Bulletin n. 3/2015 | ||
January 2016 | ||
Nicholas C. Starr |
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The Historical Presidency: Competing Conceptions of the Separation of Powers: Washington's Request for an Advisory Opinion in the Crisis of 1793 | ||
in Presidential Studies Quarterly , Volume 45, Issue 3 , 2015 , 602–618 | ||
President Washington's request for a formal advisory opinion at the height of the neutrality crisis and the Supreme Court's refusal to grant his request have never received more than passing attention from political scientists. Yet these events bear directly on fundamental issues regarding the purpose and practice of the separation of powers and the relation between a republican government and the citizenry it serves. In this article, I argue that, properly understood, Washington's request and the Court's refusal shed new light on the underlying theoretical rationale for executive–judicial cooperation and the political dangers of this cooperation. Moreover, by attending to the actions of the Washington administration in the aftermath of the Court's refusal, I show that the manner in which presidents interact with the people cannot be neatly separated from the institutional relationships between the branches of government. | ||