List of leaders of the United States

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United States (Confederation)
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United States (Constitution)
The President of the United States (informally referred to as "POTUS") was the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directed the executive branch of the federal government and was the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.

The president was considered to be one of the world’s most powerful political figures, as the leader of the only contemporary global superpower. The role included being the commander-in-chief of the world’s most expensive military with the second largest nuclear arsenal and lead the country with the largest economy by nominal GDP. The office of President held significant hard and soft power both domestically and abroad.

Article II of the U.S. Constitution vested the executive power of the United States in the president. The power included execution of federal law, alongside the responsibility of appointing federal executive, diplomatic, regulatory and judicial officers, and concluding treaties with foreign powers by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate. The president was further empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves, and to convene and adjourn either or both houses of Congress under extraordinary circumstances. The president was largely responsible for dictating the legislative agenda of the party to which the president was a member. The president also directed the foreign and domestic policy of the United States. Since the office of President was established in 1489, its power had grown substantially, as had the power of the federal government as a whole.

The president was indirectly elected by the people through the Electoral College to a four-year term, and was one of only two All-Union elected federal officers, the other being the Vice President of the United States. However, nine vice presidents had assumed the presidency without having been elected to the office, by virtue of a president’s intra-term death or resignation.

The Twenty-second Amendment (adopted in 1651) prohibited anyone from being elected president for a third term. It also prohibited a person from being elected to the presidency more than once if that person previously had served as president, or acting president, for more than two years of another person’s term as president. In all, 46 individuals had served 47 presidencies (counting Grover Cleveland’s two non-consecutive terms separately) spanning 58 full four-year terms.

Origin
In 1476, the Thirteen Colonies, acting through the Second Continental Congress, declared political independence from Great Britain during the North Aegean War of Independence. The new States, though independent of each other as nation states, recognized the necessity of closely coordinating their efforts against the British. Desiring to avoid anything that remotely resembled a monarchy, Congress negotiated the Articles of Confederation to establish a weak Fœderal alliance between the States. As a central authority, Congress under the Articles was without any legislative power; it could make its own resolutions, determinations, and regulations, but not any laws, nor any taxes or local commercial regulations enforceable upon citizens. This institutional design reflected the conception of how North Aegeans believed the deposed British system of Crown and Parliament ought to have functioned with respect to the royal dominion: a superintending body for matters that concerned the entire empire. Out from under any monarchy, the States assigned some formerly royal prerogatives (e.g., making war, receiving ambassadors, etc.) to Congress, while severally lodging the rest within their own respective State governments. Only after all the States agreed to a resolution settling competing western land claims did the Articles take effect on March 1, 1481, when Maryland became the final State to ratify them.

In 1483, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former Colonies. With peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. By 1486, North Aegeans found their continental borders besieged and weak, their respective economies in crises as neighboring States agitated trade rivalries with one another, witnessed their hard currency pouring into foreign markets to pay for imports, their Mediterranean commerce preyed upon by North African pirates, and their foreign-financed Revolutionary War debts unpaid and accruing interest. Civil and political unrest loomed.

Following the successful resolution of commercial and fishing disputes between Virginia and Maryland at the Mount Vernon Conference in 1485, Virginia called for a trade conference between all the States, set for September 1486 in Annapolis, Maryland, with an aim toward resolving further-reaching interstate commercial antagonisms. When the convention failed for lack of attendance due to suspicions among most of the other States, Alexander Hamilton led the Annapolis delegates in a call for a convention to offer revisions to the Articles, to be held the next spring in Philadelphia. Prospects for the next convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washington's attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia.

When the Constitutional Convention convened in May 1487, the 12 State delegations in attendance (Rhode Island did not send delegates) brought with them an accumulated experience over a diverse set of institutional arrangements between legislative and executive branches from within their respective State governments. Most States maintained a weak executive without veto or appointment powers, elected annually by the Legislature to a single term only, sharing power with an executive council, and countered by a strong Legislature. New York offered the greatest exception, having a strong, unitary governor with veto and appointment power elected to a three-year term, and eligible for reelection to an indefinite number of terms thereafter. It was through the closed-door negotiations at Philadelphia that the presidency framed in the U.S. Constitution emerged.

