The Politics of Clemency in the Early American Presidency: Power Inherited, Power Refashioned

Abstract This article presents case studies of pardons in the presidencies of Washington, Adams, and Jefferson. In doing so, the article moves away from the idea in existing scholarship that pardons of the past were largely noble acts of statecraft, untouched by ideological, partisan, or personal political motivations. Instead, it develops an account of how and why these pardons should be understood as both enabling presidents to achieve certain political objectives and, simultaneously, operating in an inherited environment in which presidents used existing resources to legitimate their pardons. In so doing, presidents refashioned those inherited resources and, thereby, created new resources for future presidents. The picture that emerges is of pardons as both sources of political innovation and political constraint.