THE PRESIDENT AND HIS EXECUTIVE POWERS
The President of The United States of America (hereinafter referred to as “the President”) is one of the most powerful people in the world. This may be attributed to the executive powers that are vested in him. For the purpose of this paper I will discuss two of his executive powers. First, the President is vested with the power to veto any legislation that he thinks is unfit. Second, he is the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States and of the militia of the several states. I will try to establish that granting the above mentioned powers to the Executive head of a nation may not be in the best interests of a democracy.
The US Constitution grants the President the power to veto any
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Therefore, the Executive can keep a check on the Legislature. However, the practice of veto and thereby completely rejecting a bill is too harsh a measure to pursue this doctrine. Allowing the President to send his objections must be sufficient for keeping checks and balances.
The maximum number of vetoes was by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a whopping 635 (Regular vetoes – 372, Pocket vetoes – 263); the Congress overrode only 9 of 635. Among others, President Grover Cleveland (49th-50th Congress – 414; 53rd-54th Congress – 170) and President Harry Truman (250), ranked second and third highest respectively in practicing veto power. Some Presidents refrained from using the veto power; nevertheless that does not justify the many vetoes practiced by other Presidents.
My second concern is with regards to the President’s position as the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States. While the Congress is vested with the power to “declare war, grant letters of Marque and reprisal, …” The drafting of the above mentioned clauses would in theory imply that the power to declare/wage war is distributed uniformly between the President and the Congress. However, more than 125 times, the Presidents have committed military forces to combat without having the Congress declare war as is required by the