De Tocqueville on Presidential Power

I have finished a long journey through Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America,” Volume I, Dover’s paperback edition (2017) being a daunting 559 pages (1835 publication originally); it is followed by 499 pages of volume II (1840).

This column introduced you to the book in a preceding article, and spoke to its being too comprehensive for but one column. Out of necessity, the columnist began writing as he read, as cogent points popped their heads out of de Tocqueville’s incredibly perceptive, but maybe dated, theses. The present short commentary materialized from one of those pop-ups.

Only 159 pages into volume I and de Tocqueville observes about the Presidency: “The laws allow him to be strong, but circumstances keep him weak.” That is lead-in to the next section, entitled: “Why the President of the United States Does Not Need a Majority in the Two Houses in Order to Carry on the Government.”

“A king in Europe requires the support of the legislature to enable him to perform the duties imposed upon him by the constitution, because those duties are enormous. A constitutional king in Europe is not merely the executor of the law, but the execution of its provisions devolves so completely upon him, that he has the power of paralyzing its force if it opposes his designs. He requires the assistance of the legislative assemblies to make the law, but those assemblies need his aid to execute it. These two authorities cannot exist without each other, and the mechanism of government is stopped as soon as they are at variance.

“In America, the President cannot prevent any law from being passed, nor can he evade the obligation of enforcing it. His sincere and zealous co-operation is no doubt useful, but is not indispensable, in carrying on public affairs. In all his important acts, he is directly or indirectly subject to the legislature; and of his own free authority, he can do but little. It is therefore his weakness, and not his power, which enables him to remain in opposition to Congress.”

The Founding Fathers were so attentive in their complex deliberations to assure a separation of powers among the legislative, executive, judicial, and state entities, and that is what has Alexis de Tocqueville’s attention, too. In 1835, as he is viewing America, the President is still too weak to wield power like the European kings of his home world. The Founding Fathers might thereon take a deep breath of self-satisfaction.

What would de Tocqueville say, however, about the power balance as an observer of the late 20th and early 21st centuries in America, a time spanning the executive period, say, from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Donald John Trump? His should be a relatively clean and nonpolitical perspective as an observer from almost a hundred years ago! I would love to know.

I do have a suspicion that he would be adding a chapter about a shift in power in practice in respect to legislative and executive office, despite the written words of the Founders. Perhaps the fatal flaw is a legislative body that voluntarily concedes the power that it constitutionally has. Perhaps an unimagined, overwhelming loyalty to party over oath to Constitution. Perhaps, just inevitability, but I am more hopeful than that.