Write an Essay Discussing Whether or Not Presidents Are Powerful, Under What Circumstances, and Provide Specific Examples of Powerful Presidents?

The executive branch of the United States is also referred to as Presidency. Article 2 of the Constitution Section 1 refers to the President. Referring to Section 1 stating that the term is 4 years or until impeachment, death or inability to further claim duties and powers of office. Section 2 refers to the President also as the commander and chief of the Army, Navy and Statewide Militia. The President also has the power to appoint ambassadors, public ministers, supreme court judges as well as any other office whose state are not appointed. Section 3 states the President must give State of the Union to Congress for information for considerations of measures. Under the constitution the President has military, legislative, appointment, and diplomatic power. Our framers of the constitution wanted a strong military but not complete seizure of the government. Diplomatic powers and appointment powers are also under senate’s approval. The President’s legislative power can be over ridden by congress so by far this is not one of the power points of presidency. The President has sole powers of pardons granted. Under circumstances of war and terrorism the president engages in the most power. James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan are just to name a few powerful presidents in the United States History.
• Thomas Jefferson wrote the bills establishing religious freedom.
• Thomas Madison is referred to as the Father of the Constitution. He helped frame the bill of rights.
• Abraham Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation that declared slaves within the confederacy free.
• Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest President in nation’s history. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for mediating the Russo-Japanese War. He reached an agreement with Japan on immigration and sent the Great White Fleet on a good will tour of the world. His biggest accomplishments were in the conservation of national forests.
• Woodrow Wilson manipulated congress to pass three major pieces of legislation. These included a lower tariff, the Underwood Act, and Federal Income Tax.
• Lyndon B. Johnson had an agenda for congress in 1965 and it has the Great Society program to aid education, attack on disease, Medicare, urban renewal, beautification, and conservation development of depressed regions, a wide scale fight against property control and prevention of crime, and delinquency, removal of obstacles to the right to vote. He was therefore responsible for the act of 1965, Fair Housing Act of 1968, Medicare and Medicaid, food stamps program, school lunch program, head start, job corp., and finally elementary and secondary education act.

• Franklin Delano Roosevelt successfully had visions to combat the depression. Franklin Roosevelt had established the new deal policy. FDR got congress to pass legislation that radically altered size and shape of federal government. FDR expanded the government role in regulating the economy. FDR also was responsible for the Securities and Exchange Commission, National Labor Relations Act, Social Security, used the Bully pulpit and fireside charts.

• Ronald Reagan was powerful in that he advised tax cuts. He reasoned that if taxes went down the economy would flourish. He knew if the revenue went down, spending increased, federal budget deficit would be created. This gave him justification for proposing cuts in entitlement programs. He also took a firm stand against the Soviet Union. He was also referred to as the Great Communicator.
Mainly Presidents are as powerful as the constitution states. These are just a few examples of powerful presidents. Most all of the presidents have done amazing things for our government excluding a very few. With research I have found that Presidents are very powerful, but not in complete power, like once was originally thought to be true.

www.ushistory.org/gov/7a.asp Gateways to Democracy www.fdrlibrary.mar1st.edu www.whitehouse.gov