Volume 20, Number 16 · October 18, 1973
The Presidency After Watergate
By Henry Steele Commager
Who Makes War: The President Versus Congress
by Jacob K. Javits, by Don Kellermann
Morrow, 300 pp., $8.95
The Living Presidency: The Resources and Dilemmas of the American Presidential Office
by Emmet John Hughes
Coward, McCann & Geohegan, 377 pp., $10.50
The Presidency has always given us trouble. It was, from the beginning, the 'dark continent' of American constitutionalism—the phrase is Charles A. Beard's. There were ample precedents for the new legislative and judicial departments which the framers established, but none—except in a limited way in the states—for an elected executive who would serve at the pleasure of the people and on terms laid down by them. History, that great arsenal of morality, taught that all men in power were ambitious, vainglorious, and corrupt, and prone to aggrandize power to themselves: you could read it in Thucydides or Plutarch or Montesquieu or Gibbon.
Review, 4887 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |