Shaping the Presidency Part VI

ArticleVBlog ^ | August 22nd 2019 | Rodney Dodsworth

[Jacquerie]

No other topic at the Federal Convention, our Article II chief Executive, demanded more time and debate. Our Framers needed some sixty votes to arrive at their brilliant Electoral College. Unlike the politics of redesigning Congress, the chief Executive emerged not from the clash of wills between large and small States, but from a series of ingenious efforts to design a new institution suitably energetic but safely republican. From the beginning to the end of the convention, delegates wrestled with Executive powers, the balance of those powers with Congress, and how a free people could design an office that prevented the trappings of monarchy, minimized internal and external corruption, promoted men like George Washington and avoided the likes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Having survived the day before a near breakup and dissolution over equality of State representation in the Senate, delegates returned to the Executive branch, this time meeting in Convention.¹ It was time to thrash through the recommendations of the committee-of-the-whole, and we’ll see over the next few days a schizophrenic quality to the proceedings.

Delegates bounced back and forth between weak chief Executives dominated by Congress and strong Executives independent of Congress. Ditto for term length and re-eligibility for office. A weak Executive, a simple administrator of the law, could be trusted for much longer terms, perhaps even for life on condition of good behavior, than a strong Executive with a veto power over congressional bills, military duties, and influence over judicial appointments and treaties.

As delegates continued to chase their tails on July 19th, we’ll see that Alexander Hamilton doesn’t deserve the modern opprobrium as the sole “monarchist” at the convention. No matter one’s views today, delegates in 1787 respected the English monarchy as an institution. English kings were above faction.

[Vendome]

“Our Framers needed some sixty votes to arrive at their brilliant Electoral College. “

Not,To argue the point but, that is the standard today but, not the standard then, as it has always been a 2/3rds requirement and the ascent of the several states, during that time, required 9 states in the affirmative

[aspasia]

Not much chat here, but since you posted, the Queen of England has stepped in at the request of PM Boris Johnson to prorogue Parliament. (You know, "democratic" plotters are seeking by referendum to do away with that pesty British monarch, in perpetuum).

August 28, 2019 should be noted by all FR political scientist and monarchists as remarkable, considering the inherent dangers that democracies lead to. De Tocqueville made this clear in his chapters, "What sort of despotism have democratic nations to fear?"