The Executive Power Vesting Clause

Abstract

This chapter recalls the fundamental structural decisions made by the Committee of Detail about the powers of the executive, such as allocating the established prerogative powers of the British executive to Congress or to the president. It examines the important changes by the Convention in parceling out prerogative powers, which subjected some of them to senatorial advice and consent. It also talks about the Committee beginning of Article II with a sentence vesting the “Executive Power” in a single person — the president. The chapter investigates the Executive Vesting Clause that has engendered lively debate since the earliest years of the republic and caused the Supreme Court to grapple with the two possible meanings for it. It argues that the Vesting Clause vests all national powers of an executive nature in the president, except for that portion of the executive power that is vested elsewhere.