Profs and Pints DC presents: “George Washington and Executive Power,” a fresh assessment of our first president’s approach to his own authority, with Denver Brunsman, associate professor and chair of the history department at George Washington University and scholar of the American Revolution and early American republic.
If it’s Presidents’ Day it’s time for historian Denver Brunsman, a Profs and Pints fan favorite, to give his annual talk on our nation’s founders.
This year Professor Brunsman will devote his eighth annual Presidents’ Day talk to exploring one of the pressing concerns of our times – the question of what, if any, limits there are on executive power—by examining the origins of executive power under George Washington.
Washington played a vital role in framing the Constitution as the president of the Philadelphia Convention. He then went on to put the document into practice as America’s first president, a role in which faced numerous decisions that tested how much power his newly created office possessed.
We’ll discuss how Washington managed to establish a strong executive office—even stronger than many of his fellow Federalists had envisioned—while still assiduously obeying the legal limits on his power. By achieving this balance, America’s first president provided a timely model for the office today.
In what has become a Presidents’ Day tradition, Professor Brunsman will close his lecture with historic toasts and odes to America’s first president. This is a holiday celebration not to be missed. Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah! (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image: George Washington in the last year of his presidency as painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1796 (National Portrait Gallery / Wikipedia).