The Forgotten Presidents: Their Untold Constitutional Legacy

Their names linger in reminiscence primarily as punch traces, synonyms for obscurity: Millard Fillmore, Chester Arthur, Calvin Coolidge. They conjure up not the White Home a lot as a decaying center college someplace in New Jersey. However many forgotten presidents, writes Michael J. Gerhardt, weren’t

weak or ineffective. They boldly fought battles over constitutional rules that resonate right now.

Gerhardt, one in every of our main authorized consultants, tells the story of
The Forgotten Presidents. He surveys 13 administrations in chronological order, from Martin Van Buren to Franklin Pierce to Jimmy Carter, distinguishing political failures from their constitutional affect. Many times, he

writes, they defied fashionable opinion to take robust stands. Martin Van Buren reacted to an financial despair by withdrawing federal funds from state banks in an try to ascertain the controversial unbiased treasury system. His goal was to shrink the federal function within the financial system, but additionally

to consolidate his energy to behave independently as president. Prosperity didn’t return, and he left workplace beneath the shadow of failure. Grover Cleveland radically modified his method in his second (non-consecutive) time period. Beforehand he had held again from interference with lawmakers; on his return to

workplace, he aggressively used presidential energy to bend Congress to his will. Now seen as an asterisk, Cleveland consolidated presidential authority over appointments, removals, vetoes, overseas affairs, laws, and extra. Jimmy Carter, too, proves surprisingly vital. In two debt-ceiling

crises and battles over the Panama Canal treaty, affirmative motion, and the First Modification, he demonstrated how the presidency’s inherent capability for effectivity and vitality offers it a bonus in battles with Congress, no matter recognition. Gerhardt explains the numerous issues these and ten

different presidents have in widespread that designate why, regardless of any of their excesses, they’ve change into forgotten chief executives.

Incisive, myth-shattering, and compellingly written, this ebook reveals how even obscure presidents championed the White Home’s prerogatives and altered the way in which we interpret the Structure.