Plodding through the Presidents
On this day July 30 in 1821, Thomas Jefferson wrote about what he believed to be the “crudest part” of the Constitution—the role of the president. He wrote, “I have ever considered the organization of our Executive as the crudest part of our Constitution, a mere mongrel kind of Directory. Yet I see no hope of amending this or still worse things in it."
The crudeness he refers to is largely due to the massive popularity and respect the framers had for George Washington. Everyone knew Washington would be the first president so they crafted the role with few explicit restrictions, assuming that Washington—governed by honor and norms and a general lack of malignant narcissism—could be trusted to set the unwritten precedents.
Jefferson's remarks illustrate that the founders knew the Constitution had flaws and had no illusions about the difficulty of amending it.
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