n relations that the opening
clause of article II has promoted latitudinarian conceptions of
Presidential power. Especially has his role as "Commander in Chief in
wartime" drawn nourishment from the same source, in recent years. The
matter is treated in later pages.[14]

THEORY OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE

The looseness of the grants of power to the President has been more than
once the subject of animadversion.[15] This and the unity of the office
furnished a text for opponents of the Constitution while its
ratification was pending. "Here," according to Hamilton, writing in The
Federalist, "the writers against the Constitution, seem to have taken
pains to signalize their talent of misrepresentation."[16] Once the
Constitution was adopted, however, the tables were turned, and some
members of the first Congress, including certain former members of the
Federal Convention, sought to elaborate the monarchical aspects of the
office. They would fain give him a title, _His Excellency_ (already
applied in several States to the governors thereof), _Highness_,
_Elective Majesty_, being suggestions. Ellsworth of Connecticut wished
to see his _name or place_ inserted in the enacting clause of statutes.
They contrived to make a ceremony of the President's appearances before
Congress, his annual address to which, given in person, was answered by
a reply equally formal.[17] They sought to enact that "all writs and
processes, issuing out of the Supreme or circuit courts shall be in the
name of the President of the United States." Although the attempt
failed, owing to opposition in the House, the idea was adopted by the
Supreme Court itself in its first term, that of February 1790, when it
"_ordered_, That (unless, and until, it shall be otherwise provided by
law) all process of this court shall be in the name of 'the President of
the United States,'"[18] and it has never been otherwise provided by
law. Meantime, on October 3, 1789, President Washington had, at the
request of a joint committee of "both Houses of Congress," issued the
first Thanksgiving Proclamation.[19]

The "revolution of 1800" was, in the opinion of its principal author, a
revolution against monarchical tendencies, and making a virtue of the
fact that he was a bad public speaker, Jefferson, in a symbolic gesture,
substituted the written message for the presidential address. But the
claims of the presidential office to power Jefferson in no wise
abated,[20] althoug