The Creation of the Presidency, 1775-1789: A Study in Constitutional History

Front Cover
Johns Hopkins Press, 1923 - Executive power - 182 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 30 - For this reason that convention, which passed the ordinance of government, laid its foundation on this basis, that the legislative, executive and judiciary departments should be separate and distinct, so that no person should exercise the powers of more than one of them at the same time.
Page 150 - Congress the power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution' "' "all powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States or in any department or officer thereof.
Page 161 - ... that there shall be a principal officer therein, to be called the secretary of the department of foreign affairs, who shall perform and execute such duties as shall, from time to time, be enjoined on, or intrusted to him by the president of the United States...
Page 23 - Give all power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, they will oppress the many.
Page 154 - ... whenever the said principal officer shall be removed from office by the President of the United States...
Page 92 - Executive to be as follows: to have a negative on all laws about to be passed, and the execution of all laws passed; to have the direction of war when authorized or begun; to have with the advice and approbation of the Senate the power of making all treaties; to have the sole appointment of the heads or chief officers of the departments of Finance, War and Foreign Affairs...
Page 170 - ... that the legislative, executive, and judiciary powers ought to be kept as separate from and independent of each other as the nature of a free government will admit, or as is consistent with that chain of connection that binds the whole fabric of the Constitution in one indissoluble bond of unity and amity.
Page 64 - A single man in each department of the administration would be greatly preferable. It would give us a chance of more knowledge, more activity, more responsibility, and, of course, more zeal and attention. Boards partake of a part of the inconveniences of larger assemblies. Their decisions are slower, their energy less, their responsibility more diffused.
Page 86 - He did not consider the Prerogatives of the British Monarch as a proper guide in defining the Executive powers. Some of these prerogatives were of a Legislative nature. Among others that of war & peace &c. The only powers he conceived strictly Executive were those of executing the laws, and appointing officers, not (appertaining to and) appointed by the Legislature.
Page 22 - What I most fear is, that the better kind of people (by which I mean the people -who are orderly and industrious, who are content with their situations, and not uneasy in their circumstances) will be led by the insecurity of property, the loss of confidence in their rulers, and the want of public faith and rectitude, to consider the charms of liberty as imaginary and delusive. A state of uncertainty and fluctuation must disgust and alarm such men, and prepare their minds for almost any change that...

Bibliographic information