The Complete Idiot's Guide to the American Presidency

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the American Presidency

Language: English

Pages: 368

ISBN: 1592579124

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


From George Washington to George W.

In the course of the 2008 presidential campaigns, Americans became involved in the political process at a level rarely seen in modern history. But even before the historic race, George W. Bush's tenure had left many Americans wondering how we got to where we are today. The Complete Idiot's Guide(r) to the American Presidency takes readers from the first president to the one who just stepped down-exploring the legacies of the greatest leaders and the black marks against others, and showing the ways in which they left their stamp on both the nation and the presidency itself.

*Written by the author of the highly successful The Complete Idiot's Guide(r) to American History, Fifth Edition

*Appendices that list the presidents and their vice presidents, the presidential elections, and further reading

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

had a greater effect on the judiciary. President Reagan appointed four Supreme Court justices: Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman associate justice; William H. Rehnquist, whom Reagan later appointed chief justice; Antonin Scalia; and Anthony M. Kennedy. All were chosen for their conservative orientation, which the Reagan White House defined as a reluctance to create new constitutional rights for the individual and due deference to states’ rights; however, both O’Connor and Kennedy proved more

States, his actions, like those of Washington before him, would set precedents for the office for years to come. Check … Adams was, in fact, slow to perceive what Hamilton was doing, but once Adams grasped the threat to the presidency, he acted promptly to check Hamilton and the other Arch-Federalists. In February 1799, without consulting his disloyal cabinet, he named William Vans Murray, at the time U.S. minister the Netherlands, minister plenipotentiary to France. He did this in the

Challenges While many in the North accepted the president’s actions and rallied around him as the commander in chief, accusations that Lincoln had transformed the presidency into a military dictatorship were uttered frequently. To those who attempted to counter such charges by claiming that, in the absence of Congress, the president had no choice but to act, Lincoln’s critics pointed out that the president has the authority to call Congress into special session at any time but had not done so.

prevent its achieving the three-fourths approval required. Dismantling the Presidency, Phase 1 Johnson had made himself a marked man. After the southern states refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress passed the Military Reconstruction Act of 1867, which undid Johnson’s executive Reconstruction by placing the entire South under military occupation, nullifying the civilian state governments. Johnson vetoed the act, and Congress overrode the veto. Additionally, Congress attached

with the possibility of greatness. The Least You Need to Know ◆ Dwight Eisenhower’s efforts to restore what he considered the constitutional balance between Congress and the presidency appeared to some as a diminishment of the chief executive’s office. ◆ Eisenhower developed a behind-the-scenes approach to wielding presidential power. ◆ John F. Kennedy ushered in a new era of the charismatic presidency, even as he consolidated much of the government’s policy-making apparatus within the White

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