Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c4f8m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T23:29:25.677Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Lincoln's Example: Executive Power and the Survival of Constitutionalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2005

Benjamin A. Kleinerman
Benjamin A. Kleinerman
Affiliation:
Department of International Studies at the Virginia Military Institute (kleinermanba@vmi.edu)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the wake of the Bush administration's use of executive power since 9/11, Abraham Lincoln's executive actions during the Civil War have received more attention than usual. Typically associated with the idea that constitutions should recede in favor of the rule of one during crisis situations, Lincoln's actions have been used on one side as the implicit and even explicit basis of presidential claims to increased power and on the other side as the example par excellence of what presidents should not do. Taking issue with this conventional interpretation and continuing the more recent scholarly recovery of Lincoln's profound concern for constitutionalism, I explicate the principles that guided Lincoln's use of executive power during the Civil War. By drawing out the importance of political necessity as the basis for “prerogative” over and against both popular approval and unlimited constitutional powers, I show how this principle also provides an alternative perspective and even an antidote to the current scholarly debate concerning whether constitutions are better preserved by “Jeffersonian” or “Hamiltonian” prerogative. Lincoln's example also shows us that we should not legalize, regularize, or institutionalize those powers that may be necessary to avert a crisis. Perhaps most importantly, Lincoln's statesmanship teaches us that constitutions can moderate and limit discretionary executive power only if the people learn an attachment to their Constitution that does not come naturally to them.Benjamin A. Kleinerman is assistant professor in the Department of International Studies at the Virginia Military Institute (kleinermanba@vmi.edu). His current research focuses on the relationship between executive power and constitutionalism. The author thanks Bernard J. Dobski, Steven Kautz, and M. Richard Zinman for commenting on earlier versions of this manuscript, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Type
Research Article
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 3 , Issue 4 , December 2005 , pp. 801 - 816
Copyright
© 2005 American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, Henry. 1958. The great secession winter of 1860–61; and other essays. Ed. George E. Hochfield. New York: Sagamore Press.
Adler, David Gray. 1988. The Constitution and presidential warmaking: The enduring debate. Political Science Quarterly 103 (1): 1–36.Google Scholar
Anastaplo, George. 1999. Abraham Lincoln: A constitutional biography. New York: Rowman and Littlefield.
Anderson, Dwight G. 1982. Abraham Lincoln: The quest for immortality. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Arnhart, Larry. 1979. “The god-like prince”: John Locke, executive prerogative, and the American presidency. Presidential Studies Quarterly 9 (2): 121–30.Google Scholar
Bailey, Jeremy D. 2004. Executive prerogative and the “good officer” in Thomas Jefferson's letter to John B. Colvin. Presidential Studies Quarterly 34 (4): 732–54.Google Scholar
Barber, Sotirios A. 1984. On what the Constitution means. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Baker, Nancy V. 2002. The law: The impact of antiterrorism policies on separation of powers: Assessing John Ashcroft's role. Presidential Studies Quarterly 32 (4): 765–78.Google Scholar
Baker, Nancy V. 2003. National security versus civil liberties. Presidential Studies Quarterly 33 (3): 547–67.Google Scholar
Belz, Herman. 1998. Abraham Lincoln, constitutionalism, and equal rights in the Civil War era. New York: Fordham University Press.
Benedict, Michael Les. 1991. The Constitution of the Lincoln presidency and the Republican era. In The Constitution and the American presidency, ed. Martin L. Fausold and Alan Shank, 45–61. Albany, NY: State University Press of New York.
Bessette, Joseph M., and Jeffrey Tulis. 1981. The Constitution, politics, and the presidency. In The presidency in the constitutional order, ed. Joseph M. Bessette and Jeffrey Tulis, 3–30. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
Binkley, Wilfred E. 1937. The powers of the President. New York: Doubleday, Doran.
Carnahan, Burrus M. 1998. Lincoln, Lieber, and the laws of war: The origins and limits of the principle of military necessity. American Journal of International Law 92 (2): 213–31.Google Scholar
Corwin, Edward S. 1984. The president: Office and powers, 1787–1957. New York: New York University Press.
Cuomo, Mario. 2004. Why Lincoln matters: Today more than ever. Orlando, FL: Harcourt.
