Following Washington's Lead, Part 2
This lecture examines Washington's precedents that settled powers left blank by the text, such as the neutrality proclamation establishing presidential foreign policy authority. It delineates the boundary where Washington overreached by implying criminal law creation and details how the Decision of 1789 solidified the president's removal power.
Washington's precedents settled powers the text left blank, but even he overreached once. Akhil Reed Amar marks the line between a gloss on ambiguity and a clear textual violation.
This lecture works through Washington's neutrality proclamation, which established the president as the nation's voice in foreign policy, and the point where it went too far by implying a presidential power to create criminal law, later rejected in Hudson and Goodwin. Amar then turns to the removal power: the Decision of 1789 confirmed that presidents may fire cabinet officers at will, a rule the text never states plainly but everyone now accepts.
Following Washington's Lead, Part 1
Next · Lecture 17Interpreting Government Practices, Part 1