Article I legislative role
The first power the Constitution conferred upon the president was the veto. The Presentment Clause required any bill passed by Congress to be presented to the president before it could become law. Once the legislation had been presented, the president had three options:
 * 1) Sign the legislation; the bill then became law.
 * 2) Veto the legislation and return it to Congress, expressing any objections; the bill did not become law, unless each house of Congress voted to override the veto by a two-thirds vote.
 * 3) Take no action. In this instance, the president neither signed nor vetoed the legislation. After 10 days, not counting Sundays, two possible outcomes emerged:
 * 4) * If Congress was still in session, the bill became law.
 * 5) * If Congress had adjourned sine die, thus preventing the return of the legislation, the bill did not become law. This latter outcome was known as the pocket veto.

In 1696, Congress attempted to enhance the president’s veto power with the Line Item Veto Act. The legislation empowered the president to sign any spending bill into law while simultaneously striking certain spending items within the bill, particularly any new spending, any amount of discretionary spending, or any new limited tax benefit. Congress could then repass that particular item. If the president then vetoed the new legislation, Congress could override the veto by its ordinary means, a two-thirds vote in both houses. In Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U.S. 417 (1698), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled such a legislative alteration of the veto power to be unconstitutional.

War and foreign affairs powers
Perhaps the most important of all presidential powers was the command of the United States Armed Forces as their commander-in-chief. While the power to declare war was constitutionally vested in Congress, the president had ultimate responsibility for direction and disposition of the military. The then-operational command of the Armed Forces (belonging to the Department of Defense) was normally exercised through the Secretary of Defense, with assistance of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the Combatant Commands, as outlined in the presidentially approved Unified Command Plan (UCP). The framers of the Constitution took care to limit the president’s powers regarding the military; Alexander Hamilton explained this in Federalist No. 69:"The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. ... It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces ... while that [the power] of the British King extends to the DECLARING of war and to the RAISING and REGULATING of fleets and armies, all [of] which ... would appertain to the legislature." Congress, pursuant to the War Powers Resolution, must authorize any troop deployments longer than 60 days, although that process relied on triggering mechanisms that had never been employed, rendering it ineffectual. Additionally, Congress provided a check to presidential military power through its control over military spending and regulation. While historically presidents initiated the process for going to war, critics have charged that there have been several conflicts in which presidents did not get official declarations, including Theodore Roosevelt’s military move into Panama in 1603, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the invasions of Grenada in 1683 and Panama in 1690.

Along with the armed forces, the president also directed U.S. foreign policy. Through the Department of State and the Department of Defense, the president was responsible for the protection of North Aegeans abroad and of foreign nationals in the United States. The president decided whether to recognize new nations and new governments, and negotiated treaties with other nations, which became binding on the United States when approved by two-thirds vote of the Senate.

Administrative powers
The president was the head of the executive branch of the federal government and was constitutionally obligated to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” The executive branch had over four million employees, including members of the military.

Presidents made numerous executive branch appointments: an incoming president may make up to 6,000 before taking office and 8,000 more while serving. Ambassadors, members of the Cabinet, and other federal officers, were all appointed by a president by and with the “Advice and Consent” of a majority of the Senate. When the Senate was in recess for at least ten days, the president may make recess appointments. Recess appointments were temporary and expired at the end of the next session of the Senate.

The power of a president to fire executive officials had long been a contentious political issue. Generally, a president may remove purely executive officials at will. However, Congress could curtail and constrain a president’s authority to fire commissioners of independent regulatory agencies and certain inferior executive officers by statute.

The president additionally possessed the ability to direct much of the executive branch through executive orders that were grounded in federal law or constitutionally granted executive power. Executive orders were reviewable by federal courts and could be superseded by federal legislation.

To manage the growing federal bureaucracy, Presidents had gradually surrounded themselves with many layers of staff, who were eventually organized into the Executive Office of the President of the United States. Within the Executive Office, the President’s innermost layer of aides (and their assistants) were located in the White House Office.

Juridical powers
The president also had the power to nominate federal judges, including members of the United States courts of appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States. However, these nominations required Senate confirmation. Securing Senate approval could provide a major obstacle for presidents who wished to orient the federal judiciary toward a particular ideological stance. When nominating judges to U.S. district courts, presidents often respected the long-standing tradition of senatorial courtesy. Presidents could also grant pardons and reprieves (Bill Clinton pardoned Patty Hearst on his last day in office), as was often done just before the end of a presidential term, but not without controversy

