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Continued assertions of a presidential prerogative power, broad enough, in the literary tradition of the Lockean Prerogative to permit the president in an emergency to act in the absence or violation of law, raises anew the question of the existence, source, and scope of such extraordinary authority. This article explains that the framers of the Constitution delivered a constitutional and historical rebuke to the concept of executive prerogative. As Justice Jackson observed in the Steel Seizure Case, the framers recognized that the possession of an emergency power would 'tend to kindle emergencies.' Presidential violation of the Constitution is illegal and can be made legal only through congressional passage of retroactive ratification., Continued assertions within scholarly precincts and the corridors of power of the need to concentrate in the executive authority to meet foreign affairs and national security challenges, particularly in the [...]

Alexander Hamilton's writings, virtually alone among the framers, were invoked by President George W. Bush and his legal advisors as the cornerstone of the administration's assertions of sweeping executive powers in the areas of war and peace and national security. The Bush administration's conscription of Hamilton to justify its soaring claims of presidential power, however, represents a distortion and abuse of his views of the latter president's views, particularly those expressed in The Federalist Papers. With the loss of Hamilton as an intellectual pillar, President Bush's theory of a plenary executive power finds no support among the framers. Analysis of Hamilton's writings will repair his undeserved reputation as an apologist for expansive executive powers., 'Mine,' Alexander Hamilton declared, 'has been an odd destiny' (Knott 2002, 1-228; Rossiter 1964, 226). Even in death, it may be added. Hamilton's long career--the controversies that his views have [...]

The power of recognition has been exercised by presidents of the twentieth century as an instrument of high prerogative to make and conduct the foreign policy of the United States. The exercise of this power rarely has engendered criticism or controversy. The practice scarcely has been questioned. Indeed, there is a prevalent assumption that the president may use the power 'to receive Ambassadors' as a rudder with which to steer the Ship of State. This paper examines the historical origins of the president's power of recognition. Specifically, does the reception clause confer upon the president a discretionary authority to determine whether and with which nations the United States shall have relations, or does it vest in the president a purely ministerial function? As demonstrated by the writings of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson and others in the context of the debate surrounding President George Washington's Neutrality Proclamation in 1793, the recognition clause was viewed, not as a fountainhead of presidential power, but as a routine mechanical function, an almost dutiful act devoid of discretion. The recognition clause was drafted against a background of international law presuppositions which clearly shaped the framers' understanding of its nature.

By Don Van Natta, Jr. New York: Public Affairs, 2003. 357 pp. Ever since President Theodore Roosevelt first warned his hand-picked successor, William Howard Taft, that playing the game of [...]

Presidential Machismo: Executive Authority, Military Intervention and Foreign Relations. By Alexander DeConde. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1999. 391 pp. In a compelling narrative, written in the fine, lucid prose that [...]

The Clinton Wars: The Constitution, Congress, and War Powers by Ryan C. Hendrickson. Nashville, Vanderbilt University Press, 2002.224 pp. Cloth, $49.95; paper, $24.95. Since 1950, the War Clause of the [...]

Presidential War Power. By Louis Fisher. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995. 245p. $29.95 cloth, $14.95 paper. Louis Fisher, prize-winning scholar and the nation's leading authority on separation of powers, [...]

This article explores the institutional contributions to presidential hegemony over the nation's foreign policy. Executive aggrandizement of foreign affairs powers rests on a faulty assertion of constitutional and legal claims and misplaced policy assumptions. It hinges, moreover, on extravagant assertions of presidential prerogative and emergency powers and false allusions to historical precedents. At all events, presidential domination of American foreign policy finds no support in the constitutional text, the discussions and debates in Philadelphia or in the architecture of the Constitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]