Lecture 12: Congress Constraining the Executive

GOVT 2305: Federal Government

Instructor: Tom Hanna

2026-09-30

Today

  • The institutional “how” after republic vs democracy
  • King as lawgiver, enforcer, and judge
  • Article I as the break
  • Tax, war, purse, impeachment, advice and consent

Why This Matters

Why This Matters

By the end of today you will explain how Article I turns Congress into the institutional check on the executive, why the tax power continues the long struggle to take the purse from kings, and how powers such as declaring war that still belonged to George III in 1789 were assigned to Congress instead.

The problem

Fused power

The king as lawgiver, enforcer, and judge

King as three roles

Educational diagram of a king combining the roles of lawgiver, enforcer, and judge

King as fused lawgiver, enforcer, and judge

Parliament pushes back

Historical painting of the Five Members episode illustrating conflict between king and Parliament

Charles West Cope painting of the Five Members episode

The break

Congress breaks the fusion

Diagram contrasting fused royal power with separated Congress, executive, and courts

Congress separates lawmaking from enforcement and judging

Article I, Section 1

“All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States”

The long tax path

From charter to Constitution

Horizontal timeline of the struggle over taxation from Magna Carta through 1689 to U.S. Article I

Tax power timeline from Magna Carta to Article I

Petition of Right (1628)

No forced loans; no non-Parliamentary taxation.

Ship Money

The crown tests the limit; the conflict hardens the principle.

Bill of Rights 1689

Image related to the English Bill of Rights of 1689

English Bill of Rights 1689

Levying money for or to the use of the Crown by pretence of prerogative, without grant of Parliament … is illegal

Article I completes the transfer

  • Power to tax: Congress
  • Revenue bills: originate in the House
  • No money from the Treasury except by appropriations made by law

The purse

Ship without water

Illustration of executive power constrained without congressional appropriations

Power of the purse constraining the executive

Power of the purse

Declare all you want — without supply, the machine does not run

War power: a major break

Britain, 1789

Crown prerogative: declare war and peace.

Parliament still holds the purse.

United States Constitution

Side-by-side comparison of British royal war prerogative in 1789 and U.S. congressional power to declare war

1789 war power contrast Britain versus United States

Article I assigns to Congress

  • Declare war
  • Raise and support armies (no appropriation longer than two years)
  • Provide and maintain a navy
  • Letters of marque and reprisal

Understanding at the Founding

A deliberate break from royal prerogative — modern war-powers disputes come later

Other constraints

Impeachment

  • House: sole power of impeachment
  • Senate: sole power to try impeachments

Removal is the ultimate personal check on the executive.

Article I constraint map

Icon diagram of Article I constraints including tax, appropriations, war, armies, impeachment, and advice and consent

Map of Article I constraints on the executive

Discussion

Prompts

  • Which constraint matters most in practice: tax, war declaration, purse, impeachment, or advice and consent?
  • Why put revenue bills in the House first?
  • Why limit army appropriations to two years?

Next

Next lecture

Limiting Congress — constraints on the legislature itself

Reminders

  • Module 2 due October 9
  • Module 2 quiz: October 12

Authorship and License

Do not submit to Quizlet, Chegg, Coursehero, or similar commercial sites.

Author Tom Hanna
Website tomhanna.me
License CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License badge

Creative Commons License