Question

Consider the idea that "national emergencies allow for more presidential power." Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Use examples from Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
You've considered the challenges and major expansions of each of the 3 presidencies in focus. How did each of these presidents set an example for their successors to follow? In what ways do we see their legacies in modern presidency?

Answer 1

Short answer: I agree — national emergencies commonly create political, legal, and practical space for the president to exercise substantially greater power. But that expansion is neither automatic nor unlimited: it depends on congressional acquiescence or delegation, public opinion, and how courts later review the actions. Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin D. Roosevelt each illustrate different ways emergencies and perceived national need have allowed presidents to broaden executive authority and to set durable precedents that successors still use.

How each president expanded power during crises and the precedents they set

Abraham Lincoln (Civil War)
- What he did: Early in the Civil War Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in parts of the country, authorized military arrests of suspected Confederate sympathizers, ordered blockades and military action before explicit statutory authorization in some cases, and issued the Emancipation Proclamation as a war measure. He acted quickly and often without prior congressional authorization, arguing necessity under his commander‑in‑chief role.
- Legal pushback and limits: Ex parte Merryman (1861) challenged the suspension of habeas corpus (Taney argued only Congress could suspend it); after the war Ex parte Milligan (1866) limited military trials of civilians in areas where civil courts functioned.
- Precedent and legacy: Lincoln strengthened the conception of expansive wartime presidential powers (broad commander‑in‑chief authority, emergency measures justified by necessity). His example informs later wartime practices (rapid executive action, detention policies, use of proclamations) and the political expectation that the president acts decisively in national survival crises.

Theodore Roosevelt (progressivism, international assertiveness)
- What he did: TR was not responding to a single existential domestic emergency, but he treated recurring crises as license for activist executive leadership. He intervened in the 1902 anthracite coal strike as a neutral arbiter forcing a settlement, asserted the "stewardship theory" of the presidency (do anything not forbidden by law), aggressively used executive power in foreign policy (Panama Canal intervention, Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine), and used media/the "bully pulpit" to shape public opinion.
- Legal pushback and limits: TR’s claims were political more than legal; his influence was in stretching norms of what presidents could do short of explicit statutory authority.
- Precedent and legacy: The stewardship model justified later progressive and activist executives who invoke broad discretionary authority in domestic and international policy. Modern presidents emulate TR’s vigorous use of public persuasion, unilateral foreign policy initiatives, and administrative assertiveness.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (Great Depression, WWII)
- What he did: FDR used the economic emergency of the Depression to create a vast administrative state: bank holiday and Emergency Banking Act (March 1933), New Deal agencies (CCC, WPA, NRA, etc.), Social Security framework, and broad regulatory programs. During WWII he exercised sweeping mobilization powers, rationing and price controls, and issued Executive Order 9066 (internment of Japanese Americans).
- Legal pushback and limits: The Supreme Court initially struck down some New Deal measures, prompting FDR’s failed 1937 court‑packing plan; later the Court upheld more New Deal programs. Korematsu (1944) infamously upheld internment (later widely repudiated). Over time, courts and Congress both shaped and constrained emergency delegations, but FDR succeeded in shifting institutional expectations.
- Precedent and legacy: FDR normalized a powerful, activist federal government centered on the White House as crisis manager. His use of executive orders, administrative agencies, and public communication (fireside chats) set templates for 20th–21st century presidents facing economic or security emergencies.

How their examples show up in the modern presidency
- Greater expectations of presidential leadership: Lincoln’s and FDR’s decisive crisis action created public expectations that the president will lead and fix existential threats. Modern presidents (e.g., responses to 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, COVID‑19) act with that mandate.
- Expanded statutory and administrative tools: FDR’s creation of a large administrative state gave later presidents a durable apparatus they can deploy in emergencies (agencies, procurement powers, regulatory authority). Congress often delegates emergency powers (e.g., Defense Production Act, Stafford Act), enabling quick executive action.
- Use of public persuasion and media: TR’s bully pulpit and FDR’s fireside chats are ancestors of modern presidential communications strategies (televised addresses, social media).
- Wartime and national‑security precedents: Lincoln’s wartime detentions and FDR’s WWII mobilization inform post‑9/11 practices (detention, military commissions, broad surveillance) and the legal debates that followed (e.g., Hamdi, Boumediene). Courts sometimes defer in wartime but also later reassert rights.
- Limits and backlash: The history also shows limits. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952) (Truman’s steel seizure) and later cases (Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Boumediene) reined in claimed emergencies powers. Congress has attempted to reassert control (War Powers Resolution 1973) and to regulate executive emergencies. Political backlash (e.g., FDR’s failed court‑packing) can check presidents.

Conclusion: emergencies do allow for more presidential power, but the expansion is contextual and contested. Lincoln, TR, and FDR each used crises (or a stewardship approach to recurring crises) to enlarge executive capacity and to normalize new presidential roles — in wartime command, activist domestic governance, and persuasive public leadership. Their examples created institutional tools (agencies, doctrines, political norms) that modern presidents routinely draw on, even as Congress, the courts, and public opinion continue to shape and sometimes restrain that expansion.