How Governors Built the Modern American Presidency. Saladin M. Ambar

      

       How Governors Built the Modern American Presidency

      Saladin M. Ambar

       PENN

      UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

      PHILADELPHIA

      A volume in the Haney Foundation Series, established in 1961 with the generous support of Dr. John Louis Haney.

      Copyright © 2012 University of Pennsylvania Press

      All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.

      Published by

      University of Pennsylvania Press

      Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112

      www.upenn.edu/pennpress

      Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Ambar, Saladin M.

      How governors built the modern American presidency / Saladin M. Ambar. — 1st ed.

      p. cm.

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-0-8122-4396-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)

      1. Presidents—United States—History—19th century. 2. Presidents—United States—History—20th century. 3. Executive power—United States—History— 19th century. 4. Executive power—United States— History—20th century. 5. Governors—United States— Powers and duties. 6. United States—Politics and government—1865–1933. I. Title.

      JK511.A63 2012

      352.230973—dc23

      2011040434

       For my mother, Joyce Catherine Thacker, andmy wife, Carmen, and the triplets:Gabrielle, Luke, and Daniel—the joys of my life

       Contents

       Preface

       Introduction. The Hidden Prince: Unveiling the Presidency's Executive Narrative

       1. Emerging Executives of the Second Republic, 1876–1912

       2. Theodore Roosevelt and the New American Executive, 1881–1911

       3. An “Unconstitutional Governor”: Woodrow Wilson and the People's Executive

       4. Prince of the Hudson: FDR's Albany Executive

       5. “Undoing the Framers' Work”: Executive Power and American Democracy

       Notes

       Bibliography

       Index

      Preface

      In 2008, Americans elected the first sitting senator to the White House in nearly half a century. It was, in fact, the only presidential contest in the nation's history to field two sitting senators. Amid all the rightful attention to the election of America's first African American president, these other firsts were unfortunately reduced to trivia—intellectual memorabilia to impress friends when reminiscing about this historic event. Such oversights, however understandable, have proven to have a narrowing effect on our understanding of the American presidency and American political development. Americans should think carefully about the effect prior elective office has had on the presidency—and on each of its occupants. By electing Barack Obama the 44^th President of the United States, the American people ended nearly thirty years of presidential rule by governors. What this break in electoral practice portends may best be understood when considering a parallel event over 130 years ago.

      The oddity of the election of Ohio's Rutherford B. Hayes over New York's Samuel J. Tilden surpasses the brokered political resolution that ended Reconstruction. Beyond Hayes's controversial victory is the story of a resurgent presidential office and the rise of modern presidential power. As Hayes and Tilden were the first two governors to face each other in a presidential election, the 1876 race marked a pivotal moment in the nation's selection of a chief executive. But more important, the moment led to a previously unimagined line of governor-presidents that would shape much of what Americans would come to understand as the basics of presidential authority. This was the era of Grover Cleveland, William S. McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, governors all, who would go on to become the protomodern leaders most identified with the emerging presidential republic. How Governors Built the Modern American Presidency is the first book to examine the role the American governorship has played in reconceiving, and in many respects inventing, the modern presidency.

      Today, as Americans grapple with the extent of presidential prerogative power—whether it is called unitary, imperial, or simply modern—we would be well served to see how today's “Prince,” Machiavellian in an ability to garner personal power in the name of republicanism, first began to emerge. As governors, and later as presidents in their own right, the executives discussed in this book were part of a broader practical and theoretical construction of an executive-centered polity. In short, modern presidential power, however elusive to define, was ultimately crafted from the states up. This book is about the often forgotten link between our national and state executives, and how both presidents and governors have laid claim to extraconstitutional authority for themselves and their successors.

       Outline of the Book

      In the Introduction, I explore the ways prior elective executive office has shaped the presidency. Beginning with the election of 1876, I introduce the governorships of candidates Hayes and Tilden as early harbingers of the type of outsider politics that governors would come to define as presidential candidates. The key distinctions between presidents with executive backgrounds and those without are also drawn here. Chapter 1 takes up the Hayes-Tilden race's implications for the ensuing growth of presidential power. Key governorships of the pre-Progressive period are examined as well, including those of Bob La Follette, Grover Cleveland, and Hiram Johnson.

      Chapter 2 explores the governorship of Theodore Roosevelt. TR's Albany tenure is presented as a window into his presidency and the emergence of innovations in executive practice in the United States. The theoretical as well as practical approaches Roosevelt employed are discussed as part of the broader trajectory of executive power emanating from statehouses in America at the time.

      Chapter 3 analyzes the governorship and executive