President of the United States
The president of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.
The power of the presidency has grown since the first president, George Washington, took office in 1789. While presidential power has ebbed and flowed over time, the presidency has played an increasing role in American political life since the beginning of the 20th century, carrying over into the 21st century with some expansions during the presidencies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and George W. Bush. In the 21st century, the president is one of the world's most powerful political figures and the leader of the world's only remaining superpower. As the leader of the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP, the president possesses significant domestic and international hard and soft power. For much of the 20th century, especially during the Cold War, the U.S. president was often called "the leader of the free world".
Article II of the Constitution establishes the executive branch of the federal government and vests executive power in the president. The power includes the execution and enforcement of federal law and the responsibility to appoint federal executive, diplomatic, regulatory, and judicial officers. Based on constitutional provisions empowering the president to appoint and receive ambassadors and conclude treaties with foreign powers, and on subsequent laws enacted by Congress, the modern presidency has primary responsibility for conducting U.S. foreign policy. The role includes responsibility for directing the world's most expensive military, which has the second-largest nuclear arsenal.
The president also plays a leading role in federal legislation and domestic policymaking. As part of the system of separation of powers, Article I, Section7 of the Constitution gives the president the power to sign or veto federal legislation. Since modern presidents are typically viewed as leaders of their political parties, major policymaking is significantly shaped by the outcome of presidential elections, with presidents taking an active role in promoting their policy priorities to members of Congress who are often electorally dependent on the president. Over time, presidents have also made increasing use of executive orders, agency regulations, and judicial appointments to shape domestic policy.
The president is elected through the Electoral College to a four-year term, along with the vice president. Under the Twenty-second Amendment, ratified in 1951, no person who has been elected to two presidential terms may be elected to a third. In addition, nine vice presidents have become president by virtue of a president's intra-term death or resignation. In all, 45 individuals have served 47 presidencies spanning 60 four-year terms. Donald Trump is the 47th and current president since January 20, 2025.
History and development
Origins
In July 1776, the Thirteen Colonies, represented at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, unanimously adopted the United States Declaration of Independence in which the colonies declared themselves to be independent sovereign states and no longer under British rule. The affirmation was made in the Declaration of Independence, which was written predominantly by Thomas Jefferson and adopted unanimously on July 4, 1776, by the Second Continental Congress. Recognizing the necessity of closely coordinating their efforts against the British, the Continental Congress simultaneously began the process of drafting a constitution that would bind the states together. There were long debates on a number of issues, including representation and voting, and the exact powers to be given the central government. Congress finished work on the Articles of Confederation to establish a perpetual union between the states in November 1777 and sent it to the states for ratification.Under the Articles, which took effect on March 1, 1781, the Congress of the Confederation was a central political authority without any legislative power. It could make its own resolutions, determinations, and regulations, but not any laws, and could not impose any taxes or enforce local commercial regulations upon its citizens. This institutional design reflected how Americans believed the deposed British system of Crown and Parliament ought to have functioned with respect to the royal dominion: a superintending body for matters that concerned the entire empire.
The states were out from under any monarchy and assigned some formerly royal prerogatives to Congress; the remaining prerogatives were lodged within their own respective state governments. The members of Congress elected a president of the United States in Congress Assembled to preside over its deliberation as a neutral discussion moderator. Unrelated to and quite dissimilar from the later office of president of the United States, it was a largely ceremonial position with no executive powers other than presiding over a parliamentary body.
In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies. With peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. By 1786, Americans found their continental borders besieged and weak and their respective economies in crises as neighboring states agitated trade rivalries with one another. They witnessed their hard currency pouring into foreign markets to pay for imports, their Mediterranean commerce preyed upon by North African pirates, and their foreign-financed Revolutionary War debts unpaid and accruing interest. Civil and political unrest loomed. Events such as the Newburgh Conspiracy and Shays' Rebellion demonstrated that the Articles of Confederation were not working, in particular that a stronger national government with an empowered executive was necessary.
Following the successful resolution of commercial and fishing disputes between Virginia and Maryland at the Mount Vernon Conference in 1785, Virginia called for a trade conference between all the states, set for September 1786 in Annapolis, Maryland, with an aim toward resolving further-reaching interstate commercial antagonisms. When the convention failed for lack of attendance due to suspicions among most of the other states, Alexander Hamilton of New York led the Annapolis delegates in a call for a convention to offer revisions to the Articles, to be held the next spring in Philadelphia. Prospects for the next convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washington's attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia.
When the Constitutional Convention convened in May 1787, the 12 state delegations in attendance brought with them an accumulated experience over a diverse set of institutional arrangements between legislative and executive branches from within their respective state governments. Most states maintained a weak executive without veto or appointment powers, elected annually by the legislature to a single term only, sharing power with an executive council, and countered by a strong legislature. New York offered the greatest exception, having a strong, unitary governor with veto and appointment power elected to a three-year term, and eligible for reelection to an indefinite number of terms thereafter. It was through the closed-door negotiations at Philadelphia that the presidency framed in the U.S. Constitution emerged.
1789–1933
As the nation's first president, George Washington established many norms that would come to define the office. His decision to retire after two terms helped address fears that the nation would devolve into monarchy and established a precedent that would not be broken until 1940 and would eventually be made permanent by the Twenty-Second Amendment. By the end of his presidency, political parties had developed, with John Adams defeating Thomas Jefferson in 1796, the first truly contested presidential election. After Jefferson defeated Adams in 1800, he along with James Madison and James Monroe would each serve two terms, eventually dominating the nation's politics during the Era of Good Feelings until Adams' son John Quincy Adams won election in 1824 after the Democratic-Republican Party split.The election of Andrew Jackson in 1828 was the first time someone outside of the Virginia and Massachusetts elite won the presidency, 40 years after Washington got elected. Jacksonian democracy sought to strengthen the presidency at the expense of Congress, while broadening public participation as the nation rapidly expanded westward. However, his successor, Martin Van Buren, became unpopular after the Panic of 1837, and the death of William Henry Harrison and subsequent poor relations between John Tyler and Congress led to further weakening of the office.
Including Van Buren, in the 24 years between 1837 and 1861, six presidential terms were filled by eight different men, with none serving two terms. The Senate played an important role during this period, with the Great Triumvirate of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun playing key roles in shaping national policy in the 1830s and 1840s, until debates over slavery began pulling the nation apart in the 1850s.
Abraham Lincoln's leadership during the Civil War has led historians to regard him as one of the nation's greatest presidents. The circumstances of the war and Republican domination of Congress made the office very powerful. Lincoln's re-election in 1864 was the first time a president had been re-elected since Jackson in 1832. After Lincoln's assassination, his successor Andrew Johnson lost all political support and was nearly removed from office. Congress remained powerful during the two-term presidency of Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant. After the end of Reconstruction, Grover Cleveland was the first Democratic president elected since before the war, running in three consecutive elections and winning twice. In 1900, William McKinley became the first incumbent to win re-election since Grant in 1872.
After McKinley's assassination by Leon Czolgosz in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became a dominant figure in American politics. Historians believe Roosevelt permanently changed the political system by strengthening the presidency, with some key accomplishments including breaking up trusts, conservationism, labor reforms, making personal character as important as the issues, and hand-picking his successor, William Howard Taft. In the 1910s, Woodrow Wilson led the nation to victory during World War I, although Wilson's proposal for the League of Nations was rejected by the Senate. Warren Harding, while popular in office, would see his legacy tarnished by scandals, especially Teapot Dome, and Herbert Hoover quickly became very unpopular after failing to alleviate the Great Depression.