Imperial Presidency: Overview Essay

President Richard M. Nixon’s administration had to face many international and domestic challenges in the United States between 1968 and 1974, some positive and some negative. His achievements in expanding peaceful relationships with both China and the Soviet Union are contrastingly different with his continuation of the Vietnam War. In the end, Nixon’s scandals and abuse of presidential power caught up to him, and his administration did much to corrode America’s faith in the government.

Yet, to many this stage in the modern presidency was just the lesser of two evils. The public opinion of the president changed soon after America went into the Vietnam War, a proxy way between the communist led/soviet-backed Vietnamese governments. Another infamy to the country was The Watergate Scandal, which accused Nixon of ordering a break-in at the Democratic National Committee. He was also accused of violating the constitutional rights of the American people by misusing the IRS (Internal Revenue Service); and failure to provide the appropriate documents that he was ordered to present to the House Judiciary Committee, led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, which did not help the image of the presidency neither. These two events shaped how the people thought of the executive leader; it led them to believe that the president was wild, egocentric, and acted without the approval of congress. These unfortunate events would cause Nixon’s successors, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, to act with less vigor and less authority, which would make them seem especially weak and incapable of leading our nation. The situation improved with President Ronald Reagan and his policies that made the government smaller and improved the economic situation of the country. However, the situations at hand were not without controversy Reagan along with his

Imperial presidency first came about during the 1960s and was later the title of a book by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. entitled The Imperial Presidency. Schlesinger wrote stating two main concerns that the U.S. Presidency was uncontrollable and that it had exceeded the constitutional limits. The term imperial presidency refers to when a president exceeds his role and takes more power than the Constitution allows. The Imperial Presidency is classified by the President’s abuse of power, from executive orders to executive privilege, the president invokes many powers not granted them by the Constitution. Some examples of imperial presidents are George W. Bush and Richard Nixon. George W. Bush and his legal advisers had an extremely

In this essay, I will analyze the successes and failures of the Early Republic presidential administrations of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. I feel that Washington and Monroe were the only presidents that were successes. Jefferson, Madison, and Adams I feel are all failures. The paragraphs below state why I believe the presidency was a success or a failure. The paragraphs also state what happened during their presidency.

In 1968 Richard Nixon became the 37th President of the United States of America. Only serving one full term, he also was under heavy scrutiny and the only President to resign from office. His resignation came before his inevitable impeachment from Congress. With the resignation of his Vice President Spiro Agnew (in 1973 because of bribes and kickbacks; Brinkley

Between the terms of Andrew Johnson to Jimmy Carter, the president that I felt was the most effective was John F. Kennedy because strong on foreign policy, cutting taxes, civil rights, and an inspiration to the country. He told people, we should to go to the Moon, which was one of the best things America ever achieved. Here’s a great quote on his economic philosophy and in his words. Kennedy said, “I believe in an America where the free enterprise system flourishes for all other systems to see and admire – where no businessman lacks either competition or credit – and where no monopoly, no racketeer, no government bureaucracy can put him out of business that he built up with his own initiative.” With all that said, I believe he had the right

In "The Powers and Dangerous Potentials of His Elected Majesty,” Anti-Federalist outlines the latent problems of wielding a powerful, yet ambiguous, position in society. Anti-Federalists draw upon debates of human nature to show that many would not willingly accept a peaceful transition of power. The writer states that the position of president would be the acme of any man's life, "this man may not have the means of supporting, in private life, the dignity of his former station (“The Power,” 1787).” This paper is aiming to compare and contrast two papers from each side of the debate and to examine their relations with the transition of the modern presidency.

The political disaster of Watergate in the early 1970s marked the first time a president resigned. Essentially, it began when a former Marine, Daniel Ellsberg, who no longer supported war in Vietnam, leaked an analysis of American involvement there to The New York Times, starting in 1971. President Richard Nixon, a very private man, demanded that these Pentagon Papers be kept secret in order to prevent the public from finding out exactly what was going on. The scandal that followed ruined Nixon and led Americans to be more critical of the politicians they put in power and to question their leadership.

When the Watergate scandal was first revealed no one would have thought it would be connected to the President of the United States. People in Nixon’s hometown Yorba Linda, California, could not and would not believe the man who they knew and trusted in office had anything to do with this scandal. The city’s media did not cover the story nor would the people in that town discuss the Watergate scandal. The opinion of the people in Yorba Linda was that the media was taking the story out of proportion and blaming the President for a crime he did not commit. Republicans did not want to believe that Nixon was capable of such a scandalous story. President Nixon portrayed his character as an honest person, and the people believed and stood behind him. Nixon stood behind his story and stated he was not a criminal, but the revelation of the audio tapes and the threats of impeachment ultimately led up to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon.

Many people ask a simple question when it comes to Richard Nixon, “Was he an honorable and ethical man during his time in the White House?” To get the answer to that question, you would have to consider Nixon’s actions and temperament. While he had many scandals, he had a few accomplishments without having to skew anyone or anything around him to achieve. His most famous involvements were in the Watergate and Vietnam. President Richard Nixon, along with his National Security Advisor,

Then someone found out that the president had tapes of him talking to someone about the plan to break into watergate and he had Documents as well, “secret tapes of White House conversations later revealed that the president had participated in efforts to cover up the criminal activity.”( History.com), but they could not release them because Nixon claimed Executive Privilege which was something the court had never faced before. Executive Privilege is when someone has the right to withhold information from other branches of government. After claiming executive privilege the court had to decide on whether his claim completely protected him from judicial

Nixon, because of the Watergate scandal (break-in of Democratic National Committee headquarters and the cover-up) and other issues, resigned in August of 1974. Vice President Gerald R. Ford became President.

actually led to the first presidential resignation in the history of America. The event occurred in June 17, 1972, when several burglars came with the intention of robbery to the office of the Democratic National Committee, which is situated in the Watergate building in the Washington, D.C. The burglars weren’t after money, but were there to steal wiretap phones and secret documents. These burglars were linked to the reelection campaign of President Richard Nixon. Even though it wasn’t clear whether President Nixon knew about the espionage of Watergate, he did take steps to cover it later. President Nixon tried to give hush money for the burglars and even put pressure on the Federal Bureau of Investigation, not to conduct the investigation. He tried to do this by destroying evidence against him and even firing the staff which was uncooperative. The importance of the Watergate scandal lies in the fact, that it changed the American politics forever. People started questioning their leadership and thought critically about who they choose as one. The scandal was investigated by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, and along the way, they found many interesting things, which gave people more information and perspective about the scandal. The journalists found out many things; some of the burglars were related to the Nixon’s reelection campaign, Nixon tapped his own phone calls, but wasn’t

The reason for this reflection is to review what has happened in a deeper level than just summarizing what has happened over the course of this project. During the weeks learned some things, not just from the book that I was reading, but also from participating in a group. The lessons I learned led to my group being successful in the few goals that were created. All of the goals were met in different ways whether it would be just finishing the book or us getting up in front of the whole class to present the google slides that we created.

“The Last Emperor” was a very interesting film, rich in historical truth and an accurate portrayal of past events that occurred in China during the 1900s. The story was very easy to follow and gave a more modernized approach to teaching the impacts of historical proceedings by using the English language but not forgetting to keep the facts in order. This approach gave me the opportunity to see the different actors as if it were truly identical to what this time period was all about. Given that the plot was centralized around Puyi, the last Emperor of China, and the director did an excellent job making the movie fit the timeline.