Title: On Presidential Power
Headings: 
On Presidential Power
by John Yoo

Content: All these actions were based on legal precedents dating back to Abraham Lincoln, who himself, in the Civil War, ordered the detention of enemy combatants without criminal charges or access to civilian court. These legal precedents have been followed time and again by Presidents regardless of party. The Constitution, American history, our legal precedents, and the demands of a modern society and economy—perhaps unfortunately—simply require presidents to exercise broad powers. These powers have only become all the more encompassing with the growth of America’s economic and military standing, and the complexity of its society. Luckily, those who designed the Constitution also designed the office of the Presidency to respond to change, to act with the energy and vigor to act swiftly, especially in times of national crisis and war. Nevertheless, there is an important strain of scholarship, a libertarian strain both on the left and the right, that contends that the Framers intended Congress to play the lead role in policy in the American democracy—that Congress should lead, and the President merely execute Congress’s policy. Some say the eighteenth century ideas underlying the Constitution are simply outmoded and have little relevance to today’s issues. Books with titles like The New Imperial Presidency, The Terror Presidency, or Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency all proceed from a common assumption that the Presidency has little significant constitutional authority of his own but should follow and defer to Congress. To this one can only reply that the Louisiana Purchase, the Emancipation Proclamation, and American assistance to the British before Pearl Harbor were executive actions, and by no means anomalies in history.