PRESIDENTS (in Order of EXECUTIVE ORDERS) - Biden Update

This video orders The US Presidents by the NUMBER of EXECUTIVE ORDERS they gave, updated to include Biden. Trump has been removed because we do not know his total yet. FDR issued more executive orders than any POTUS [3,728]. He is also the only president to average more than 300 per year. W.H.Harrison is the only president to have never issued an executive order. J.Adams, Madison, & Monroe issued the fewest executive orders while serving at least 1 full term [one]. Ulysses S. Grant was the first president to issue more than 100 executive orders. T.Roosevelt was the first president to issue more than 1,000 executive orders.

(MUSIC: 'Executive Orders' by Lee J. Martin)

In the USA, an executive order is a directive by the President of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article 2 of the United States Constitution gives the president broad executive and enforcement authority to use their discretion to determine how to enforce the law or to otherwise manage the resources and staff of the executive branch. The ability to make such orders is also based on expressed or implied Acts of Congress that delegate to the president some degree of discretionary power.

Like both legislative statutes and the regulations promulgated by government agencies, executive orders are subject to judicial review and may be overturned if the orders lack support by statute or the Constitution. Some policy initiatives require approval by the legislative branch, but executive orders have significant influence over the internal affairs of government, deciding how and to what degree legislation will be enforced, dealing with emergencies, waging wars, and in general fine-tuning policy choices in the implementation of broad statutes. As the head of state and head of government of the USA, as well as commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces, only the President of the United States can issue an executive order.

Presidential executive orders, once issued, remain in force until they are cancelled, revoked, adjudicated unlawful, or expire on their terms. At any time, the president may revoke, modify or make exceptions from any executive order, whether the order was made by the current president or a predecessor. Typically, a new president reviews in-force executive orders in the first few weeks in office.

The United States Constitution does not have a provision that explicitly permits the use of executive orders. Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 of the Constitution simply states: "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the USA." Sections 2 and 3 describe the various powers and duties of the president, including "he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed".

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that all executive orders from the president of the United States must be supported by the Constitution, whether from a clause granting specific power, or by Congress delegating such to the executive branch. Specifically, such orders must be rooted in Article II of the US Constitution or enacted by the Congress in statutes. Attempts to block such orders have been successful at times, when such orders either exceeded the authority of the President or could be better handled through legislation.

The Office of the Federal Register is responsible for assigning the executive order a sequential number, after receipt of the signed original from the White House & printing the text of the executive order in the daily Federal Register and eventually in Title 3 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

With the exception of William Henry Harrison, all presidents since George Washington in 1789 have issued orders that in general terms can be described as executive orders. Initially, they took no set form and so they varied as to form and substance.

The first executive order was issued by Washington on June 8, 1789; addressed to the heads of the federal departments, it instructed them "to impress me with a full, precise, & distinct general idea of the affairs of the United States" in their fields.

According to political scientist Brian R. Dirck, the most famous executive order was by President Abraham Lincoln, when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862:
The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order, itself a rather unusual thing in those days. Executive orders are simply presidential directives issued to agents of the executive department by its boss.
Until the early 1900s, executive orders were mostly unannounced & undocumented, & seen only by the agencies to which they were directed.

That changed when the US Department of State instituted a numbering scheme in 1907, starting retroactively with U.S. Executive Order 1, issued on October 20, 1862, by President Lincoln. The documents that later came to be known as "executive orders" apparently gained their name from that order issued by Lincoln.