policies.

Becoming President

In order to be elected president, a person must meet the eligibility requirements laid out in the Constitution. After that, the person must secure his or her party’s nomination. Finally, he or she must face a demanding campaign and election process.

Eligibility

According to the Constitution anyone who wishes to become president must be:

At least thirty-five years old
A resident of the United States for at least fourteen years
A natural-born citizen

The last requirement has caused some confusion and controversy. According to U.S. law, a child born abroad to parents who are American citizens is also a citizen, but it is not clear from the Constitution whether such a person could be president. As of 2006, the courts have not ruled on whether an American citizen born outside of the United States may be president. A variety of people have tried to amend the Constitution to allow citizens born abroad to be president, but so far they have had no success.

America’s Youngest President

Even though the Constitution allows anyone at least thirty-five years old to be president, every American president thus far has been much older: The average age of presidents at inauguration is fifty-four. Most people think that John F. Kennedy was the nation’s youngest president—he was forty-three when elected in 1960—but that’s not accurate. In reality, Kennedy was the youngest person to be elected president. The youngest person to be president, however, was Theodore Roosevelt, who was forty-two when he became president following the assassination of William McKinley in 1901.

Demographics of the Presidents

The Constitution allows women and members of any ethnic, racial, or religious group to be president, but for most of the country’s history all of the presidents have been Protestant white men. Barack Obama is the first non-white person to serve as president and John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, is the only non-Protestant to hold the office.

Firsts in Presidential Nominations

In 1984, Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman nominated for the vice presidency by a major political party. She and presidential nominee Walter Mondale were soundly defeated by Ronald Reagan. In 2000, Joseph Lieberman became the first Jew nominated by a major party; Lieberman and presidential nominee Albert Gore lost one of the tightest races in American history. In 2008, Hillary Clinton narrowly missed being the first woman nominated for the presidency by a major political party. She was beaten in the Democratic primaries by Barack Obama, who went on to become the first minority candidate elected to the presidency.

Campaigning

The major parties select their presidential nominee at their national conventions, held every four years. At the conventions, delegates from each state vote and whichever candidate wins a majority of delegates becomes the party’s nominee. To win delegates, candidates compete in primary elections, held in each state prior to the convention. Primary races are usually hotly contested.

Because citizens get to vote in the primaries, they have a large role in the election. Prior to the 1972 election, voters played little role in selecting the party nominees, but that is not the case anymore. Before acquiring the party nomination, a presidential candidate must prove that he or she can attract voters by winning primaries.

Choosing a Running Mate

When a candidate decides to run, he or she must choose a running mate, the person who will be the party’s nominee for vice president. Many factors go into the choice of running mates: age, geographical location, ideological platforms, and personality. Abraham Lincoln, for example, chose slaveholding senator Andrew Johnson from Tennessee to be his running mate during his reelection campaign, hoping to convince the slave-holding states that had not seceded to remain in the Union. Ronald Reagan, in contrast, asked his former rival, George H. W. Bush, to be his running mate because Reagan knew that Bush would appeal to moderates and fiscal conservatives.

The general election pits each party’s nominees against each other. Candidates can usually rely on the support of voters from their own party, so the campaign is frequently a competition for independent voters. The candidates travel to battleground states to hold rallies, aimed at both turning out their own base and persuading undecided voters to support them. The candidates usually debate each other on television. Following a blitz of last-minute campaigning, the voters go to the polls on election day.

The Electoral College

The Constitution only states that the candidate who receives a majority of votes in the Electoral College becomes president. It says nothing about the popular vote. The intent of the framers was to filter public opinion through a body composed of wiser, more experienced people; the framers did not want the president to be chosen directly by the people.

Each state gets a number of electors equal to its total number of members of Congress (all states get at least three). State governments determine how electors are chosen. No federal officeholders can serve as electors.

Voters think that when they cast their vote, they are voting for a presidential candidate. But in all but two states (Nevada and Maine are the exceptions), voters actually vote for electors, who have pledged to vote for their party’s candidate during the Electoral College. Some states have laws that require every elector to vote for the candidate who received the most popular votes in the state, a winner-take-all system. Many of the states with a winner-take-all system have laws to punish faithless electors, those who vote for someone other than the winner of the state’s popular vote.

Sometimes a candidate loses the popular vote but still becomes the president. In fact, this has happened four times in American history: John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and George W. Bush in 2000. These men all became president despite having lost the popular vote. In races with a significant third-party candidate, the winner frequently gets less than 50 percent of the popular vote, such as when Woodrow Wilson defeated opponents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft in 1912 or when Bill Clinton defeated George H. W. Bush and Ross Perot in 1992.

Choosing the Vice President

Originally, the presidential candidate who received the second-greatest number of electoral votes became the vice president, but this created problems between presidents and vice presidents who were from different political parties. The Twelfth Amendment, ratified in 1804, made it so that the Electoral College chooses the president and the vice president separately.

Presidential Term Limits

George Washington set a key precedent when he stepped down from office after serving only two terms. For more than 100 years after Washington, presidents refused to run for office more than twice, until Franklin Roosevelt was elected to four consecutive terms during the Great Depression and World War II. The Twenty-second Amendment was ratified in 1951, making it illegal for presidents to be elected more than twice.

Presidential Succession

According to the Constitution, the vice president’s main job is to assume the office of the president if the president dies, leaves office, or can no longer perform presidential duties. Congress has the power to determine succession if both the president and vice president die, leave office, or cannot perform their jobs. The chart on the next page shows how the Succession Act of 1947 sets the order of presidential succession.

**ORDER OF PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION**
1	Vice President
2	Speaker of the House
3	President Pro Tempore of the Senate
4	Secretary of State
5	Secretary of the Treasury
6	Secretary of Defense
7	Attorney General
8	Secretary of the Interior
9	Secretary of Agriculture
10	Secretary of Commerce
11	Secretary of Labor
12	Secretary of Health and Human Services
13	Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
14	Secretary of Transportation
15	Secretary of Energy
16	Secretary of Education
17	Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs
18	Secretary of Homeland Security

Vice Presidential Succession

Until the Twenty-fifth Amendment was ratified in 1967, there was no law about what to do when the office of the vice president was vacant. When a vice president succeeded a president who had died, for example, he had no vice president. The Twenty-fifth Amendment specified that a new vice president would be nominated by the president and approved by both houses of Congress.

The Special Case of Gerald Ford

The Twenty-fifth Amendment’s provision for filling a vice-presidential vacancy has been used twice—and both times involved Gerald Ford. Nixon’s first vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned in 1973 after pleading guilty to tax evasion charges. Nixon and Congress appointed Ford, who was then serving as a member of the House of Representatives. When Nixon resigned in 1974, Ford became president. He then chose Nelson Rockefeller as his vice president. Ford thus has the honor of being the only unelected president in American history because he was never elected to the vice presidency or the presidency.

American Government The Presidency, History & Becoming President

American Presidency, History & Becoming President