The Constitution and the role of the President

I'm Walter Isaacson of the Aspen Institute and I'm here with Professor Joseph Ellis Pilon surprise wedding historian and we've been talking about the Constitution one of the most important things they figure out in the Constitution is how to have an executive what we now call the president hmm walk me through the process of them figuring out the executive role it's a messy process they spent more time talking about the powers of the executive and what it should be than any other issue they it keeps coming up and then it keeps fading away and to come back at it again the truth of the matter is they're too real ghosts haunting the banquet one is slave we will talk about that later the other is monarchy any robust expression of executive authority will appear to most of them to be monarch achill and that feeling joins the third that's right how to revolution oh go back and reread the second to third or the final two thirds of the Declaration what kind words do we have about monarchy or government at all for that matter so that they're really nervous about creating an office that has too much test too much power and then there's another group Hamilton is in this group and Washington is in description you've over learned the lessons of 76 you've invited the executive branch of many of these state governments and that's not good and it wouldn't be good at the national level to so they eventually spend as much time trying to talk a figure out how to elect and how to impeach a present did they think of having the president elected by the Congress yes there are five or six of provo elected by the Senate elected by the whole Congress elected by general election by the people and they came close to that but they filter that through an electoral college right and James Wilson entities in favor of popular election of the presidency he's in favor of a seven one seven-year term right but in you do that instead of having an elected by the legislature that would have created more of a parliamentary democracy you would have had a parliamentary democracy then if we'd done it by the legislature which a lot of people wish we had right now and you know it ends up where you have a case as we do now and in other times where the president is of a different party than the people running say the House of Representative and we all we talk about the many reasons for gridlock that's one of them and that is something that they want that afraid of they were actually more afraid of runaway government than having the checks and balance a would rather err on the side of being too conservative and on the side of too grata let's here we are looking at the article 2 of the Constitution it says the executive power shall be invested in a president a term of four years and they'll be elected by sort of the state legislators putting electors to the electoral college but eventually there's a direct election for the electorate notice it doesn't say whether he can or cannot be reelected but it by saying nothing that presumes that he at this stage it would be he can be reelected and they got a controversial that's controversial they kind of assumed George Washington's first yes yes everybody knows that he's going to be the first president and he does us a great favor by stepping down after two terms which is not a usual thing right he they all assumed he would die in office right and he wanted not to die off but he sets a precedent by running for two terms and then giving over power so they create this whole structure of a legislature what in the document particularly strikes you as being important in defining that I would say that there's nothing president does have a lot of power over foreign policy in this what power he has over domestic policy is very unclear right and it was purposely it was unclear because they couldn't reach agreement on this but that the power of the President of the executive branch will it will get defined less by this document yeah then by what Washington does in his first two terms right and so it says the President shall be the commander-in-chief of the army and that especially gives them foreign policy power right and then he makes treaties but with the advice and consent of the now what did that mean what did that mean Washington thought it meant that you had to go to the Senate and present this to them and let them debate it and so he goes to the sent the first treaty that he signs is with a the Creek Indians okay he goes there and they don't know what to call them they don't know where to sit they say we go to point this to send this to us subcommittee he like leaps up and says to Henry Knox secretary would there's ruins to purpose for me ever coming here and so he has to come back to get the approval of the Senate but that's the last time the President of the United States goes to the Senate for advice and consent from that time forward it's going to be a written thing you know one of the cool things what you're saying about this document is that it's living and breathing it gets defined by other people who come along it constrains them but they get to shape it a bit right it's got little nooks and crannies in it that you don't notice until all of a sudden a certain crisis comes up and my goodness they've already thought about that you know I even today we still have this crisis about way down here in section 2 it says the power to fill vacancies that may happen during the recess and we still fight over what does the recess appointment mean every president says it means more than the next one it seems but the out party always denies that that's the way it is now I think that the document especially on the executive branch is deliberately ambiguous and when Washington is elected they don't know what to call him lately they have a debate and like Adam says his highness His Majesty John Adams John Adamson he didn't they make a fool I times for saying this yeah he always gets hard we have brought that to the mana that's right that that's right he kind of was a Ben Franklin though no he's not really he's a but he for Europe the constitutional monarchy not for us but eventually they say well we'll just call it the president and the president was the word that was used under the Articles okay but if you think about it Walter now you have to erase 200 years of writing history from your mind for a second what does the president do he's precise and presiding is it really that much of right John that's right that's right what will happen is Washington will define it so that it is a symbolic minar kacal office and the Prime Minister at the same time that's great thank you very much professor