Presidential politics 153United States. The president could require the opinion, in writing, of the
principal officer of each of the executive departments, and was also given
power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States
except in cases of impeachment. The other important powers granted by
the Constitution were the power to make treaties, subject to their ratifica-
tion by a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate, and to nominate ambassa-
dors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court and all
other officers of the United States, subject to the confirmation of the Senate.
However, Congress was given the power to allow the president, acting alone,
to make appointments ‘of such inferior officers as they think proper’, and the
vast majority of official appointments are today made in this way.
In accordance with the Founders’ belief in the separation of powers, the
president was given no positive role in the legislative process other than the
duty, from time to time, to give to the Congress information on the state of
the union, and to recommend to its consideration such measures as consid-
ered necessary and expedient. The president has also the power to convene
both Houses of Congress in emergency session, and to adjourn them if they
disagree with respect to the time of adjournment (the last eventuality has
never yet arisen). The president has no power to dissolve Congress and so
lacks what is sometimes considered to be the ultimate disciplinary weapon in
parliamentary systems of government. As a check to the legislature, however,
a veto power over legislation was granted, subject to the ability of Congress
to override the veto by a two-thirds majority vote in both Houses.
By this grant of power the Founding Fathers in 1787 certainly did not in-
tend to establish an office of the power and importance that has become the
hallmark of the modern presidency. Many of them may have wanted ‘a mere
executive’, one who would faithfully carry into effect the orders of the legis-
lature; others wanted a more powerful president who would be able to check
the dangerous tendencies of a democratic legislature; but none could have
foreseen that the president would become the main initiator of policy, work-
ing with every weapon at the administration’s disposal, constitutional and po-
litical, to further those policies, and to lead the country in the direction that
the president considers desirable. Some modern presidents, President Taft
for example, have tended towards the ‘weak’ view of the President’s function,
but the transformation of the office by Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson
and above all Franklin D. Roosevelt into a dynamic centre of policy-making
was a reaction to the demands made upon governments in the modern world,
which they were unable to ignore.
Checks to presidential power
The Constitution thus gives little direct authority to the president to control
the affairs of the nation, and sets considerable obstacles to the achievement
of this aim. In legislative and financial matters the president is constitution-
ally almost entirely dependent upon Congress, and the Senate has a veto on