Article II: The Executive Branch

Article II begins: the executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. Unlike Article I, it does not add herein granted, a difference that supporters of broad presidential power have long emphasized. Section 1 sets a four-year term, the Electoral College method of election, as later revised by the Twelfth Amendment, the qualifications of age, citizenship, and residency, succession to the Vice President, a fixed salary, and the only oath whose words the Constitution prescribes.

Section 2 makes the President commander in chief, lets the President require written opinions from department heads, and grants the pardon power. With the Senate's advice and consent, the President makes treaties and appoints ambassadors, judges, and other officers. Section 3 directs the President to report on the state of the union, recommend legislation, receive ambassadors, commission officers, convene Congress in emergencies, and take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Section 4 provides for removal of the President, Vice President, and civil officers on impeachment and conviction.

Article II is brief and general, which has made it the site of continuing argument. Whether the vesting clause is itself a grant of power, how far the Take Care Clause lets the President direct and remove subordinates, and what the commander-in-chief power allows without Congress have been fought over from Washington's neutrality proclamation in 1793 to the unitary executive debates and presidential immunity case of recent years.