Despite the intentions of the framers of the Constitution and the subsequent roles laid out for the president therein, the President of the United States of America has assumed roles and powers that somewhat challenge these intentions. Since the forming of the Union there has been a continuing struggle over the powers of the president and whether he should take a reserved legalist position or a more activist role.

The legalist and activist positions are embodied perhaps no more deservedly in Presidents Taft and T. Roosevelt, respectively. It was Roosevelt's position that it was not only the President's right, but duty to do "anything that the needs of the Nation demanded, unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws" (Fisher, p. 23). Taft on the other hand maintained that the President "can exercise no power which cannot be fairly and reasonably traced to some specific...