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The Constitutional Significance Of Forgotten Presidents , Michael J. Gerhardt

Cleveland State Law Review

My hope is to clarify the forgotten constitutional legacies of a number of American Presidents. This is only a small sliver of constitutional law, but not an insignificant one at that. My aim is to examine how the Presidents we commonly dismiss as constitutionally insignificant actually helped to shape the future of constitutional law. How these Presidents (and their administrations) exercised power, even for as short a time as William Henry Harrison, changed the constitutional landscape. I do not intend to make the case for rating these Presidents higher than historians or others usually do or for overstating what they …