The Importance of an Executive’s Character with Lara Brown & Major Garrett

Use this lesson at the end of the unit to have students review executive powers throughout U.S. history.

The constitutional principles of the American Founding that guided American politics before the Civil War were increasingly altered as a new approach to governance become predominant in the early twentieth century. The rise of an administrative state centralized more power in the hands of federal agencies in the executive branch and blurred the relationship of the branches of government and their respective constitutional powers. Even though the Constitution specifically granted authority to Congress to regulate interstate commerce in its enumerated powers in Article I, Section 8, Congress increasingly delegated that authority to the executive branch.

Donald J. Trump was inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States on January 20, 2017. President Trump has followed the example set by his predecessors signing a number of executive orders in his first few days in office. Some of them reversed the executive orders of President Barack Obama, and some of them were original to his own agenda.