today we're looking at article 2 section 1 and 2 of the us constitution
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the questions down in the description also don't forget to check out the worksheet in
the description that goes along with this video available at dailybellringer.com the united states
government is organized into three branches legislative executive and judicial article one
of the constitution established and organized the legislative branch but now article 2 will focus on
establishing and organizing the executive branch the executive branch is headed by the president
of the united states and while the legislative branch makes laws technically the executive branch
is supposed to ensure that laws are executed or carried out the executive branch is made up of
the president and his advisors article 2 section 1 establishes the office of the president of the
united states so again when you think of the executive branch the president is the head
of the branch and has advisors and offices under him that carry out the functions of the executive
branch within section 1 of article 2 there are a few requirements outlined for the presidency
first in order to be president you must be at least 35 years old so as of now our youngest
president ever was john f kennedy who was 43 years old when he was sworn in and in case
you're interested our oldest president is our current president president joe biden who was
78 years old when he was sworn into office also within section one it states that the president
will serve four-year terms initially there was no limit on how many terms a president could serve
george washington served two terms and basically set the precedent that no one should serve more
than that as president so every president after him followed that rule until we got to franklin
delano roosevelt who just kept getting re-elected and had four terms and died in office in 1945
after that the 22nd amendment was added to the constitution in 1951 limiting the president to
only two terms in office also under section one it establishes that the president will be
elected by the electoral college so technically the people do not directly vote for the president
instead the people vote for electors to vote for the president and the number of electors each
state receives is determined by their total number of representatives in congress if you look at this
map here from the 2020 presidential election you'll see numbers on each state that number
represents the number of electors that state has based on the combined number of representatives
in the house of representatives which again varies from state to state based on that state's
population and then add the two senators that each state gets in the senate there is a total of 538
electoral votes on the map and in order for the candidate to win the electoral college they must
get at least 270 of those electoral votes then lastly under section 1 you must be a natural-born
citizen or in other words you must be born in the united states to become the president in article
2 section 2 this is where we have the powers of the president defined here it is established that
the president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces this basically means the president
is the overall commander of all the u.s military one interesting thing to note here is that the
president is technically a civilian meaning he is not a member of the armed forces this is something
the founders purposely designed as they did not want a military commander to simply come in and
sweep into power and furthermore they wanted the military to be kept in check by having a civilian
as the commander the president has the power to appoint a cabinet which is the group of top
advisers to the president these are positions such as secretary of treasury secretary of defense or
secretary of education also the president has the authority to appoint judges to the supreme court
with senate approval now this is a major power as you have to remember supreme court members
can serve for life so long after a president is out of office a judge which they appointed
can still be making decisions the president also has the power to pardon or forgive criminals of
their crimes then of course the president is given the power to approve or veto bills that have been
passed by congress before they become law if a bill is approved and signed by the president it
becomes law if it's rejected then it's called a veto there is article 2 section 1 and 2 that
establishes the office of the president outlines requirements of the presidency and defines what
powers the president has so with that hopefully you learned something and thanks for watching you