“In such constitutions there are two parts (not indeed separable with microscopic accuracy, for the genius of great affairs abhors nicety of division): first, those which excite and preserve the reverence of the population–the dignified parts, if I may so call them; and next, the efficient parts—those by which it, in fact, works and rules.” ~ Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution, 1867
The English political analyst Walter Bagehot was correct in his pronouncement that a functioning government is made up of two components: the dignified and the efficient. From this, I shall make a personal assertion: we, as Americans, do not know nor attempt to know what this means. Yes, we always desire an efficient government; we always attempt to elect one and become furious whenever Congress or the President cannot fulfill their promises. But, this desire does not extend to them striving to behave as exemplar models of dignity. The effects this has had on our collective institutional confidence are extraordinary.
Before I continue, I must make a quick note to the reader. I am not advocating for the adoption of a British style of government: we declared independence to attempt a democratic republican experiment. Instead, I am using this particular aspect of the unwritten British constitution to analyze a perceived defect in the American one and to recommend a remedy. It should not, therefore, be dismissed as that of an idealist but reviewed as a part of a wider introspection on the American identity.
Since the unprecedented turmoils of the 1960s and 1970s—from Vietnam to the Iranian Hostage Crisis—the confidence that Americans have in their nation and her governmental institutions has steeply declined [1]. How did this nation, this “Great Arsenal of Democracy” (as Franklin Roosevelt described it), lose her people’s respect in less than six decades? For us to get a sense of an answer to this question, I believe we must take a look at the evolution of the most visible and controversial position in our nation: that of the Office of the Presidency.
To understand this Office, we must look at the powers invested in it from the Constitution. Article II of the Constitution empowers the Office of the Presidency in a single clause: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States” (Article II, section 2, clause 1). No specifications are given as to what these executive powers are, making it a direct contrast to the confining perimeters set for the legislature by Article I. Herein lies our contemporary problem.
To understand the meaning behind this vagueness, we must turn back to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, when our founders attempted to rectify the errors of the Articles of Confederation. These Articles—our first constitutional attempt—granted a wide berth of authority to the states and purposefully rejected power separation to avoid any semblance to a European monarchy. These states jealously guarded their autonomy to the extent of ignoring the interests of their citizens. Their local legislatures—that is, the senates of each state—were autonomous to the point of eminence over the federal. This ineptitude culminated in Shays’s Rebellion, which ignited a national desire for a powerful federal legislature and judiciary presided over by a unifying federal executive. Formulating a powerful legislature and judiciary was easy for the Convention; deciding on what an executive would look like was quite another matter altogether. What powers would be entrusted to the individual, how exactly this individual would be chosen, and whether there would only be one individual; these were but a few of the many questions the framers debated over. Their deliberations—influenced heavily by The Federalist Papers [2], co-authored by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay—produced Article II of the Constitution. The point was to ensure that the Office was flexible in times of change but rigid enough to maintain the tenets of the Constitution [3] [4].
For nearly three centuries, our country has faced an array of unprecedented challenges, both foreign and domestic. Each has required an extraordinary vision, a commanding force, and a persuasive voice from an altruistic figure who is above the fray. The first five presidents—more or less—successfully did this and built our national foundations, from Washington’s two-term precedent and noble bearings to Monroe’s Doctrine that initiated America’s standing in the global theater. Certain presidents after, such as Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Gerard Ford, imitated them, fortifying the mortar that at times required departures from individual rights and institutional expectations—the termination of habeas corpus, the unparalleled four-term presidency, and the pardon of a disgraced former president—in order to “preserve the principles of democracy for the long-run” [5].
All presidents have had these intentions at heart whenever they act; yet, the development of social media, an expansive press, and entrenched partisan views have oriented the importance on the occupant rather than the Office and have distorted and sidelined this focus.
Permit me to use President Kennedy as an example of this modern, systematic emphasis on the individual. A popular, charismatic leader during the thick of the Cold War, his far-reaching, unrealistic rhetoric, coupled with his Hollywood glamor, aided an undue reverence to the officeholder—the individual—rather than the Office [6]. It inflated the legacy of this tragic young man, who lacked morality and discipline, into a Camelotian figure.
We, the People, expect the President not only to be an administrative fixer but to have the charms of a hero. We would like him to be better than a King, better than a Dei Gratia Rex. We want him to be a demigod.
We have empowered the presidents to be concerned about their popularity and to proclaim unity in public while behaving depravedly at the same time. We adore their extravagant affirmations and demagogic speeches. We would prefer them to move with the national currents, making promises of restoration and reversing moral decay with very little substance on how they are going to accomplish this. We are quite content—even though we say we aren't—with them simply being puppets on stage, creating policies that react to changes rather than enact any [7].
We have played a significant part in expanding this malaise through our ignorance and passive behavior. It is, therefore, not solely the responsibility of the President to make his office respectable again but that of us—the people. Perhaps we would do well to learn from the wisdom of two philosophical politicians—Cicero and Riezler—of two failed republics—the Roman and the Weimar—on what should be expected from a chief executive. The moment he is elected, he is, in essence, transfigured from the politician—who maneuvers from one short-lived smartness to next—into the statesman—who is a skillful and clever politician who actively carries out his laundry list of long and short-term goals [8]. Though the stability of institutions will fluctuate because of the everchanging times, it is the duty of the leader to embody and employ civil and political prudence, to serve as moderator and rector in order to be the source for the polity—the political institution—as a whole [9]. To be rector et gubernator civitatis: the model statesman.
Endnotes:
[1]“Public Trust in Government: 1958-2024,” Pew Research Center, June 24, 2024, https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust-in-government-1958-2024/.
[2] Melvyn Bragg and Guests, “The Federalist Papers,” October 12, 2023, on BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001r7sv.
[3] Joseph A. Pika, John A. Maltese, and Andrew Rudalevige, The Politics of the Presidency, (SAGE Publications Incorporated, 2020).
[4] Stephen F Knott, The Lost Soul of the American Presidency: The Decline Into Demagoguery and the Prospects for Renewal, (University Press of Kansas, 2019).
[5] American Political Thought: The Philosophical Dimension of American Statesmanship, eds. Morton J. Frisch, and Richard G. Stevens, (Transaction Publishers, 2011).
[6] Stephen F Knott, The Lost Soul of the American Presidency: The Decline Into Demagoguery and the Prospects for Renewal, passim.
[7] Kurt Riezler, “The Philosopher of History and the Modern Statesman.” Social Research 13, no. 3 (September): 368-380. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40982156.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Walter Nicgorski, “Cicero's Focus: From the Best Regime to the Model Statesman.” Political Theory 19, no. 2 (May 1991): 230-251. https://www.jstor.org/stable/191663.