The Presidency

...its fiscal power increases...

...The third model, the Jeffersonian, was demonstrated by its namesake's own Presidency founded upon a strong national party, executive dominance of the legislature, and majority rule fed by a popular, democratic, and egalitarian impetus...

...A second model, the Mad-isonian, was suggested by the John Adams Presidency...

...As evidenced in Hamilton's own conduct, the model also lent itself to opportunism, manipulation, and pressuring...

...One, the Hamil-tonian, makes the Presidency the center of government, takes an expansive view of executive power, and values resolution and assertion...

...On the contrary, the record is clear, the Presidency has become the major single institution sustaining democracy, a bulwark of individual liberty, and an agency of popular representation...

...In the following half century, the office undergoes an extraordinary expansion of its functions and staff...

...In sum, the Presidency of the Twentieth Century has become heavily institutionalized...

...But, although he tried, he was not nearly so successful in his effort to achieve Jeffersonian goals...

...What the Presidency has become largely reflects the Hamiltonian model, with striking tendencies toward the Jeffersonian, which has proved more elusive...

...But the Presidency from and since Roosevelt's day has, in the view of Burns, made impressive strides in uniting the best elements of the Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian models, and in breaking down "the deadly dichotomy" between liberty and equality...

...In this triumph, Burns also sees danger: that as the President comes to speak for the whole nation in his political, policy, and planning roles, he may cultivate a consensus that may become flabby and complacent, bringing Presidential government to lose its potency for anticipating new problems and realizing new values...

...With the spreading concern for social justice, with the dawn of a scientific-technological revolution and an unbounded productive capacity, the future, as Rustin sees it, may call for redefinitions of work as the basis of our production and distribution system...

...The consistently high level of the analysis, and its penetrating and sophisticated character, make it a distinguished work...

...Burns traces the fluctuation of the Presidency in the Nineteenth Century among these models...

...With the advent of the Twentieth Century, Theodore Roosevelt brought an extension of the Hamiltonian model, spinning out his "stewardship" theory, excelling at manipulation of Presidential power, and making his office felt in foreign as well as domestic affairs...

...Indeed, it stands as the only work we have that systematically assesses the Presidential office against the major trends of the American experience...

...The crowded canvass of the great office— its enormous activity, the variety of its incumbents, the diversity of its historic epochs—makes this a formidable intellectual undertaking...

...the President's influence as party chief rises...

...Stable government and individual liberty were prized...

...It is represented by the Presidency of George Washington, a truly creative administration...

...The author sees the Presidency as having developed into a kind of collective leadership, in which the President is prodded and checked by staff, interest group leaders, and intellectuals with a zest for innovation...

...Interestingly, Burns does not place as much reliance upon the shaping effects of our likely future problems, as, for example, a writer such as Bayard Rustin, a philosopher of the present civil rights movement, does...

...As a political organization," Burns notes, "it has found in the Presidential party a firm and durable base of political power...

...Presidential Government is a challenging and rewarding book to read...

...He seeks to interpret in a systematic way what the American Presidency has been, what it is becoming, and what it will be in the nation's future...

...Franklin Roosevelt, who so well typifies the modern Presidency, was an exemplar of Hamiltonianism in his ability to manipulate, experiment, innovate, and establish important reforms...

...he enjoys enlarged powers of communication, of initiative in legislation, and the like...

...A new concept of American democracy, one founded upon "freedom," has developed in which the two concepts have become both compatible and mutually fortifying...

...To forestall such a development, Burns pins his hopes on the access of innovators and intellectuals to the White House and on the rise of a vigorous, coherent, creative opposition...

...He failed, as the Truman Administration was to testify, to develop a political base that could have provided sustained and dependable support for long-run programs...

...In skillful argument, Burns rejects the view of some critics of the Presidency that the enlarged office is or can become a threat to democracy and liberty...

...Nothing less than the most fundamental social changes would be involved, and the Presidency would be at the center of the effort...

...Burns sees that in its past the American Presidency has tended toward three major models, each of strikingly different attributes...

...To Burns, Roosevelt symbolized the central problem of the contemporary Presidency: How can the office bring into productive relation the President's ultimate goals, his instrumental ends, and his means...

...The President's own staff and the vast executive bureaucracy, and the enduring expectations of the public as to what the office should do, have contributed to institutionalization...

...It entailed less active and venturesome government, a balance between the legislature and executive, with each serving as a countervailing power...

...Reviewed by Louis W. Koenig James MacGregor Burns, a leading political scientist and author of political biographies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, and of The Deadlock of Democracy, an analysis of executive-legislative relations, addresses himself in this new volume to a vital and challenging task...