The Electoral College was created to help simplify the process of electing a president. Marc Schulman, an expert in American History said, “The first reason that the founders created the Electoral College is hard to understand today. The founding fathers were afraid of direct election to the Presidency. They feared a tyrant could manipulate public opinion and come to power” (1). When the founding fathers of the Constitution tried to think of a way to elect a president, many different ideas were considered.
The Government places too much power in the hands of the president. Public policy should not be dominated by a single person. That leads to radicalism and tyranny. Congress should be the dominate organ of government. Though compromise may seem like gridlock, it is far better that a single ideology being imposed on the
Such may include the executive, judiciary and legislature (Thomas, 2008). This paper seeks to argue that the United States Constitution limits the presidential powers, and thus governing presidents should act in the best interest of the public. The presidency is the popular symbol of governmental authority. Therefore, the president is the chief administrator or the chief executive of a given country. In most countries, the presidency is a constitutional office with a specific term and a specific procedure for electing the president.
The two great leaders just differed too greatly in their views over a few fundamental areas at the time, thus making the development of political parties inevitable. Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson differed greatly in their opinions over who, exactly, should lead the government, and how, exactly, the Constitution should be interpreted. Hamilton, on one hand, thought that the common people that composed the vast majority of the population of the United States were utterly incapable of self-government. Said Hamilton in 1792, “Your people, sir, is a great beast,” thus exemplifying the Federalist belief that
(Patterson, 417) It is safe say that many that the Whig theory is a very restrictive idea of the Presidency, and would make a President like more than a simple figurehead. I believe that the Presidency became much more powerful and remembered when Presidents got away from the Whig theory and leaned more towards a theory of Stewardship in their Presidency. It would also seem that the Stewardship theory is more for President’s who wanted to take an active role in the leadership of the country, whereas Presidents who wanted more to follow the lead of others, and to have their decisions made for them, were more inclined towards the Whig
Many people believe that the Electoral College is outdated and we should not use it anymore. One will argument that the Electoral College can make sure people are making the right choice in choosing our president. Another reason why we are still using this voting system is because in order to get rid of it, it would require a constitutional amendment, which is extremely hard to pass. In order to pass/ratify an amendment, three fourths of the states have to agree upon changing the Constitution. This is very unlikely to happen because the Electoral College benefits the smaller states.
As a result, popular sovereignty in American democracy is greatly inhibited. The idea of popular sovereignty is closely related to the idea of direct democracy, where the individual has absolute power to make law. In current American government indirect democracy through representatives is utilized, leaving room for public interest groups, like the NRA, to sway legislatures through whatever means they see fit. The role that interest groups play would be significantly decreased if they had the responsibility of persuading a majority of the American people towards their cause. The differing of gun control policy from public opinion clearly displays how sovereignty is most commonly placed in the legislature.
(Bradley & Goldsmith, pg. 2091) Congress intended the President to have this kind of power so that he could use his powers of military force against a foreign enemy/force without having to go through the necessary, long steps of declaring war. Without this power, the President would be at a “unilateral disadvantage” and not be able to take and carry out the war effectively. (Bradley & Goldsmith, pg. 2091) Though, there could be some delegation within that matter to argue that the President does not have the full powers of war because they are not “implicitly delegated” by the Congress to the President.
The effect was to ignore a law he is bound to enforce and simple not enforce it. Kings and monarchs engage in this behavior. They rule by edict. The president is not acting like the president; he is acting like a king. If he can simply ignore laws he doesn’t want to enforce for whatever reason, what keeps him from simply doing what he wants and ignoring the congress of the United States?
The initial difficulty is the Electoral College, which makes it possible for the president to be selected without being the choice of a popular majority. Levinson believes that the composition of the electoral college gives unfair advantaged to states with small populations Article II also makes it much too hard for the public to remove a sitting president from