An Imperial Presidency Essay

1416 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The war in Vietnam and the Gulf of Tonkin resolution

An Imperial Presidency

Writers of the constitution intended for congress to be the most powerful branch of government. They invested in the president: the powers of the monarch, but subjected him to the democratic principles of accountability which was ensured by a complex system of parliamentary and judicial checks and balances. For over a century the US got along fine with a relatively weak president whose major role was simply to carry out the laws and policies made by congress, however, there has been erosion in this system.

Presidential power only started to grow after the 19th century when the US set out on its path to empire.

A great transformation of the president’s power came with Franklin …show more content…

Towards the end of Clintons second term, the imperial presidency was as free and as alarming as it has been at any time since the Vietnam War.

Now, with all this said the important question is to know how the current administration works, “Is President George w. Bush acting as an imperial president?” with the controversy on his first election and the horrific terrorist attack on September 11. Terrorism is a word that instils fear into hearts of many. Terrorism is another word for rebellion. During the tsarist regime in Russia, terrorism came in the form of anarchy and the secret police was put in the position of putting an end to it. Terrorism is a crime against humanity and as such should be treated as a criminal offence and should be dealt with by the police.

President W. Bush declaring war on terrorism without the approval of congress is unconstitutional and it is an abuse of power. The war in my opinion was infused with the spirit of seeking unilateral American dominance.

President Bush’s policies on foreign affairs are examples of his arrogance of power; telling President Yasser Arafat to step down …show more content…

US forces were already involved in Vietnam when Lyndon Johnson engineered the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of 1964, and George Bush Senior agreed in a two-day Senate debate on US intervention in the Persian Gulf, but George W. Bush has surpassed his predecessors in the assumption of imperial powers--most obviously, perhaps, in his tendency to conflate America's war against terrorism with his own existential destiny. "I will not forget this wound to our country," he told the nation shortly after September 11. "I will not yield; I will not rest; I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people." In assuming this pivotal role, moreover, Bush has made it clear that he will allow no boundaries not even on his exercise of national power. The president made the arbitrary decision to designate as a foreign “enemy combatant” Some Americans are being held incommunicado in a military brig without due process of law and without charges... in suspect of being related to al-Qaeda and possessing a dirty bomb[2]. These people are being denied their

Show More
Related

  • Comparing Imperial Presidency by Arthur Schlesinger and Presidental Power by Richard Neustadt

    2161 Words  | 5 Pages

    an in-depth view of what the framers intended and how they set the stage for

    Read More

  • Dbq Essay On Presidential Power

    528 Words  | 2 Pages

    Can you imagine president controlling your life? The constitution use three different forms to make a group or a person from getting too much power on his hands. The are three types of power that each contusion have in order to keep power equal. One of them is Legislative Branch Congress “Can approve Presidential nominations”(Document C). It’s a example how governments try to keep power equal.

    Read More

  • 9/11 Informative Speech

    1371 Words  | 3 Pages

    Host: On September the 11th 2001, the notorious terror organisation known as Al-Qaeda struck at the very heart of the United States. The death count was approximately 3,000; a nation was left in panic. To this day, counterterrorism experts and historians alike regard the event surrounding 9/11 as a turning point in US foreign relations. Outraged and fearful of radical terrorism from the middle-east, President Bush declared that in 2001 that it was a matter of freedoms; that “our very freedom has come under attack”. In his eyes, America was simply targeted because of its democratic and western values (CNN News, 2001). In the 14 years following this pivotal declaration, an aggressive, pre-emptive approach to terrorism replaced the traditional

    Read More

  • The Three Empires

    952 Words  | 2 Pages

    Post Classical politics first came to be when Kong Fuzi or Confucius brought it up during the classical era. Confucius was an educator and a political advisor. At the time, China was experiencing problems and Confucius helped to settle everything. He passed his knowledge on to students who then created analects which are political and cultural traditions that Confucius had taught. Confucius was a very wise man. He did not answer philosophical questions because it did not help to solve the problems at hands and he refused to answer religious question because it was too complex for mere human beings to understand. He believed that political and social harmony came from appropriate arrangements of human relationships with one another. To him, the country should not have been ruled by someone born into power, but to someone who was erudite and incredibly meticulous. When the post classical era came around Yang Jian brought China back to an un-centralized rule after their collapse during the Han dynasty. During the Tang Dynasty they came up with the “bureaucracy based on merit” (Bentley and Zeigler, p. 378) or by recruiting government officials.

    Read More

  • The Executive Branch Power: Enough or Not Enough?

    601 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is obvious the president was not given enough power under the Constitution. This is in part because Article II of the Constitution was written in a short period of time with little thought. Many presidents have had to make unclear decisions with little information about the circumstance in the Constitution and the president is beginning to take over the government due to increasing implied powers. However the president’s power has recently proven that it has outgrown the constitution and is swiftly evolving. The Constitution gave the president broad but vague powers, including the authorization to appoint judges and other officials with the Senate’s consent, veto bills, lead the military as commander and chief and make sure “that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Many of these powers however are shared with the Legislative Branch, and cause conflict within the government.

