This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, September 9th, 2010.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Leading a nation is not the job of the president.

At least that's how the founders saw it

Gene Healy vice president of the Cato Institute and author of the cult of the

presidency recently discussed the original conception of what an American

president is supposed to do at Cato University on Capitol Hill.

Art as it seems to us today when we're used to this overbearing, domineering, omnipresent figure in the presidency.

The framers never thought of the president as America's quote unquote national leader.

In fact, in their vision, the very notion

of national leadership was threatening.

The Federalist Papers literally begin and end,

number one in 85 or 86, with warnings about popular

demagogues and the dangers of popular leadership.

Federalist's one is a warning that throughout history, those who have destroyed republics began

by flattering the people.

And then in the final paper,

Hamilton warned that, should the Constitution not succeed,

we may end up with the military despotism

of a victorious demagogue.

I think both quotes show somewhat how much the framers

distrusted the idea of popular leadership.

...