Dietze, Gottfried. 1968. America's political dilemma: From limited to unlimited democracy. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press.
Donald, David H. 2001. Lincoln reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War era. 3rd ed. New York: Vintage Books.
Dunn, John. 1969. The political thought of John Locke: An historical account of the argument of the “Two treatises of government.” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dunning, William Archibald. 1965. Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction. New York: Harper and Row.
Elsea, Jennifer K. 2003. Presidential authority to detain “enemy combatants.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 33 (3): 568–601.Google Scholar
Engeman, Thomas S. 1982. Presidential statesmanship and the Constitution: The limits of presidential studies. Review of Politics 44 (2): 266–81.Google Scholar
Ex parte Milligan. 71 U.S. 2 (1866).
Farber, Daniel. 2003. Lincoln's Constitution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Farr, James. 1990. Francis Lieber and the interpretation of American political science. Journal of Politics 52 (4): 1027–49.Google Scholar
Fatovic, Clement. 2004a. Constitutionalism and presidential prerogative: Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian perspectives. American Journal of Political Science 48 (3): 429–444.Google Scholar
Fatovic, Clement. 2004b. Constitutionalism and contingency: Locke's theory of prerogative. History of Political Thought 25 (2): 276–297.Google Scholar
Fisher, Louis. 1995. Presidential war power. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Fisher, Louis. 2003. Military tribunals: A sorry history. Presidential Studies Quarterly 33 (3): 484–508.Google Scholar
Fehrenbacher, Donald E. 1987. Lincoln in text and context. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Franklin, Benjamin. 1787. Dangers of a salaried bureaucracy. Prepared by D. L. Oeting. http://douglassarchives.org/fran_a87.htm.
Franklin, Daniel P. 1991. Extraordinary measures: The exercise of prerogative power in the United States. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Gallagher, Hugh. 1974. Presidents, Congress, and the legislative functions. In The Presidency reappraised, ed. Rexford Tugwell and Thomas E. Cronin, 217–33. New York: Praeger.
Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. 542 U.S. 507 (2004).
Hamilton, Alexander, and James Madison. 1976. Letters of Pacificus and Helvidius. Delmar, NY: Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints.
Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, and John Jay. 1937. The Federalist: A commentary on the Constitution of the United States. New York: Modern Library.
Howe, Daniel Walker. 1979. The political culture of the American Whigs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Jaffa, Harry V. 1959. Crisis of the house divided. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Kassop, Nancy. 2003. The war power and its limits. Presidential Studies Quarterly 33 (3): 509–29.Google Scholar
Kendall, Willmoore. 1959. John Locke and the doctrine of majority-rule. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Kendall, Willmoore, and George Carey. 1970. The basic symbols of the American political tradition. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
Korematsu v. United States. 323 U.S. 214 (1944).
Levy, Leonard W. 1963. Jefferson and civil liberties: The darker side. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Lincoln, Abraham. 1953. The collected works of Abraham Lincoln. 9 vols. Ed. Roy P. Basler. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Lindsay, James M. 2003. Deference and defiance: The shifting rhythms of executive-legislative relations in foreign policy. Presidential Studies Quarterly 33 (3): 530–47.Google Scholar
Locke, John. 1988. Two treatises of government. Ed. Peter Laslett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Loss, Richard. 1990. The modern theory of presidential power: Alexander Hamilton and the Corwin thesis. New York: Greenwood Press.
Luban, David. 2005. The war on terrorism and the end of human rights. In The Constitution in wartime. Ed. Mark Tushnet. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Lundberg, Ferdinand. 1980. Cracks in the Constitution. Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart.
Mansfield, Harvey C. 1989. Taming the prince: The ambivalence of modern executive power. New York: Collier Macmillan.
Manzer, Robert A. 2001. A science of politics: Hume, the Federalist, and the politics of constitutional attachment. American Journal of Political Science 45 (3): 508–18.Google Scholar
Marcus, Maeva. 1977. Truman and the steel seizure case: The limits of presidential power. New York: Columbia University Press.