    Read More

  • The Power Struggle between the President and Congress

    862 Words  | 2 Pages

    ... in office and how the congress will act toward the President; whether he be a President that demands respect or one who forfeits it and whether the Congress gives in to the demands of the Executive or if the Congress comes down on t he Executive like a hammer on a nail. This can be accomplished by viewing the circumstances in which a President takes office, the manner in which he carries himself during his term, and the way in which the President leaves as Commander in Chief. Conclusion: The President has neither gained nor lost power. There exists the same balance between Executive and Congress as there was when Washington was sworn in as America's first President. The only difference between then and now, is the fact that today we must wade through the layers of insignificance and precedents that history has forged against us, the political thinker and historian.

    Read More

  • Convicted Felons Should Retain The Right to Vote

    1610 Words  | 4 Pages

    such a large number of people be denied a constitutional right? They have been excluded from

    Read More

  • Imperialist Stirrings in America

    1396 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although somewhat annoyed by the weaker United States, Britain chose to not to fight a war. Britain's rich merchant marine was vulnerable to American commerce raiders...

    Read More

  • The Canadian Justice System V.s. Aboriginal People

    568 Words  | 2 Pages

    justice has also been denied to them. For more than a century the rights of

    Read More

  • Models Of Presidential Power

    2075 Words  | 5 Pages

    When the constitution of the United States was formed, the framers specifically designed the American Government structure to have checks and balances and democracy. To avoid autocracy the President was give power to preside over the executive branch of the government and as commander –in –chief, in which a clause was put into place to give the president the power to appeal any sudden attacks against America, without waiting for a vote from congress. While the president presides over the executive branch there has been ongoing debate over the role of the president in regards to foreign policy. Should foreign policy issues be an executive function by the president or should congress play a much greater role? With the sluggishness of our democracy,

    Read More

  • The Transformation of America

    1375 Words  | 3 Pages

    Most Americans believe that the troop presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is due to the terrorist attacks on the United States. And while it is hard to deny that the 9-11 attacks were the impetus for putting boots on the ground, it is imperative that the chain of events following the horror of September 11 are seen to reflect the willingness and wants of actors in control before the towers fell. In no field other than politics does the justification for action often come from a noteworthy event and the true cause stays hidden behind the headlines.... ... middle of paper ... ...

    Read More

  • The United States and the Era of Imperialism

    2453 Words  | 5 Pages

    Never interfere with Europe was the cry of the founding fathers. Our very first president, George Washington warned us not to get involved with foreign powers. The spirit at the time of our nation’s birth was isolationism. The infant United States of America could not afford to get it’s hand caught in the cookie jar of world affairs. As children grow they get stronger, and the growth of the United States was no different. By the end of the Civil War the United States had muscles to flex. At the time the world was enthralled in the Age of Imperialism, in which a nation’s power was derived from it’s overseas holdings. The United States, who had just proved that it could beat itself up, was not going to be excluded from imperialistic contest the world arena provided. So, the United States was ushered into the Era of Imperialism.

    Read More

  • War Powers Resolution Case Study

    770 Words  | 2 Pages

    However, as Arthur Schlesinger Jr. argues, “presidential primacy, so indispensable to the political order, has turned into supremacy, and we can see an appropriation by the presidency of powers reserved by the constitution and by long historical practice to congress.” Although following president Richard Nixon’s resignation, Congress was resurgent and the foreign policy power of the presidency appeared to be waning, in the post-September 11 era, in dealing with terrorism, the Bush administration pushes the boundaries on the presidential use of force and threats the balance between the executive and legislative branches. However, Congress approved Bush’s request for $87 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan with little changes and failed to deal with the Iraqi prison abuse scandal. In the post-9/11 era Congress has failed to arrest the growth of the imperial presidency in foreign policy, rendering the WPR little more than a symbolic declaration of lost

    Read More

  • Which Branch Of Government Is More Powerful?

    1120 Words  | 3 Pages

    The United States government is designed with checks and balances to ensure that no one branch can become more powerful than another. Though this may be the case, it is still possible that one branch of the our government can still be more powerful than the others. The equality of power in our government has constantly changed over the course of the life of the United States. Although these changes have occurred, we still have not made all of the branches equal and the inequality has been due to meet the demands of the time. For example, in 1938 our country was facing a depression and nothing was getting done. So, Roosevelt took it upon himself to give the Executive branch more power, to then in turn, help the country creep back out of the hole it had dug itself. After the country didn’t need the reform bills and the size of the government that Roosevelt had put it, things were then downsized and put into a more stable equilibrium. Though there were attempts to make everything equal, the Legislative Branch now holds the majority of the power, and is the most powerful branch that our government has.

    Read More

  • Presidential Power

    450 Words  | 1 Pages

    Richard E. Neustadt, the author of Presidential Power, addresses the politics of leadership and how the citizens of the United States rate the performance of the president's term. We measure his leadership by saying that he is either "weak or "strong" and Neustadt argues that we have the right to do so, because his office has become the focal point of politics and policy in our political system.

    Read More

More about An Imperial Presidency Essay

Open Document