How Governors Built the Modern American Presidency. Saladin M. Ambar
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to search for the roots of modern presidential power solely at the national level adds to the difficulty of the enterprise.
The Cluster Phenomenon: The Case for Governors
During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry made an intriguing yet unsuccessful appeal for electing the president. Gerry reasoned that executives—namely, governors—should be charged with electing the nation's chief executive. It was counterintuitive, he argued, for legislators, who knew little of the requirements of executive governance, to make such a critical choice. Meanwhile, James Madison recorded in his notes on the Constitutional Convention that part of the opposition to Gerry's plan was the argument that governors would never reduce themselves to “paltry shrubs” by supporting such a great national “Oak.”19 Nevertheless, Alexander Hamilton would pay Gerry's argument an indirect compliment when, as Publius in Federalist 69, he drew a connection between the presidency and the governorship. “Hence it appears,” Hamilton surmised late in his argument, “that except to the concurrent authority of the President in the article of treaties, it would be difficult to determine whether that Magistrate would in the aggregate, possess more or less power than the Governor of New York.”20 Hamilton's carefully crafted illustration fortified his support for the new executive institution in several ways. To alleviate fears of a revived monarchy, he downplayed the significance of presidential power by comparing it to the then quite mild authority of the office of governor. And yet, by introducing the familiar example of his own New York State, Hamilton employed the strongest governorship of the period to make his case. The exceptional nature of New York gubernatorial authority helped provide the conceptual beginning for what would become an overly robust national executive.21 Perhaps this is not what he had in mind, but in minimizing the latent strength of New York's governor, Hamilton effectively veiled an American Prince, cloaking Machiavellian executive power in the modesty of federalism.22
Hamilton's deftness went unrewarded for most of the nineteenth century. Despite episodic flourishes of prerogative power, the presidency was largely far removed from the vigorous authority Hamilton had tried to cultivate. The early insignificance of the governorship as a pathway to the presidency likewise underscored how relatively inconsequential the office of governor would be during a century dominated by legislatures.23 Not a single president would be elected directly from a governorship until 1876. Yet, between 1876 and 1932, five presidents were so elected, and eight had prior experience as state executives.
The clustering of governor-presidents—American voters have interrupted the latest cycle dating from President Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush—raises questions beyond a governorship's proximate impact on a given president. In effect, America has had what may be categorized as two compact regimes of governor-presidents, a fact that illuminates the nature of voter preferences, and the ebb and flow of executive authority's acceptance and elevation in our politics. As we shall see, the simple dichotomy of executive and nonexecutive presidents (those lacking gubernatorial experience) enriches our understanding of presidential conduct and invites new perspectives on the changing values associated with executive behavior. Put simply, executive background and the clustering of governor-presidents are either epiphenomenal to the founding of the modern presidency or a central part of its narrative. The governorships presented in this book, and the broader analysis of presidential behavior over time, suggest the latter.
Hayes to FDR: A New Narrative for the Modern Presidency
In his lengthy study of the governorship and presidency, the political scientist Joseph E. Kallenbach reasoned that “prior public service, especially in an elective post, is practically an indispensable requirement for the presidency.”24 Yet over 40 percent of all presidents have not held elective executive office of any kind. Kallenbach's particular attention to elective office is vital in that elections are the most illuminating democratic phenomena. They help reveal voter aspirations, larger political trends, and perceived candidate qualifications for leadership. The frequently worn path to the White House by vice-presidents and secretaries of state early in the Republic offers insights into the nature of nascent American political values and early popular conceptions of leadership. While there were a handful of governors who would go on to occupy the White House in the nation's early development, no sitting state executive was elected from the time of George Washington through Ulysses S. Grant.
Given the limited number of presidents in American history, some have argued that studies of the presidency of necessity devolve into biography. This criticism, while not without some merit, oversimplifies the breadth of research in the field of political science. Scholars such as Richard E. Neustadt, Sidney M. Milkis, Forrest McDonald, and Stephen Skowronek, for example, have engaged in more than mere biographical analysis.25 In addition, excellent analyses of the institution have been introduced by Andrew Rudalevige, William Howell, and Kenneth Mayer.26 Some have nevertheless argued that given the limited number of individuals involved, the so-called “problem of n” presents too high a statistical bar for drawing meaningful conclusions about the presidency. Every president is different, after all—what can we possibly know about what amounts to now forty-four different offices? This problem can be mitigated by considering presidential background. For instance, years of public service can be aggregated among presidents: during the period between Washington's and Grant's presidencies—some eighty-eight years—presidents served a combined 339 years in public office prior to their presidencies. Yet only thirty-four of these years—roughly 10 percent—were spent in prior elective executive office.27
The transformation is therefore stunning when we consider that, in the period from Rutherford B. Hayes to Franklin D. Roosevelt, presidents were twice as likely as their nineteenth-century counterparts to have had prior elective executive experience.28 In addition, these Gilded Age and Progressive Era presidents represented the first cadre of governor-presidents. Perhaps one explanation for this clustering is that the modern presidency was somehow responsible for enlivening the importance and overall dynamism of state executives. However, the evidence suggests the causal arrow worked largely in the other direction. Empowered, yet distant, state executives built a set of practices and theories that ultimately shaped presidential behavior and, indeed, made acceptable a broad executive-centered approach to governance in America. Modern executive power was being created in the states first—from the ground up.
Hence, modern presidents did not so much transform executive behavior as state executives transformed the modern presidency. The paramount executives of this era, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and FDR, were pivotal in their drive toward executive leadership and presidential power. Given the specific advantages of their Hudson progressive pedigree, they were the preeminent protomodern executives of the age. But they were not alone. Other governors were critical to the invigortion of executive practices and frequently pushed the bounds of acceptable executive behavior. Wisconsin governor Robert M. La Follette and California's Hiram Johnson are just two of the larger personalities whose behavior extended well beyond their states to affect the most basic attitudes held by early twentieth-century presidents. As Alan Ware has demonstrated, Progressive Era reforms in the states were largely a response to the rapid changes in urbanization and industrialization taking place in the nation, compelling new policies and new party candidates.29 Governors were most often the prime movers in these endeavors.
While this early progressive period represented the first meaningful break with prior trends with respect to presidential background, the presidential election of 1876 likewise introduced a new scenario in American politics. Republican Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden of New York affirmed a different kind of presidential campaign and presentation to voters. As sitting governors, they were the first moderns to employ the now rote images of the “Washington Outsider” or “anti-establishment” candidate. Hayes's and Tilden's viability was built on the premise that both scandal and economic crisis were best addressed by those without vested interests in the nation's capital—men whose hands were clean of the antidemocratic excesses for which the legislative branch was increasingly excoriated in the popular press. The rapid and psychologically disconcerting industrialization taking place in America helped pave the way for a more popular form of countervailing executive