Essay On Theodore Roosevelt Dbq

Carson Sizemore

Dr. Campbell

APUSH

27 January 2023

Theodore Roosevelt LEQ Throughout history, there have been 2 distinct groups of politicians: those with a strict interpretation of the Constitution and those with a loose interpretation. These groups, also known as the originalists and the pragmatists, have been the source of many debates over the years. The latter group, those with a more lenient interpretation of the Constitution, have made prevalent many aspects of governing that the Founding Fathers could not have even imagined for America through the use of implied powers. Implied powers are those which are not explicitly stated in the Constitution, yet are not explicitly prohibited either. One of these pragmatists was Theodore Roosevelt,

Alexander Hamilton, a late 18th-century politician, was a major supporter of the National Bank. The National Bank is a bank that facilitates daily transactions and collects tax revenue for the federal government. In the 1790s, there were two distinct sides to this debate: the Hamiltonians and the Jeffersonians. The Hamiltonians, in alignment with Hamilton’s beliefs, believed in a looser interpretation of the Constitution, while the Jeffersonians believed the opposite, in alignment with Thomas Jefferson’s beliefs. Ultimately, this debate ended in 1819 when the Supreme Court ruled the National Bank constitutional in the McCulloch v Maryland case. Hamilton’s perspective on this issue can be compared to that of Theodore Roosevelt when he created the Pure Food and Drug Act and eventually the Food and Drug Administration. This legislation enacted federal regulation of the labeling and manufacturing of food and drugs. While many people saw this as out of the scope of the national power given in the Constitution, Roosevelt saw this as a fair usage of his implied powers as the executive. Thus, Hamilton’s views on the national government were in continuity with

Roosevelt often acted in continuity with former president James Monroe. James Monroe was president from 1817 to 1825. During his presidency, he set the Monroe Doctrine, which was a foreign policy position that catagorized all European colonization of the Western Hemisphere as aggression towards the United States. This doctrine aimed to keep Europe on their side of the world and America on the other side. The Monroe Doctrine also made use of the federal government’s implied powers and established a sense of moral imperialism in the United States. This means that America thought of itself as the greatest power, therefore pushing this power onto other countries. Roosevelt also has a sense of moral imperialism and pushed the boundaries of the federal government when he added onto the Monroe Doctrine the Roosevelt Corollary. The Roosevelt Corollary not only maintained the prohibition of European colonization of Latin American countries, but also stated that the United States had the power to intervene in those countries’ affairs in order to preserve democracy and order. This expansion of Monroe’s past policies demonstrates the undeniable continuity between the two presidentsn and how the role of the president expanded throughout