The second-most important “branch” of our Republic’s government is the Executive. To most people, this means the President, or “The White House.” It is much, much larger than that – grievously so. There is no accurate count of the number of Departments, Agencies, Offices and Titles that are funded, almost without question or oversight, in the sloppy budgeting process that Congress standardly fails to control. The total is well over a thousand; how close to two thousand, no one can tell. If Congress were forced to oversee every line-item in the budget, we’d probably see a quick reduction, consolidation or elimination of hundreds of these tax-consuming, practically parasitic entities. But Article II is about the powers of the Executive, how he (or she) is elected, and to what actions the President and his/her appointees are sworn.
Mostly, voters and other citizens (we hope, citizens) are concerned about and are told about how well the President is fulfilling his promises in office. The President is NOT the most powerful person in his “administration.” Who is, varies.
Among the “big” Departments – “Cabinet-level Departments” – are Defense, Treasury, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Commerce, Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Labor, State, Transportation and Veterans Affairs. Originally, there were just 4 men who comprised Washington’s “cabinet,” a relatively informal group of advisors: Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of War, Henry Knox and Attorney General, Edmund Randolph. Each was a “founder” of the new nation and involved in the creation of the Constitution. Each had his views of how the government should be administered and what the Federal Government’s interactions with “the people” and with the States, should be. We are still deciding.
Washington’s status was such that no one was prepared to attack him directly, but political parties soon developed as politically powerful leaders like Hamilton and Jefferson, Madison, Adams and Monroe, among others, and Jackson, later, sought followers to their views. These were the “factions” that were feared by Madison and others writing in the “Federalist Papers.” Washington sought statesmanship from his advisors… like his own. But it became rarer and rarer as party factionalism took hold. The framers of the Constitution expected loyalty to States to be the competing interests that would, in effect, strengthen the new Union of States. Party factionalism, as we can see today, has nearly obliterated those sovereign concerns, as Federal power has become the big prize… and source of wealth both licit and illicit.
The election of a President is done by the Electoral College, one of the earliest topics in Article II, to which 376 words are devoted. The framers, fairly fresh from the Revolutionary War, were very concerned about the creation of an executive officer, having lately fought against executive excess. They did not want the selection process to be “democracy” without severe restrictions that protected the rights of States. The model Republic they hoped to create would have “checks” and “balances” on executive power and even on legislative power. As much as was workable – if not practical – they wanted a chance for statesmanship and reflection to filter out “faction” and emotion in the selection of a President. Their wisdom resulted in the Electoral College. Today we can see the Constitutional mechanisms that are most worth defending by the nature of the heated emotions that wish to sidestep them, altogether. Every Presidential “election” is blanketed with statistics about the “popular vote,” especially when the Electoral winner received fewer votes in gross total than the person who did not win in the Electoral college. That he or she did or didn’t is immaterial; but the “popular vote” is announced by all media as if it mattered.
The Constitution does not provide for National elections; we have State elections, now 50 of them, by law on the same day. Every 4 years, citizens of the 50 states elect slates of Electors who will later vote in the “Electoral College” for the President / Vice-President “ticket” to which they are committed, having gained a majority or a plurality of the popular vote in their respective States. Every State’s election stands on its own, irrespective of the size of the majority or plurality of the popular vote in other states. We employ democratic process to elect people whose Constitutional function strengthens the REPUBLIC. The REPUBLIC is strengthened by the federation of its sovereign States; the rights and sovereignty of those States must be protected and defended by the powers ceded to the federal government. It was the citizens of States – States that pre-existed the federal government and the federation, itself – who ratified the Constitution and the Bill of Rights: the first ten amendments without which ratification would have been impossible.
The two keys to our Republic’s success and endurance include an EXECUTIVE who is checked by the power of the people – expressed in Congress – and, as John Adams incisively stated (one might say, predicted), “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” We have embarked on a course of denying government responsibility for promoting morality. Indeed, we are rushing to make legal immoral actions in order for governments at every level to share in their illicit proceeds. What a foul recalculation of the meaning of liberty.
Presidents after Washington have pressed for greater freedom of action without the slow action of Congress, almost continuously. Abraham Lincoln was the first to suspend basic rights due to the emergencies of the Civil War. The relationship of the federal government to individual citizens changed dramatically in the years following, and even before the end of Civil War. The Emancipation Proclamation applied Executive power to the problems of black individuals in multiple states. Following the war a federal agency, the “Pension Office” under the authority of the “Commissioner of Pensions” organized to evaluate claims due to both physical and mental injuries incurred during the Civil War. Today there are, as noted above, well over 1,000 federal agencies and departments. Ostensibly, the President directs their work and function but, in fact, most of the Executive “branch” runs on its own, including lobbying Congress for never-ending funding and support.
The President is charged with being the “Commander in Chief” of the Army and Navy (and added military branches, now) AND OF THE “Militias” of the several states when called into service of the United States. Who those “Militias” are is not well-defined, although referenced in the Constitution and in the Second Amendment. Pre-existing the Army, the “National Guard” grew from colonial militias who defended against “Indian” attack, especially as the “frontier” encroached on Native lands, and later against the French and their native allies.
The “Army” was created from the Militias and State “Guards” during the Revolutionary War. Had it not been for General George Washington’s personal leadership, the Revolution would have failed as soldiers completed their periods of voluntary service, but who stayed to complete Washington’s mission of independence. It is difficult to grasp the privation and sacrifice required to pursue the war with Britain; few in today’s America are capable of what Revolutionary soldiers endured.
The Minutemen of Massachusetts grew, purposefully, out of the regiments of Militia. They were trained by veterans of the Indian and French-Indian wars and were the defenders against the British at Lexington and Concord, as the British sought to disarm the colonists. More regiments from Massachusetts served in the “Continental Army” than from any other colony/State, and formed the basis of the United States Army. The President is charged, ultimately, with command – and DEPLOYMENT – of all of the military forces, including calling up Reserve troops and the National Guard(s) of the several States, WITHOUT a declaration of a state of War, which only the Congress can effect. The “War Powers Act” in 1973, changed the basic relationship dictated by the Constitution.
In response to President Nixon’s secret bombing campaign in Cambodia during the Vietnam War, Congress attempted to reign in the creeping expansion of Presidential powers as Commander in Chief. Still, it recognized the perceived need for swift response to armed actions almost anywhere in the world where the PRESIDENT can articulate (within 48 hours of taking military action for up to 60 days without further Congressional approval) a “national interest” of the United States. This is a codification of the U. S.’s perceived role as “the world’s policeman,” and a dangerous relinquishing of Congressional, and, therefore, States’ authority over the commitment of their citizens to actions of deadly threat. All in all it is a stark example of how the Executive has become the super-representative of “the American people,” basically in opposition to Congress’ Constitutional power of representing the will of the citizens of the several States.
Since the end of World War II, and most particularly following the assassination of President Kennedy, the “federal” government has rushed to become a “National” government, directly undercutting the design of the Constitution for a Republic of united, somewhat sovereign States. Every heated declaration of “threat to our democracy” or “protecting our democracy” is premised on the desire for pure “majority rule” in the wielding of “national” power, no matter how temporarily a majority might be created for any cause or idea, rather than a republic-like careful deliberation and application of wisdom before action is taken or changes to governance made.
Constant reference to the Constitution and its amendments, is necessary to measure how far we have drifted from, and how much further some wish for us to drift from, the ideals and responsibilities of the American experiment and the “limited” Executive thereof.