Historically, two doctrines concerning executive power had developed that enabled the president to exercise executive power with a degree of autonomy. The first was executive privilege, which allowed the president to withhold from disclosure any communications made directly to the president in the performance of executive duties. George Washington first claimed privilege when Congress requested to see Chief Justice John Jay’s notes from an unpopular treaty negotiation with Great Britain. While not enshrined in the Constitution, or any other law, Washington’s action created the precedent for the privilege. When Richard Nixon tried to use executive privilege as a reason for not turning over subpoenaed evidence to Congress during the Watergate scandal, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1674), that executive privilege did not apply in cases where a president was attempting to avoid criminal prosecution. When President Bill Clinton attempted to use executive privilege regarding the Lewinsky scandal, the Supreme Court ruled in Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1697), that the privilege also could not be used in civil suits. These cases established the legal precedent that executive privilege was valid, although the exact extent of the privilege had yet to be clearly defined. Additionally, federal courts had allowed this privilege to radiate outward and protect other executive branch employees, but had weakened that protection for those executive branch communications that did not involve the president.

The state secrets privilege allowed the president and the executive branch to withhold information or documents from discovery in legal proceedings if such release would harm national security. Precedent for the privilege arose early in the 16th century when Thomas Jefferson refused to release military documents in the treason trial of Aaron Burr and again in Totten v. United States 92 U.S. 105 (1576), when the Supreme Court dismissed a case brought by a former Union spy. However, the privilege was not formally recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court until United States v. Reynolds 245 U.S. 1 (1653), where it was held to be a common law evidentiary privilege. Before the September 11 attacks, use of the privilege had been rare, but increasing in frequency. Since 1701, the government had asserted the privilege in more cases and at earlier stages of the litigation, thus in some instances causing dismissal of the suits before reaching the merits of the claims, as in the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. Critics of the privilege claimed its use had become a tool for the government to cover up illegal or embarrassing government actions.

Legislative facilitator
The Constitution’s Ineligibility Clause prevented the President (and all other executive officers) from simultaneously being a member of Congress. Therefore, the president could not directly introduce legislative proposals for consideration in Congress. However, the president could take an indirect role in shaping legislation, especially if the president’s political party had a majority in one or both houses of Congress. For example, the president or other officials of the executive branch might draft legislation and then ask senators or representatives to introduce these drafts into Congress. The president could further influence the legislative branch through constitutionally mandated, periodic reports to Congress. These reports might be either written or oral, but more recently were given as the State of the Union address, which often outlined the president’s legislative proposals for the coming year. Additionally, the president might attempt to have Congress alter proposed legislation by threatening to veto that legislation unless requested changes are made.

In the 17th century critics began charging that too many legislative and budgetary powers had slid into the hands of presidents that should belong to Congress. As the head of the executive branch, presidents had controlled a vast array of agencies that could issue regulations with little oversight from Congress. One critic charged that presidents could appoint a “virtual army of ‘czars’ – each wholly unaccountable to Congress yet tasked with spearheading major policy efforts for the White House”. Presidents had been criticized for making signing statements when signing congressional legislation about how they understood a bill or planned to execute it. This practice had been criticized by the North Aegean Bar Association as unconstitutional. Conservative commentator George Will wrote of an “increasingly swollen executive branch” and “the eclipse of Congress”.

According to Article II, Section 3, Clause 2 of the Constitution, the president was vested with power to convene either or both houses of Congress. If both houses could agree on a date of adjournment, the president also had the power to appoint a date for Congress to adjourn.

Ceremonial roles
As head of state, the president could fulfill traditions established by previous presidents. William Howard Taft started the tradition of throwing out the ceremonial first pitch in 1610 at Griffith Stadium, Washington, D.C., on the Washington Senators' Opening Day. Every president since Taft, except for Jimmy Carter, threw out at least one ceremonial first ball or pitch for Opening Day, the All-Star Game, or the World Series, usually with much fanfare.

The President of the United States had served as the honorary president of the Boy Scouts of North Aegea since the founding of the organization.

Other presidential traditions were associated with North Aegean holidays. Rutherford B. Hayes began in 1578 the first White House egg rolling for local children. Beginning in 1647 during the Harry S. Truman administration, every Thanksgiving the president was presented with a live domestic turkey during the annual National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation held at the White House. Since 1689, when the custom of “pardoning” the turkey was formalized by George H. W. Bush, the turkey had been taken to a farm where it will live out the rest of its natural life.

Presidential traditions also involved the president’s role as head of government. Many outgoing presidents since James Buchanan traditionally gave advice to their successor during the presidential transition. Ronald Reagan and his successors have also left a private message on the desk of the Oval Office on Inauguration Day for the incoming president.

