by Algy Moncrieff

Created on: May 01, 2009

The difficulty facing all who write about the Presidency of the United States is that presidents cannot be easily pinned down or sorted into neat categories. Every new president is unique - unique in personality, unique in policy goals, and bringing a unique style to bear on the problem of how to overcome the considerable constraints placed upon the Presidency by the Constitution. Further complicating the question is that both what is expected of the President and the capacity of the President to provide this is constantly shifting, depending on his position in the electoral cycle and depending on world events, not to mention the legacy he has picked up from the previous administration.

Unfortunately for Obama, and every US president before him, the constitution was written with the express aim of removing the President's legislative power; the founding fathers looked to the tyranny of the monarchies that still existed in Europe, and decided to use their opportunity to prevent such tyranny ever occurring in the US. At the time of the founding, Montesquieu's book, The Spirit of the Laws, had already been around for decades, and clearly influenced the thinking of the founding fathers, in particular stating that: "there can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in one person." The separation of powers between the Presidency (the executive), Congress (the legislature) and the Judiciary (oversight over the other two to ensure constitutionality) is the result of such thought, and means that the President, at least in theory, has very limited capacity for bringing about legislative change. Which is exactly what everyone expects of him.

What seems to be a common characteristic of great presidents is their dealing with crises for example Lincoln and the Civil War, or Franklin Roosevelt and the Great Depression followed by the Second World War. Many Presidents seen as much less successful than Roosevelt or Lincoln have still used the power that war or crisis grants them in an attempt to gain legislative traction - Nixon and the Cold War, Johnson and Vietnam, Bush Jr. and the 9/11 attacks, Obama and the global financial crisis. The sudden need for a strong leader forces Congress to turn to the one leader available to them the President. Furthermore, times of crisis are often synonymous with times of war, in which case the President's role as Commander in Chief suddenly grants him considerable power, power indeed that comes close to royal prerogative

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