Week 6: The Executive Branch

This week, it's all about the prez, and you get to be the teacher! For this independent-study lesson, please take notes as you read the following documents and watch the videos, and answer the questions below. We will have an in-class quiz on this lesson when we resume class on March 31st.

1) READ DOCUMENT 1: The Federalist No. 70 (excerpts below)

(March 15, 1788) 

To the People of the State of New-York. 

    ...Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks: It is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws, to the protection of property against those irregular and high handed combinations, which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction and of anarchy. Everyman the least conversant in Roman [hi]story knows how often that republic was obliged to take refuge in the absolute power of a single man, under the formidable title of dictator, as well against the intrigues of ambitious individuals, who aspired to the tyranny, and the seditions of whole classes of the community, whose conduct threatened the existence of all government, as against the invasions of external enemies, who menaced the conquest and destruction of Rome.

    There can be no need however to multiply arguments or examples on this head. A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble executive is but another phrase for a bad execution: And a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be in practice a bad government... 

    The ingredients, which constitute energy in the executive, are first unity, secondly duration, thirdly an adequate provision for its support, fourthly competent powers. 

    The circumstances which constitute safety in the republican sense are, 1st. a due dependence on the people, secondly due responsibility. Those politicians and statesmen, who have been the most celebrated for the soundness of their principles, and for the justness of their views, have declared in favor of a single executive and a numerous legislative. They have with great propriety considered energy as the most necessary qualification of the former, and have regarded this as most applicable to power in a single hand; while they have with equal propriety considered the latter as best adapted to deliberation and wisdom, and best calculated to conciliate the confidence of the people and to secure their privileges and interests. 

    That unity is conducive to energy will not be disputed. Decision, activity, secrecy, dispatch will generally characterise the proceeding of one man, in a much more eminent degree, than the proceedings of any greater number; and in proportion as the number is increased, these qualities will be diminished.

    This unity may be destroyed in two ways; either by vesting the power in two or more magistrates of equal dignity and authority; or by vesting it ostensibly in one man, subject in whole or in part to the controul and cooperation of others, in the capacity of counsellors to him.

    Wherever two or more persons are engaged in any common enterprize or pursuit, there is always danger of difference of opinion. If it be a public trust or office in which they are cloathed with equal dignity and authority, there is peculiar danger of personal emulation and even animosity. From either and especially from all these causes, the most bitter dissentions are apt to spring. Whenever these happen, they lessen the respectability, weaken the authority, and distract the plans and operations of those whom they divide. 

    Upon the principles of a free government, inconveniencies from the source just mentioned must necessarily be submitted to in the formation of the legislature; but it is unnecessary and therefore unwise to introduce them into the constitution of the executive... 

    But one of the weightiest objections to a plurality in the executive, and which lies as much against the last as the first plan, is that it tends to conceal faults, and destroy responsibility. Responsibility is of two kinds, to censure and to punishment. The first is the most important of the two; especially in an elective office. Man, in public trust, will much oftener act in such a manner as to render him unworthy of being any longer trusted, than in such a manner as to make him obnoxious to legal punishment. But the multiplication of the executive, adds to the difficulty of detection in either case. It often becomes impossible, amidst mutual accusations, to determine on whom the blame or the punishment of a pernicious measure, or series of pernicious measures ought really to fall. It is shifted from one to another with so much dexterity, and under such plausible appearances, that the public opinion is left in suspense about the real author. 

    ...I clearly concur in opinion in this particular with a writer whom the celebrated Junius pronounces to be "deep, solid and ingenious," that, "the executive power is more easily confined when it is one:"(b) That it is far more safe there should be a single object for the jealousy and watchfulness of the people; and in a word that multiplication of the executive is rather dangerous than friendly to liberty. 

PUBLIUS.

2) READ DOCUMENT 2: Article 2 of the Constitution

3) WATCH: What is the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government?

https://youtu.be/BWR2p9j9hWo

4) WATCH: How do Executive Orders Work?

https://youtu.be/oyOf3g-PJ94

5) ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS IN YOUR NOTES:

• What does executive mean?
• What are the qualifications to become president?
• What express powers does the president have?
• What implied powers does the president have?
• How does the president check Congress' power? How does Congress check the president's power?
• Why were the Founder’s afraid of giving executive power to a single executive? 
• How might having one person as president help create unity in the United States? How wouldn’t it?
• What "ingredients" does Hamilton list as things that constitute energy in the executive?
• What is so concerning about tyranny? Think about what Alexander Hamilton talked about in Federalist No. 70. 
• How can we prevent the president from becoming a tyrant?

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

ASSIGNMENTS:

WRITING: Should the president have the power to issue executive orders?

CONSTITUTION JOURNAL: Article 2, Section 1 (You can complete this as you study for the assignment above!)

HERO REPORTS: Pace yourselves and spend 30-45 minutes per day on this project. If you do, you will have a really impressive, stress-free, finished project, ready to turn on April 21st!

Have a wonderful Spring Break!