Presidential Powers, Part 2
This lecture examines presidential powers unparalleled by a monarch, such as the veto and the Vesting Clause, as textual bases for broad executive authority including removal power and treaty negotiation.
Article II gave the president powers no English king held, including one Lincoln used to suspend habeas corpus. Akhil Reed Amar explains the textual basis and the two checks that made it tolerable.
This lecture measures the presidency against the two offices the framers knew: a state governorship it far outstripped, and a monarchy it deliberately fell short of. Amar starts with the veto, which makes the president effectively a third chamber, and the salary guarantee that Congress can neither raise nor cut, then turns to the Vesting Clause. Article I grants powers "herein granted"; Article II does not, which is the textual root of a residual executive power covering removal of cabinet officers, secret treaty negotiation, repelling invasion, and Lincoln's suspension of the writ before Congress could reconvene. Each of those, Amar notes, was ratified after the fact by Congress or the Senate, from the Louisiana Purchase onward. He then covers command of the army but not the state militias, the pardon power and its national security logic, and impeachment as the peaceful alternative to beheading a Charles I. The lecture closes on the "King Andrew the First" cartoon and what Jackson's presidency reveals about a Constitution that was democratic, pro-slavery, and built for national security at once.