Article II

Executive Branch

Signed in convention September 17, 1787. Ratified June 21, 1788. Portions of Article II, Section 1, were changed by the 12th Amendment and the 25th Amendment.















Annenberg Classroom

Article II, Section 1 – What It Means

Article II, Section 1 establishes that the president has the power to run the executive branch of the government. This section, later modified by Amendments XII and XXV, outlines who is eligible to serve as president, establishes the Electoral College (the means by which the president and vice president are elected), and authorizes Congress to determine who will replace the president and vice president should they be unable to serve during their term of office.

Article II, Section 1 establishes that the president and vice president are to be elected at the same time and serve the same four-year term. Until 1951, presidents could serve for as many four-year terms as they could win. But after President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected for four terms, Congress passed and the states ratified Amendment XXII, which limits a president to two terms (eight years) in office. In the rare case that a vice president (or other official) takes over for a president who has stepped down or died in office and serves more than two years of the remaining term, he or she is limited to one new term.

Rather than being elected directly by the people, the president is elected by members of the Electoral College, which is created by Article II, Section 1. It is not really a “college,” but a group of people who are elected by the states. Each state is entitled to the number of electors equal to the combined number of their representatives and senators in Congress.

Neither members of Congress nor other federal officials may serve as electors. Each state legislature decides how members of the Electoral College are to be selected and how they are to vote. For example, some states select electors at primary elections or at caucuses. In most states, electors vote for the presidential candidate who won the vote in their state. But in a few states, state law specifies that electors cast their votes according to the percentage of votes received by each candidate. If the Republican candidate receives 55 percent of the vote, he or she receives the votes of 55 percent of the electors. The creation of the Electoral College gives more power to the smaller states, rather than letting the people in the most populous states control who becomes president.

Additional rules were added in 1804, when Amendment XII was adopted. For example, the amendment creates the way a president is selected when neither candidate obtains a majority of votes in the Electoral College.

There are three minimum requirements to be elected president: one must be a natural-born citizen of the United States, must have lived in the United States for at least 14 years, and must be at least 35 years old.

Although Article II, Section 1 originally provided who should become president if the president dies, resigns, or is removed from office, Amendment XXV, added in 1967, modified the line of succession.

The president’s salary is set by Congress. To avoid allowing Congress to punish or reward the president while he or she is in office, the Constitution prohibits any change in salary during the president’s term. The president also is prohibited from receiving any other type of compensation or perks while in office.

Before assuming office, the president must swear or affirm to do his or her best to serve as the nation’s leader and to uphold the United States Constitution as the law of the land.

Article II, Section 2 – What It Means

The president serves not only as the head of the executive branch of government, but also as the commander in chief of the armed forces (including state national guards when they are called on to serve with the federal armed forces).

As chief executive, the president runs the different executive agencies, such as the Department of the Treasury or the Department of Health and Human Services.
The president has the power to pardon (let free) any person who has committed a federal crime, except in cases of impeachment.

With permission from two-thirds of the senators present, the president can make treaties (agreements) with other countries. With the approval of a majority of senators, the president makes a number of key appointments. These include U.S. ambassadors and foreign consuls, Supreme Court justices and federal judges, U.S. attorneys, U.S. marshals, Cabinet officers, independent agency heads, and members of regulatory commissions. To ensure that the president can fill vacancies when the Senate is not in session, the president can make any of these appointments without Senate approval, but these “recess appointments” end at the end of the next Senate session.

Congress may choose to require Senate approval of other presidential appointments or let the president, courts or department heads appoint staff and agency employees without approval by the Senate.

Article II, Section 3 – What It Means

During his or her term, the president must report to Congress about how things are going in the country. Every president from Jefferson to Taft fulfilled this duty with a written statement submitted to Congress. But in 1913, Woodrow Wilson resumed George Washington’s practice of directly addressing a joint session of Congress. This “State of the Union” speech, a tradition that continues to this day, usually occurs in January or February each year.

The president also has the power, in extreme cases, to call both the House of Representatives and the Senate together for a special session. The president is given the power to meet with representatives from other nations on behalf of the United States and to otherwise run the country by enforcing the laws and directing officers and staff.

Article II, Section 4 – What It Means

The Constitution provides that the president, vice president, and other federal officers can be removed from office upon impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate of treason, bribery, or other serious crimes. The process was begun only three times in U.S. history against a president — against Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon (although he resigned before Congress could formally act) and Bill Clinton.

The impeachment process begins in the House of Representatives with a vote to impeach. Then the president (or other accused government official) stands trial for the accusations in the Senate. The Chief Justice of the United States presides at an impeachment trial of the president.

In all impeachment trials, members of the House serve as prosecutors and the full Senate sits as the jury. The accused official must be convicted by a two-thirds vote of the Senate to be removed from office.


Linda Monk


The duty of the executive branch is to enforce the laws. As a result of increasing federal regulation, the executive is by far the largest branch of government. It consists not only of the president, the vice president, and the cabinet officers, but also more than three million civilian and military employees. The primary responsibility of the president, and the entire executive branch, is best expressed in Section 3 of Article II: “He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

Article II focuses almost exclusively on the president. It sets forth how the president is to be selected, through the electoral college. Article II also describes presidential powers—among them commanding the armed forces, negotiating treaties, and nominating justices of the Supreme Court. And, if the president has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors,” Article II allows him or her to be impeached and removed from office.

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