There are not many countries in the world where its people routinely seek out the opinions of men who lived and died over 200 years ago. Do the French face the challenges of 21st-century politics by asking themselves "What would Napoleon do?" Non. But, in the United States, politicians, pundits and keyboard warriors are forever invoking the wisdom of the Founders as our republic prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday in 2026.
I have written before about the problems of misquoting and even quoting the Founders. Seeking an authoritative original intent on any subject is like trying to hit a moving target. Not only did the Founders not agree among themselves about important questions like the meaning of the American Revolution, but, even within any given individual, their views changed over the course of their lifetimes.
I still believe this, but I am probably tilting at windmills if I think we can escape this election cycle without hearing from the likes of Thomas Jefferson or Alexander Hamilton.
If you can't beat them, join them.
Though Americans are preparing to vote on a vast swath of public offices from local dogcatcher to president of the United States, there is no question that the race for the White House has top billing.
So what did the founding generation have to write about the office of the president of the United States?
The executive branch of the federal government was created by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia in 1787. The Articles of Confederation agreed to a decade earlier technically included a president, but he (never she) merely presided over a Committee of the States and did not represent a separate branch of government.
The creation of the office of the president of the United States was controversial. Eighteenth-century Anglo-American political thought harbored a deep suspicion of the corrupting influence of executive power and the threat that centralized authority posed to individual liberties. Americans need look no further than the character of their former king, George III, whose crimes Thomas Jefferson meticulously cataloged in the Declaration of Independence.
The debates surrounding the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, then, are a good place to look to see how the founding generation viewed the presidency.
The supporters of the proposed Constitution took on the moniker of Federalists, and the most famous statement of their creed is The Federalist Papers, a collection of 85 essays authored by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay.
The Federalists believed that the office of the presidency would be the preserve of people possessed of superior "abilities," "talents" and, above all, "virtue."
In "Federalist 64," John Jay explains that "the Constitution has taken the utmost care that they [the future presidents] shall be men of talents and integrity." Jay believed that "so far as the fear of punishment and disgrace can operate, that motive to good behavior is amply afforded by the article on the subject of impeachment." Bad presidents, then, would be impeached by Congress.
Alexander Hamilton was also convinced that there was a "consistent probability of seeing the station [of the presidency] filled by characters pre-eminent for abilities and virtue." In "Federalist 68," Hamilton reasoned that "talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union."
Hucksters need not apply in an era before mass communication.
Not everyone was convinced that the new Constitution could protect America from a wannabe dictator. Opponents of ratification were dubbed Anti-Federalists, and they mobilized their own political campaign to convince Americans of the danger posed to liberty by the new Constitution.
In "Letter IV" published in the New York Journal newspaper in November 1787, "Cato" — a pseudonym that some historians have attributed to Gov. George Clinton of New York — explained why the proposed powers of the presidency "may be dangerous to the liberties of a republic."
Cato predicted that a corrupt president would use the immense powers of his office to raise "himself to permanent grandeur on the ruins of his country." Cato explained how such a president would "be surrounded by expectants and courtiers" through his "power of nomination and influence on all appointments." He cautioned that the president could easily become a tyrant by using his "controul over the army, militia, and navy — the unrestrained power of granting pardons for treason, which may be used to screen from punishment, those whom he had secretly instigated to commit the crime, and thereby prevent a discovery of his own guilt."
In sum, Cato concluded "that if the president is possessed of ambition, he has power and time sufficient to ruin his country."
As the American Republic approaches its first quarter millennium, it remains to be seen whether the Federalists were right that the Constitution is capable of defending America from tyranny, or if Anti-Federalist fears about the corrupting powers of the presidency herald the end of the republican experiment begun in 1776.
Federalists and Anti-Federalists might not have been able to agree on much during the contentious ratification debates in 1787 and 1788. But they both recognized that the president of the United States needs to be virtuous if the republic is to long endure. ♦
Lawrence B.A. Hatter is an award-winning author and associate professor of early American history at Washington State University. These views are his own and do not reflect those of WSU.
