Executive Office Research Paper

The Executive Office is what defines and separates America from the rest of the World. In the newly formed Republic of the People, The President was the man elected by the People and served for the People, to ensure the direction of the Nation was of popular support. The Framers introduced a system with three branches of government— a judicial, a legislative, and an executive— sharing power under checks and balances. The role of the Executive Office in the conduction of foreign relations has incrementally been built, consolidated, and solidified by the personalities, actions, and legacies of the men who became President of America. Presidents, such as George Washington, James Polk, and Teddy Roosevelt, made it their role to defy the initial …show more content…
As the first President, Washington was faced with defining the President’s role. He planted the seeds of the Presidency’s relationship to Congress, when, in February 1793, France declared war on Britain, and caught America in the Middle. Washington made a daring proclamation that the US “should with sincerity and good faith adopt and pursue a conduct friendly and impartial toward the belligerent powers;” as well as deem it illegal to aid any Nation involved in the War. The power in this proclamation came from Washington’s awareness that the US “required the maintenance of peace until such a time”, when it would be properly suited to survive being caught up in Europe’s murderous wars. Washington ignited incremental consolidation of presidential power by using the space left open to interpretation of the constitution to cleverly manipulate the definition of powers for Congress over foreign relations. Presidents couldn’t declare war, but neutrality implied the nation wasn’t going to war, and nowhere did it state in the Constitution that the President both had or hadn’t the power to declare neutrality. In his Farewell Address, Washington implanted the legacies of his precedent neutrality and overarching ideology to reinterpret the constitution to consolidate Presidential power. He went before the nation straining the importance to maintain neutrality, to “steer clear of permanent alliances with any part of the foreign world.” Washington wanted a strong Nation on all fronts: political, economic, defense, and social, “to assure that the rising empire of the New World would not fall victim to the struggles of the Old.” Furthermore, Washington reminded the Nation that, “The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter