He also thought that secrecy in one individual executive was acceptable, especially in times of war. Though historians such as Arthur Schlesinger Jr. thought much differently. He believed that this type of executive secrecy would ultimately lead to the power to withhold, leak, and the power to lie. An example of this is how Eisenhower hid CIA operations. “The power to withhold and the power to leak led on inexorably to the power to lie. The secrecy system instilled in the executive branch the idea that foreign policy was no one’s business, save its own, and the uncontrolled secrecy made it easy for lying to become routine. It was in this spirit that Eisenhower concealed the CIA operations it was mounting against governments around the world.” (Khan Academy)

Though Hamilton had the right idea for having a single executive as president, we can see that our forefathers were wise enough to include the Legislative and Judicial Branches to check and balance their executive. One example of this is the twenty-second amendment, which allows for no more than two terms, four years each in a presidency. President Franklin Delanor Roosevelt served four terms during the great depression. As a reaction, on March Twenty-Fourth, 1947, Congress amended the Constitution. A second example is the War Powers Act of 1973, in which Congress and the Legislative Branch voted and deliberated that a president could not commit the United States to war without the consent of the U.S. Congress.

In the Federalist Papers, Number Seventy, Alexander Hamilton argues the idea of having a single executive as our president is essential for a thriving republic. This president is an energetic force whose ultimate wisdom will lead the nation while accepting the advice, counsel, and criticism of the other branches. The Legislative and Judicial Branches serve to check and balance this individual as not to allow him or her to have total abuse of power.