The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels

Before examining Abraham Lincoln’s efforts to preserve the Union, Meacham briefly ponders the nature of the presidency itself. Even as late as the 1787 Constitutional Convention, there was widespread disagreement among the Founding Fathers concerning the parameters of presidential power. They knew this power should not be absolute like that of a king, yet the president’s precise role was still ill-defined. That the founders were content with this ambiguous arrangement, Meacham suggests, reflected their faith in the character and moral fortitude of George Washington, the first to occupy the office. Even still, the elasticity the founders baked into the presidency represented an even broader faith in the American public to elevate conscientious and dignified individuals to the role of commander-in-chief—a faith that Meacham asserts has rarely if ever been so profoundly tested as it has during the Trump administration.

That the relative elites who made up the Constitutional Convention had so much faith in everyday Americans is perhaps better understood when considering that, until Andrew Jackson, presidents were not terribly sensitive to the public will. Though a slaveholder and slaughterer of Indians, Jackson nevertheless transformed the office by envisioning the presidency, in his own words, as “the direct representative of the American people” (30).