what seems to be the upper limit on the term of office for directly elected presidents? quizlet
America Does Not "Need a King", America Needs a President
|
Posted: Jan 13, 2014 12:01 AM
Consider George Washington.
Led the Continental Army. Presided over the Ramble Convention of 1787. Elected unanimously to serve as the kickoff President of the United States. Elected unanimously to serve a second term. Endearingly titled "father of his state" fifty-fifty during his ain lifetime.
Like many leaders, George Washington was a powerful homo. A great human. A popular man. Ultimately, though, he knew how to do something that so many revolutionary leaders exercise non. He knew how to relinquish ability. He did so twice, both afterwards his leadership of the Continental Regular army and subsequently his 2nd presidential term, the latter setting a respected standard that remained unbroken until FDR. Both times he had accomplished much, but he felt humbled and worn by his experiences. On both occasions, it was time to carelessness power.
Nowadays, no President (not to mention anyone in Washington) is by and large praised for pronouncements of abandoning power. As the executive branch, and government generally, has expanded radically in recent decades, information technology's hardly surprising that some experience that one executive leader is no longer enough.
Michael Auslin of the American Enterprise Establish recently opined in his piece, "
Auslin seems to advise that if another individual served to fulfill the formalism presidential duties — the ribbon-cut, the photograph-ops, the baby-kissing — then the President would accept fourth dimension to more effectively atomic number 82 the nation. He laments that America lacks a common meaning, and that Americans crave a unifying leader to save us from self-destructing in our increasingly partisan differences. He proposes that shoving such a figure into the purview of the executive branch, loosely mirroring nations like Russia or France, would cure this passionate partisan divide.
He also justifies the "Starting time Citizen" through increased political animosity in America. Congress is at a staggering half-dozen% approval rating. The judicial co-operative is increasingly distrusted. It'southward no undercover that millions loathed President Bush during his time in role, and today'south pop disenchantment with President Obama is increasingly undeniable.
These arguments are plausible. A Commencement Citizen would, indeed, likely be a superficial Band-aid of fuzzy-feeling unity to slap onto the minds and hearts of America. Simply at the cost of something much greater, and in furtherance of the underlying problem itself: the systematic addiction to ability. Nosotros should not collectively cater to the radical aggrandizement of such power, even through symbolic clout, but rather consider the troubling nature of the aggrandizement itself. We must larn, in other words, the power in abandoning ability.
At the time of our nation'south founding, the Framers considered instating a monarch-like figure, and the idea was quickly dismissed. Alexander Hamilton himself, in one case the proponent of the idea, elaborated at length in the Federalist Papers on the danger of anything merely a sole executive.
In distinguishing between a president and a monarch, Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 69: "The ane would exist amenable to personal punishment and disgrace; the person of the other is sacred and inviolable. The ane would have a qualified negative upon the acts of the legislative body; the other has an absolute negative."
Hamilton continued in Federalist No. 70, in considering a pluralistic executive: "Wherever 2 or more than persons are engaged in any common enterprise or pursuit, there is e'er danger of difference of opinion . . . If they should unfortunately set on the supreme executive magistracy of a country, consisting of a plurality of persons, they might impede or frustrate the well-nigh of import measures of the government."
Past placing a First Denizen "to a higher place" the President inside the executive branch, we would give this branch an fifty-fifty greater sense of mystic inviolability than what it has already gained through government's cocky-propelled rapid growth. Instead of a mere "qualified negative" upon other branches of government, the executive would be a new, sacred area to popularize power. We would make the executive untouchable. And equally Hamilton noted, we would give the executive a crippling new means of internal conflict, the absence of which has set apart this branch since our nation'south founding. Exercise we want to advantage Washington with another reason to celebrate its perception of cocky-worth while getting nothing done?
In this dire age practically begging for knowledgeable and committed leaders, a First Citizen would exist a glamorous and imperial creation, not the accountable or trustworthy leader America yearns for most. Nosotros would worship a magical conception that, while in other nations has a strong historical rooting, serves absolutely no place in our own deeply-rooted constitutional vision. A Get-go Citizen, dividing up what was previously demanded from ane person, would teach voters that the integrity of our President is less important than e'er before; the Outset Denizen "above" would somehow exist the good guardian of the President's reputation and chapters to atomic number 82. He or she – the inexperienced Offset Citizen direct called by the previous inexperienced Showtime Citizen – would somehow save u.s.a., as well.
Meanwhile, the President's power could really be seen as more important than always earlier. The Framers purposefully devised the executive branch with four-twelvemonth elections and with a high caste of accountability and limited latitude. "Needing" a rex ultimately says nosotros desire the President to take increased executive authority, through condoning the flippant diversion of at least some presidential obligations to someone else if deemed "less important." As such, nosotros create the potential for an increasingly divisive and arbitrarily dispersed branch. Nosotros send the message that the executive branch is entitled by default to more power, more than pomp, and more honey by the nation.
Do we want meaningless honey or meaningful leadership?
Our distrust in government is not simply because the President is not up to the busy task, only because our government as a whole has grown to an inconceivable and unsustainable level. And people don't like information technology. In 2013, a record number of Americans believe the federal government simply has besides much power. Worse all the same, our government doesn't know how to relinquish power. Our regime doesn't know how to stop. And in that lies our current failure.
So, what's a proper President to do?
For the answer, let the states return to history. Allow us render to George Washington.
As the Revolutionary State of war came to a close, Rex George III asked American-built-in painter Benjamin West what George Washington planned to do subsequently winning independence. W replied, "They say he will return to his farm."
"If he does that," said the king, "he will be the greatest human being in the globe."
Recommended Townhall Video
mcguinnessgons1995.blogspot.com
Source: https://townhall.com/columnists/rebeccafurdek/2014/01/13/america-does-not-need-a-king-america-needs-a-president-n1777292
0 Response to "what seems to be the upper limit on the term of office for directly elected presidents? quizlet"
Post a Comment