What powers does the Constitution grant the president and what limits those powers? How have war, political parties, emergencies, judicial decisions, and changing expectations of presidential leadership transformed the executive branch envisioned by the framers?
This week-long seminar examines Article II of the U.S. Constitution and the continuing debate over the nature and scope of executive power. Beginning with the Constitutional Convention and The Federalist, participants will consider why the framers rejected both executive weakness and monarchical authority in favor of a single president operating within a system of separated powers. Particular attention will be given to the Vesting Clause, Commander in Chief power, appointments and removal, the pardon power, executive privilege, foreign affairs, and the president’s responsibility to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”
Other topics to be explored with nationally recognized constitutional scholars include presidential authority in foreign affairs, national security, war, and constitutional crises, as well as the broader constitutional system, including Congress, political parties, institutional norms, and the challenges of expecting presidents to function as the center of American political life. Participants will receive a grounding in constitutionalism, natural rights, the founding, and the separation of powers. Finally, we will examine executive power through the lens of constitutional law, judicial politics, and the Supreme Court’s role in defining presidential authority.
Through primary-source readings, landmark Supreme Court cases, scholarly debate, and historical examples from Washington to the modern presidency, teachers will confront enduring questions: Is presidential power inherent or specifically enumerated? How should executive authority change during emergencies? When should Congress or the courts restrain the president? And how much of the American presidency depends not on written law, but on institutional norms and constitutional self-restraint?
The seminar will equip teachers to present Article II not simply as a description of presidential powers, but as an ongoing constitutional debate over energy, accountability, liberty, and the proper limits of executive authority.
Speaker:
John C. Yoo
John C. Yoo, JD is the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, where he serves as Faculty Director of the Public Law and Policy Program. He is also the Thomas W. Smith Senior Fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. His scholarship focuses on constitutional law, presidential and executive power, national security, foreign affairs, international law, and the Supreme Court.
Yoo graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College with an AB in American history in 1989 and received his JD from Yale Law School in 1992, where he served as an articles editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Yoo has the unusual distinction of having served in all three branches of the federal government. In the judicial branch, he clerked for Judge Laurence Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. In the legislative branch, he served as General Counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee from 1995–1996. In the executive branch, he served from 2001–2003 as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, working on constitutional, foreign-affairs, national-security, and terrorism issues, including the federal government’s legal response to the September 11 attacks.
Yoo has published more than 100 scholarly articles and numerous books, including The Powers of War and Peace, Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George W. Bush, War by Other Means, Point of Attack, and Defender in Chief. His most recent book is The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court co-authored with Robert Delahunty. He is also a co-author of the 2026 edition of American Constitutional Law.
Typically scheduled from Sunday through Friday in the summer, Founding Forward’s week-long teacher seminars are hosted at Union League Liberty Hill, a 300+ acre private conference center and golf course in suburban Philadelphia. Each seminar has a single theme and consists of content-focused talks by highly regarded scholars (morning and afternoon) interspersed each day with activation sessions featuring either lesson demonstrations from master teachers and presentation from resource providers like Retro Report or Periodic Presidents. Finally, each seminar includes an out-of-classroom field study to historic sites, archives, and museums.
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