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Home 2015-2016 Undergraduate College Catalog Course Offerings Castle Scholars Courses CSCH 3213: Law & the Presidency (3 cr.)

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CSCH 3213: Law & the Presidency (3 cr.)

On the day he took the oath of office as President

of the United States in 1897, William McKinley

said to outgoing President Grover Cleveland, "What

an impressive thing it is to assume tremendous

responsibilities!" McKinley's successor, Theodore

Roosevelt, famously called the Presidency "a bully

pulpit," and he added that "I have thoroughly

enjoyed it, for it is fine to feel one's hand

guiding great machinery." More recently, however,

many Presidents have seemed to agree with Harry

Truman when he said that "there is no exaltation

in the office of the President of the United

States -- sorrow is the proper word." The

Presidency of the United States - an office

invented by our founding fathers and tested over

two centuries through wars, economic depressions,

and other crises - has today evolved into an

institution of unprecedented power and prestige.

And yet, the Presidency is part of the

Constitution and our whole system of law. As

such, the President is checked by our fundamental

law, even as the President plays a role in shaping

the direction that the law and the Constitution

will take. In this seminar, we will take an

historical look at the American Presidency in

relation to the American Constitution and the

American system of law. After a brief

introduction focusing on the perils and challenges

of the Presidency today, we will look back at the

sources of the framers' ideas of executive power -

in the writing of state crafters and philosophers

like Machiavelli and Locke, and in the experiences

the framers had of prerogative power in England

and colonies. Then we will take up the creation

of the Presidency in the Constitution Convention

of 1787. From there, we will move on to consider

the contributions of several of our Presidents -

from Washington and Jefferson to Lincoln, from TR

and FDR to Truman and Reagan.

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