DSU’s Theodore Roosevelt Center and the Alpha-Lambda-Pi Chapter of Phi Alpha Theta National History Honor Society hosted the University’s annual Constitution Day presentation on Tuesday afternoon, September 17.
Outreach coordinator and digital media specialist Dr. William Hansard delivered a presentation titled "Staying out of the Straitjacket: Theodore Roosevelt and the Constitution.” Hansard noted that Theodore Roosevelt (TR) believed the U.S. Constitution was an enabling document rather than a restraining document. In his 1913 autobiography, TR defended his philosophy: “I believed that the Constitution should be treated as the greatest document ever devised by the wit of man to aid a people in exercising every power necessary for its own betterment, and not a straitjacket cunningly fashioned to strangle growth.”
George Washington issued a total of eight executive orders, while TR issued 1,081 – nearly as many as those of all the U.S. Presidents before him combined. In 1907, as a frustrated Congress moved to limit President Roosevelt’s ability to create national forests via executive order, he and Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, designated more than 16 million acres of new national forest reserves in a single night, just before the law took effect. This action, known as the "Midnight Forests," preserved vast wilderness areas and became a cornerstone of TR’s conservation legacy.
“There is still today a legacy and impact of TR’s executive orders,” Hansard noted. “Once TR let it out, the genie could not be put back into the bottle. TR changed the landscape of executive power.”
Hansard was introduced by Lucas Bussman, a senior history major.
Visit www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org where you can explore the Theodore Roosevelt Center’s digital collections, learn about upcoming events, and find more resources on the legacy of the 26th President of the United States.