How America’s 18^th and 19^th Century Presidents Invoked Power

Abstract

How did early presidents invoke power? Though existing works reveal incredible insights on the nature of presidential powers, most of those works focus on the so-called “modern presidency.” This article examines the issue of presidential power in the 18^th and 19^th centuries using the actual words of presidents themselves. We examine how these presidents referred to power in their Inaugural Addresses, Special Messages, Veto Messages, and Annual Messages. Analyzing textual data from the American Presidency Project focusing on Washington through McKinley, we find important variations in how presidents referred to power in presidential communications, across administrations, document type, and over time. Results indicate that these presidents were quite active in discussing a variety of policy areas. Our results add to our understanding of earlier presidents, as well as to the nature of presidential rhetoric and policymaking.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 William Henry Harrison, Inaugural Address Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/200391.

2 James K. Polk, Inaugural Address Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/200580.

3 William McKinley, Inaugural Address Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/205278.

4 James K. Polk, Special Message to Congress on Mexican Relations Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/200910.

5 We also coded the references to God/Higher Being. However, presidents made only scant references to this category (approximately 0.6%); thus, we omitted the category from Figure 3 due to axis scaling.

6 We also coded the references to Religion, approximately 0.32% of references. Thus, we omitted the category from Figure 4 due to axis scaling.

7 James Monroe, Eighth Annual Message Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/205780.

8 For results of principal component analysis by historical periods, please see figure in Appendix.