McDowell, Gary L. 1993. Private conscience and public order: Hobbes and The Federalist. Polity 25 (3): 421–43.Google Scholar
Milton, George Fort. 1944. The use of presidential power, 1789–1943. Boston: Little, Brown.
Monaghan, Henry P. 1993. The protective power of the presidency. Columbia Law Review 93 (1): 1–74.Google Scholar
Neely, Mark E. Jr. 1991. The fate of liberty: Abraham Lincoln and civil liberties. New York: Oxford University Press.
Nicolay, John G., and John Hay. 1890. Abraham Lincoln: A history. 10 vols. New York: Century Company.
Pasquino, Pasquale. 1998. Locke on king's prerogative. Political Theory 26 (2): 198–208.Google Scholar
Pious, Richard M. 1979. The American presidency. New York: Basic Books.
Randall, James Garfield. 1963. Constitutional problems under Lincoln. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith.
Rehnquist, William H. 1998. All the laws but one: Civil liberties in wartime. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Rhodes, James Ford. 1899. History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850. Vol. 3, 1860–1862. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers.
Robinson, Donald L. 1987. “To the best of my ability”: The presidency and the Constitution. New York: W. W. Norton.
Robinson, Donald L. 1996. Presidential prerogative and the spirit of American constitutionalism. In The Constitution and the conduct of American foreign policy, ed. David Gray Adler and Larry N. George, 114–32. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Roche, John P. 1952. Executive power and domestic emergency: The quest for prerogative. Western Political Quarterly 5 (4): 592–618.Google Scholar
Roosevelt, Theodore. 1906. Works. Vol. 22, Oliver Cromwell. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
Rosen, Jeffrey. 2004. The naked crowd: Reclaiming security and freedom in an anxious age. New York: Random House.
Rossiter, Clinton. 1948. Constitutional dictatorship: Crisis government in the modern democracies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Rossiter, Clinton. 1964. Alexander Hamilton and the Constitution. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World.
Rostow, Eugene V. 1989. President, prime minister, or constitutional monarch? American Journal of International Law 83 (4): 740–49.Google Scholar
Schmitt, Gary J. 1989. Thomas Jefferson and the presidency. In Inventing the American presidency, ed. Thomas E. Cronin, 326–46. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Schlesinger, Arthur M. 1989. The imperial presidency. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Schlesinger, Arthur M. 1994. War and the Constitution: Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. In Lincoln, the war president: The Gettysburg lectures, ed. Gabor S. Boritt, 145–78. New York: Oxford University Press.
Scigliano, Robert. 1981. The War Powers Resolution and the war powers. In The presidency in the constitutional order, ed. Joseph M. Bessette and Jeffrey Tulis, 115–53. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
Scigliano, Robert. 1989. The president's “prerogative power.” In Inventing the American presidency, ed. Thomas E. Cronin, 236–56. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Sorenson, Leonard R. 1989. The Federalist Papers on the constitutionality of executive prerogative. Presidential Studies Quarterly 19 (2): 267–83.Google Scholar
Stephenson, Nathaniel W. 1920. Abraham Lincoln and the union: A chronicle of the embattled North. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Storing, Herbert. 1995. Toward a more perfect union: Writings of Herbert J. Storing. Ed. Joseph M. Bessette. Washington DC: AEI Press.
Tarcov, Nathan. 1990. Principle, prudence, and the constitutional division of foreign policy. In Foreign policy and the Constitution, ed. Robert Goldwin and Robert Licht, 20–39. Washington, DC: AEI Press.
Thomas, George. 2000. As far as republican principles will admit: Presidential prerogative and constitutional government. Presidential Studies Quarterly 30 (3): 534–52.Google Scholar
Tulis, Jeffrey K. 2003. The two constitutional presidencies. In The presidency and the political system, ed. Michael Nelson, 91–123. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
Walling, Karl-Friedrich. 1999. Republican empire: Alexander Hamilton on war and free government. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Weeden, William B. 1906. War government, federal and state, in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Indiana, 1861–1865. New York: Houghton, Mifflin.
Wilmerding, Lucius Jr. 1952. The president and the law. Political Science Quarterly 67 (3): 321–38.Google Scholar
Wilson, Edmund. 1962. Patriotic gore: Studies in the literature of the American Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press.