The Whig conception of executive power has appeared in debates about Article II throughout American constitutional history.
In some contexts, notably foreign affairs, the Constitution creates a default in favor of presidential policy discretion which can be overridden by Congress in the exercise of its constitutional powers.
The Whig conception of executive power was familiar to the Federal Convention, and that conception matches the convention's decisions regarding the executive as reflected in the Constitution's drafting history.
The limited, Whig conception of executive power best fits the text and structure of the Constitution.
Anglo-American constitutional thought has long included a limited view of executive power—historically associated with thinkers who called themselves Whigs—according to which executive officials act in an environment of legal rules that empower and constraint them, and those rules do not come from the executive power itself.
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