Devoir set 2 cned

Baldacchini Gloria

Mr. Morales

U.S. History

18th October 2018

Research Paper:
the evolution of the executive branch of government

       The executive branch of government is one of the three branches of government, established by the Constitution, including also the legislative and judicial branches, which is taken in charge not only by the President but also by the vice president and the cabinet (who has a smaller power on this branch). This branch allows the president to take care of producing and also make the population respect the laws. The work in the executive branch is shared in multiple groups in order to guarantee an efficient supervision of every task that need to be accomplished. For example, the independent agencies have to manage the economy and the government. Furthermore, the fifteen different executive departments are all charged to take care of different aspects such as the agriculture, the defense, the commerce, the education…

       The President of the United States is elected for a term of four years during which he has to manage the Executive Office of the president (which is another name for the branch studied in this essay). The executive departments were created during 1789, year in which the first president of the United States was elected: Georges Washington. At this time, the executive branch was much different compared to what it is today. The purpose of this essay is in fact to study how this executive branch was and why it changed over time.

       First of all, under the first president of the United States was also known as “The father of his country”. All the executive powers were concentrated in the chief of the government: the president used to take all the decisions necessary for the lead of the country. If he wanted to make in regulation a new law, he could do it only by making the congress aware of his decision. However, in case he wanted to replace any federal officeholder, he needed to consult the Congress who had to approve his decision. In fact, he organized a “cabinet style” government by the meaning that, in case of war during the time of the Revolution for example, he had a close circle of advisors that helped him taking decisions. This bureau was composed by only four members: three secretaries (for the State, Treasury, and War) and an attorney general (this last one is mostly for legislative purposes). During all his term of office, George Washington made sure that all the decisions were made in his bureau and that he was the person making respect his laws in order to put in evidence his responsibilities. However, since he cared about taking in account what the people he worked with taught about his actions, he always made sure to receive advices and make everyone aware of what he was executing. Every single departments of the executive branch played, at that time, a very small role, they were minorities compared to the chief of government. The president was taking all the merits and he was the one, as previously mentioned, taking decisions of administration (and he was as a consequence also responsible for them).  He, alone, was either choosing the system of administration or administering who had to be taken in charge with this task. This, once again, reinforce the inferiority of the different executive departments and shows how they were directed by the president. As John Yoo explained in his article, “George Washington and the executive branch”, published in 2010 by the University of St. Thomas Journal of Law and Public Policy, the chief of the government wrote at the beginning of his presidency “that the "impossibility that one man should be able to perform all the great business of the State, I take to have been the reason for instituting the great Departments, and appointing officers therein, to assist the supreme Magistrate in discharging the duties of his trust."”. The fact that all the power was centered in the president was decided by Madison, who was one of the principal members of the legislative branch, when the constitution was created. Madison defined the three departments of the executive branch (war, treasury, foreign affairs) and decided that they would depend on the president (and the Senate) and, therefore, could also be removed by him. These decisions were defined as the “Decision of 1789”. The departments were lead by a representative not elected but chosen by Washington who chose people who were trusted and already known by the government. The president also chose people to represent the national government in major cities in order to have a closer executive person who could take in charge tasks over smaller portions of the country (even is they were still controlled by the president).  

       After George Washington, another president important in the constitution of the executive branch was Thomas Jefferson whose presidency took place from 1801 to 1809. In opposition to the first president studied, Jefferson was more interested in delimiting the three different branches and dividing the power of the executive branch in different departments. In fact, he also participated to the widening of the executive branch: by doing this, he could share this power in the distinguished departments (treasury…) even though he was known for believing that the president was an independent figure (of course, he had much more power than the other departments). Moreover, even if he was convinced that the legislative, juridical, and executive branches needed to be independent, after the Burr conspiracy in 1805, Jefferson established that “the executive would become subordinate to the judiciary “if he were subject to the commands of the latter, & to imprisonment for disobedience.””, as John Yoo explained in his article  Jefferson and the Executive power. By doing so, he straightened the legislative and executive parties while weakening the juridical branch which he believed was meant to be controlled.  

       After multiple presidencies, Andrew Jackson led the United States during two terms of presidency (1829-1837), and also deeply impacted the executive branch. In fact, he was the first president to come from a disadvantaged social class and was therefore criticized with skepticism. However, these fears were totally worthless: he allowed the first time for the US to be debt free. Andrew Jackson enjoyed occupying the political branch of the foreign affairs, promoting a good situation for the country and a good evolvement for the nation. Furthermore, fearing the power of the bank (especially with the Eaton Affair) he also participated to the adding of laws in the executive branch (the part under the oversight of the president in order to make it more powerful than the others). On another hand, he also participated on widening the Veto laws, which is the action that a governor could disregard a particular voted law by using this method. As a matter of fact, if before it could only have been used only if a law was believed to be unconstitutional, now it became more like a power used even for “a matter of policy”, as wrote in 2018 in her article of the Andrew Jackson Foundation, titled President, a new way to lead the nation. Finally, Andrew Jackson also played an important role in enhancing the equality within the Congress (according to Merriam Webster, he made it become “the supreme legislative body of a nation and especially of a republic”).

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