In the period of time after the United States came into being and was considered the Confederate States of America the lack of any form of executive power at the national level of government made it exceedingly difficult to enforce any manner of national law and so it was necessary to reform the confederate government into the three branches we currently use.

When our nation originally came together it was considered wrong to establish a nation with a strong federal government. The emphasis was instead on a system in which equal states would come together to conduct business. While this form of government secured each state from the tyranny of the others, it did so to such a degree that no business could be enforced upon any of them. When Shay’s Rebellion occurred, there was no central authority with the ability to counter-act the citizen uprising and the result was that some number of farmers who did not wish to allow their properties to become foreclosed were able to forcefully interrupt the business within their state. In general, property law is an extension, or subsection, of contract law and contract law enforcement is essential to the basic ability to conduct economic business within a country. As a society, we have the trust that we can reasonably conduct contractual business because if the other party were to breach their contract with us we can utilize the courts to seek remedy. When the government can not enforce its decisions citizens will lose faith in the ability of the government to enforce its judicial rulings and business throughout the nation will suffer.

When the executive branch was developed as the country came together to review how the government would look it seems that much of its position was derived from duties previously given to the Senate. With the Judicial branch being in its infancy at this point in time, it would seem that the President was less a manifestation of the third branch of government and more meant to serve as the enforcement arm of the legislature, if not the Senate itself. In either position, the executive was tasked with executing the laws derived from the legislature. As we learned in our text, this enforcement required a more open-ended view of government than the legislature utilized. While the legislature had clearly defined rules and guidelines, the executive branch had a more open mandate of ensuring the laws are followed. Also noted in our text, when the next notable rebellion occurred, the Whiskey Rebellion, George Washington was able to mobilize citizen forces to bring to rebels into compliance with the national laws. I think this series of events, an unanswered rebellion that is followed by a reframing of government and leads to the next rebellion being swiftly answered is a clear depiction of why we have a President in the United States.