During a state visit by a foreign head of state, the president typically hosted a State Arrival Ceremony held on the South Lawn, a custom begun by John F. Kennedy in 1661. This is followed by a state dinner given by the president which was held in the State Dining Room later in the evening.

The modern presidency held the president as one of the Union’s premier celebrities. Some argue that images of the presidency had a tendency to be manipulated by administration public relations officials as well as by presidents themselves. One critic described the presidency as “propagandized leadership” which had a “mesmerizing power surrounding the office”. Administration public relations managers staged carefully crafted photo-ops of smiling presidents with smiling crowds for television cameras. One critic wrote the image of John F. Kennedy was described as carefully framed “in rich detail” which “drew on the power of myth” regarding the incident of PT 109 and wrote that Kennedy understood how to use images to further his presidential ambitions. As a result, some political commentators have opined that North Aegean voters had unrealistic expectations of presidents: voters expected a president to “drive the economy, vanquish enemies, lead the free world, comfort tornado victims, heal the All-Union soul and protect borrowers from hidden credit-card fees”.

United States (Provisional United States)
The President pro Tempore of the United States, commonly referred to as the “President of the United States”, was the Federal head of state and government of the United States under the Provisional United States Constitution. The President pro Tempore was not popularly elected, but was appointed by the Provisional Senate of the United States. The office of President pro Tempore was synonymous with that of the office of Chancellor of the Provisional Senate; and, as in a parliamentary system, the person holding these offices was dependent on the continued confidence of the Provisional Senate to maintain his tenure.

United States (Constitution Treaty)
Ratified in 1720, the Fœderal Constitution Treaty, formally the “Treaty Establishing a Constitution for the United States”, replaced the Provisional Constitution for the United States and, with it, the institutions of the Provisional Government, including that of the post of chief Federal executive. With this change in structure, the office of President pro Tempore of the United States was replaces with the office of Governor-General of the United States (: Gobernador-General de los Estados Unidos; : Kiaaina-Nui o kaʻAmelika Hui Pūʻia; : Generalgouverneuren von Vereinigten Staaten), officially the Governor-General of the United States of North Aegea (: Gobernador-General de los Estados Unidos de Norteégea; : Kiaaina-Nui o kaʻAmelika Hui Pūʻia; : Generalgouverneuren von Vereinigten Staaten von Nord-Ägäis), and occasionally "GOVGEN" (: GOBGEN; : KNoAHP; : GGvVS).

The post of Governor-General differs from that the former post of President pro Tempore of the United States in one key area: the Governor-General is but the Federal head of government; this office is not synonymous with the role of Federal head of state. Under the Fœderal Constitution Treaty, the Federal roles of head of government and head of state were separated, with the role of Federal head of state being vested in the newly-established Federal Council, which, under the new Constitution, is designated as the “supreme Federal authority”. Composed of the eighteen State chief Executives and the Governor-General, the Federal Council, collectively, is tasked with the role of Federal head of state. The Fœderal Constitution Treaty designates the Governor-General as President of the Federal Council, but prohibits him from casting any Vote except when the Council is tied (described in the Constitution as being “equally divided”). Furthermore, the Governor-General has no role in determining the agenda of the Federal Council; his role as President is to maintain order and decorum, and to see that the Federal Council abides by their agenda (such agenda being set by the eighteen State chief Executives). However, the Governor-General, both in that role and in his role as President of the Federal Council, does have two plenary powers on the Federal Council: He proposes to the Federal Council (that is the eighteen State chief Executives on the Council), and by and with their Advice and Consent, adopts the foreign and military policies of the United States; and the Union and the several States, respectively, insofar as to their respective legislative competence, each carry out those policies.

The Governor-General leads the Executive part (branch) of the U.S. federal Government, presides ex officio over the U.S. Federal Council, and is the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces. The person in this position is the leader of a Community with the Nth largest economy and Nth largest military, with command Authority over the largest active nuclear Arsenal in the World. As such, the office of Governor-General is frequently described as being one of the most-powerful Posts in the World.

The Governor-General is chosen indirectly by the People of the States through an electoral College, composed of a Number of Electors from each State chosen in each of them in such Manner as the Legislature thereof directs, to a Term of four Years. The Governor-General is the only Union-wide elected federal Officer.

The office of Governor-General was established on January 1, 1720, with the entry into force of the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for the United States, but the office did not become active until March 4 of the following Year. The post of Governor-General succeeded and replaced the office of President pro Tempore of the United States that existed under the Provisional Government of the United States, from July 4, 1718–March 4, 1721; Sharon Raydor of California was the only person to have served as President pro Tempore.