Is Joe Biden up to his job as president?

Many, including a significant portion of Democrats, continue to ask this question as the 2024 primary and general election approach. Some in the party might be willing to overlook concerns about Biden’s fitness because they agree with his policies. But the Constitution demands that we consider whether Biden, who just turned 80, can handle the responsibilities and challenges inherent to the executive office.

The American Founders would share this concern. Next week marks the 235th anniversary of the publication of the Federalist Papers, which focused mostly on the nature and needed qualities of the presidency. Federalist 70 , written by Alexander Hamilton, can help us today in understanding our constitutional presidency and the fitness it requires.

Federalist 70 declares the two qualities we most want in our chief executive. The first is “safety,” according to Hamilton. He recognized that many in the American republic would fear presidential power. Hamilton noted that some even claimed, “a vigorous Executive is inconsistent with the genius of republican government.” People, then and now, often equate executives with monarchy or even despotism.

We see how this tendency played out across American history. Both Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln were derisively called kings. Recent presidents, whether Republicans like George W. Bush and Donald Trump or Democrats like Barack Obama, have been titled tyrants or despots by their partisan foes.

Federalist 70 grounds safety on the fact that we have one president at a time. The “unitary executive” makes it easier to hold a president responsible for his actions, good or ill, as compared to the other elected branch — Congress.

Congress notoriously has an in-the-gutter low approval rating as a whole and a sky-high reelection rate among its members. That can happen in large part because of how easily a representative or senator can pass the blame for unpopular action or inaction. Voters can convince themselves that their congressperson isn’t the problem; the branch’s dysfunction is due to other members. This reasoning works much less with the president, who most Americans realize stands alone at the top of the executive branch. “The buck stops here,” President Harry Truman famously said about his office.

The other quality by which Hamilton defined the presidency was “energy.” By energy, Hamilton meant vigor in executing the laws of the United States. Here, proponents of popular government had to get over their worries that a strong executive would inevitably lead to tyranny. Every good government needs a vigorous, energetic enforcement of its laws. Laws needed the threat and use of force to ensure persons obeyed them. Otherwise, we could not have the rule of law. And what good are laws not obeyed, since it is in obedience to them that the proper ends of government — protection of life, liberty, and property — are actually accomplished?

Again, Federalist 70 says a unitary president is best suited to act with energy. Unlike a committee, one person can act with decisiveness and swiftness and can do much and do so secretly when needed. Unlike lawmaking, which can occur in one moment and live on for the life of the country, executive enforcement is momentary and needs to constantly take place to ensure the people’s safety.

Here we return to the problem of Joe Biden.

When Donald Trump called Jeb Bush “low energy” or Biden “sleepy Joe,” he almost certainly did not have Federalist 70 in mind. But he did point toward an important point made in that paper. The unitary executive only provides the needed energy for good government if the person occupying the office himself acts vigorously.

We have some evidence of vigor in the Biden administration, with some of its strident moves being done to appease the Left. But we do not see much energy in Biden himself. That creates a harmful situation. Executive energy now comes from bureaucrats whom we don’t elect and thus can’t control, while the elected president seems unable to handle the vigor the office demands. That results in an executive neither energetic nor safe.

Thankfully we have an election next year.

Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.