I think today it's hard to imagine a time when the Executive Branch was second in command to Congress, but based on what we learned in the last section, that seems to be what the framers had intended. Remember how it was still fresh in their minds that they had emerged from under a monarchy and they intended to never experience that again? Also, that many delegates refused to attend the Constitutional Convention? That was because they had no desire for a centralized government, and as representatives of their state they knew that was not what the people wanted either. Most colonists at the time were perfectly content with the idea of state sovereignty. In the last chapter, we saw the video with Professor Freeman where she explains that the Federalists ended up having their way not because they carried out the will of the people, but because delegates from across the Confederacy made the mistake of not showing up to oppose guys like Hamilton and Madison. Remember also what triggered the Revolutionary War, it was not that the colonists wanted to be independent. After all, most colonists were perfectly happy to call themselves loyal British subjects. It was due to the way they were being taxed *without consent* because that was an extremely big deal to them. The British tried to recoup their losses from the French and Indian war by levying taxes against the Colonists such as the one created by the Stamp Act, and that did not go over well at all. Therefore, the framers wrote the Constitution with that in mind. The framers had no intention of conferring the presidential office with an authority to act like a king who could act without the consent of Congress. The expansion of presidential authority began with Jefferson because he acted with a total disregard for the Constitution and against the will of Congress. On one hand, he campaigned for a limited Federal government and a close adherence to the Constitution, but once in office, he decided that a president was entitled to a variety of ‘implied powers’ which he used to completely overstep his bounds. He invoked implied powers for the presidency in order to make the Louisiana Purchase without first gaining the consent of Congress. And, that deal went way beyond anything the framers had envisioned. Then, there was the Embargo Act of 1807, which crippled the U.S. economy and basically set the stage for …show more content…
Jefferson acted in every way like a monarch, which is what the Constitution was supposed to protect against. He had no authority to withhold those letters from Judge Marshall. I hear people saying ‘we must trust the President!’ But it was never intended for the president to be so powerful or to go unchecked by Congress in the first place. My philosophy is that if you want to be president, then realize that everything relating to government is the business of Congress. I don’t think the country needs a president to act like a parental figure or a monarch. A president needs to share all information with Congress. Put it on the table for all the elected officials. We elected them too, and that was the process agreed to by Jefferson. It was supposed to be job of Congress to oversee his office. Unless we want to just scrap the Constitution, which would actually be fine with me. I would sign up for that in a