University of Baltimore law professor Garrett Epps offers in the new Atlantic a Jeffersonian critique of the Hamiltonian notion of a powerful American executive:
The modern presidency is primarily the intellectual handiwork not of ?the Framers? but of one Framer?Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton?s idea of the presidency can be found in a remarkable speech he gave to the convention, on June 18, 1787. In it, Hamilton argued that the president should serve for life, name Cabinet members without Senate approval, have an absolute veto on legislation, and have ?the direction of war? once ?authorized or begun.? The president would be a monarch, Hamilton admitted, but an ?elective monarch.?
Hamilton?s plan was so far from the mainstream of thought at the convention that none of its provisions was ever seriously discussed. Nonetheless, Hamilton was and remains the chief theorist of the presidency, first in writing his essays for The Federalist and then in serving as George Washington?s secretary of the Treasury. In this latter role, acting as Washington?s de facto prime minister, Hamilton took full advantage of the vagueness and brevity of Article II, laying the groundwork for an outsize presidency while the war-hero Washington was still in office.
Those two paragraphs would not have been out of place in Thomas DiLorenzo?s recent book, Hamilton?s Curse.
Unlike DiLorenzo, though, Epps does not follow the Jeffersonian theme toward its natural conclusion: a constrained executive, along with a constrained Congress and judiciary, in a system designed to give states a major role in a government based on ?checks and balances.?
As we?ve said in another recent post, the concept is called federalism.
