The development of presidential power 421location for the nation’s capital, establishing the federal courts, and financing the
government. Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren were instrumental in
forming the Democratic Party and its local party organizations.^1
In addition, early presidents made important foreign policy decisions. For example, the
Monroe Doctrine issued by President James Monroe in 1823 stated that America would
remain neutral in wars involving European nations and that these nations must cease
attempts to colonize or occupy areas in North and South America.^2 Presidents John
Tyler and James Polk oversaw the admission of the huge territory of Texas into the
Union following the Mexican-American War, as well as the acquisition of land that
later became Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming.^3
Presidents also played key roles in the conflict over slavery. President Millard
Fillmore’s support helped enact the Compromise of 1850, which limited slavery in
California, and Franklin Pierce supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which regulated
slavery in those territories. And, of course, Abraham Lincoln, who helped form the
Republican Party in the 1850s, played a transformative role during the Civil War. His
orders raised the huge Union army, and as commander in chief he directed the conduct of
the bloody war that ultimately brought the southern states back into the Union. Moreover,
he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves in the South.^4
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, presidents were instrumental in federal
responses to the nation’s rapid expansion and industrialization.^5 The country’s growing
size and economy generated conflict over which services the federal government should
provide to citizens and the extent to which the government should regulate individual and
corporate behavior.^6 Various acts of legislation created new federal agencies as well as new
presidential powers and responsibilities. For example, Republican president Theodore
Roosevelt used the Sherman Antitrust Act to break up the Northern Securities Company,
a mammoth nationwide railroad trust. Roosevelt also expanded federal conservation
programs and increased the power of the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate
businesses. Democratic president Woodrow Wilson further increased the government’s
role in managing the economy through his support of the Clayton Antitrust Act, the
Federal Reserve Act, the first federal income tax, and legislation banning child labor.^7
As these examples illustrate, presidential power has grown over time as the federal
government has expanded. The president and members of the executive branch
have obtained new regulatory powers over corporations and individual Americans.
Presidents have also proposed new policies in response to shifts in public opinion.
Moreover, the power of the presidency grew around the turn of the century and
thereafter due to the actions of presidents, particularly Roosevelt and Wilson, who
firmly believed that the presidency was the most important federal office.
Yet the limits of presidential power were also evident during this era—for example,
in Wilson’s foreign policy initiatives. Although he campaigned in the 1916 election on
a promise to keep America out of World War I, Wilson ultimately ordered American
troops to fight on the side of the Allies. After the war, Wilson offered a peace plan that
proposed reshaping the borders of European countries in order to mitigate future
conflicts; creating an international organization, the League of Nations, to prevent
future conflicts; and taking other measures to encourage free trade and democracy.^8
However, America’s allies rejected most of Wilson’s proposals and the Senate refused
to allow American participation in the League of Nations.The Great Depression through the Present
Presidential actions defined the government’s response to the Great Depression—
the worldwide economic collapse in the late 1920s and 1930s marked by high
unemployment, huge stock market declines, and many bank failures. After winningGeorge Washington remains, for many
Americans, the presidential ideal—a
leader whose crucial domestic and
foreign policy decisions shaped the
growth of America’s democracy.Full_13_APT_64431_ch12_418-453.indd 421 16/11/18 10:33 AM