Sprinting Through Presidential History: From Washington to Super Grover

For next time:

• Maija Harkonen on the DC Program
• First writing assignment
• Read: TR, Taft, and Wilson excerpts on presidential power.

Apocryphal quotation by George III:  He asked artist Benjamin West what Washington would do if American became independent. "He believed He would retire to a private situation.—The King said if He did He would be the greatest man in the world.”  If he did say such a thing, why?

Treasury Secretary, Washington's the President
Ev'ry American experiment sets a precedent

-- From Hamilton

Washington Inauguration

Presidential power:  Neutrality, Pacificus and Helvidius.  The Neutrality Proclamation set a precedent for presidential power in foreign policy?

The Whiskey Rebellion -- precedent for assertion of federal authority

Washington on religious liberty: 

May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants—while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.

May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.

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Farewell Address:

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.

The Election of 1800

Louisiana Purchase and implied powers

War of 1812

Monroe Doctrine:

In the discussions to which this interest has given rise and in the arrangements by which they may terminate the occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers

. . .

With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintain it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.

 Andrew Jackson

• Veto as policy tool
• Spoils system
• Stand against nullifcation
• Ethnic cleansing

Lincoln

• Civil War timeline
• Lincoln letter to Albert Hodges on presidential prerogative
• Acting Solo: In the 80 days between the start of the war and the convening of Congress, Lincoln increased the size of the Army and Navy and spent money without appropriation.
• Suspension of Habeas Corpus:  Ruled unconstitutional in Ex parte Merryman, Lincoln ignored the ruling, setting a precedent for executive defiance of the judiciary during wartime.
• Military Tribunals for Civilians: He authorized the trial of civilians by military courts in areas where civil courts were still operational, a practice later checked by the Supreme Court in Ex parte Milligan (1866).=
• Executive orders and the Emancipation Proclamation
• Rhetoric: Gettysburg Address and second inaugural

The Very Long Shadow of the Civil War

Between 1876 and 1892, no president won a majority of the popular vote:

1876 Hayes.......... 48.0*
1880 Garfield.......48.3
1884 Cleveland.....48.5
1888 Harrison.......47.8*
1892 Cleveland......46.1

What does it mean to "get right with Lincoln"?