Executive Duty Quotes
The convention turned down the constitution and would not ratify it until the Bill of Rights was passed later. By modern standards, Presidents in modern times have withheld much information from the Congress and in some cases such as the George W. Bush administrations, the President and his cabinet frequently lied to the Senate, the House, and the American people with no effort made to impeach. Based on the original intent of the Americans ratifying the Constitution, the Executive Branch may not keep anything material to the security of the country secret from Congress. But the center of both parties reject this regardless of what the original intent was.
The problem was that Congress was gridlocked on the slavery issue. The Southern states had more than their proportional share of Congressional power with slave populations being counted as 3/5 of a person for seats in the House of Representatives and parity with the other states in the Senate. The South could not stop all the attempts to debate slavery and the abolitionists attempts to end it, but they could block all legislation that might curtain slavery. As the United States was getting more sophisticated and educated hostility toward slavery was steadily increasing. The economies of the non Southern states was growing faster and more assuredly than the slave economies of the South. Abolition was all but inevitable but it would still take more time. Note that the President totally deferred to Congress on the leadership of what the policy should be. Presidents at that time were far less influential in making national policy and national legislating than they have become. Many think that the balance has shifted too far towards the Executive Branch.
