# Another question about US government re the president **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 20, 2026, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-us-government-re-the-president/1026851 "2026-01-20T14:12:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2026, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-us-government-re-the-president/1026851/21 "2026-01-22T21:21:49Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Most MPs can never be anything but an MP … But an ambitious Congressmember hopes to someday be President themself As a gut feeling, the proportion of MPs who want to be Prime Minister would be at least equal the number of Congressmembers who want to be President. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-us-government-re-the-president/1026851/22 "2026-01-23T00:45:48Z")
Now, sure. But at the time of the American Revolution, was there even a British Prime Minister, and did they have any significant level of power? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-us-government-re-the-president/1026851/23 "2026-01-23T02:35:29Z")
Yes, of course. There had been very powerful PMs like Walpole and Pitt the Elder, middling ones like Bute. During the time of the Revolution, the main PM was Lord North (a middling one). The king definitely had more power in the 18th century than later in the 19th, but Cabinet government steadily evolved throughout the 1700s, weakening the King’s power. By George’s time, the King had to have support from Parliament. That’s why the Declaration of Independence is politically deceptive, in putting it all on the King. There is no way that the King could have done all that was done by the British government in the lead up to the Revolution, all on his own. He had to have parliamentary support. For example, the Intolerable Acts - those were passed by Parliament. They showed that the upper levels of government, Parliament and King, were generally agreed in how to respond to the colonists. But, there were opposition members in Parliament who opposed the harsh approach to the colonies. But, it was politically easier for the drafters of the DoI to put it all on a tyrannical king, rather than to admit that a legislative body that had, for the time, a strong popularly elected component, had agreed with the measures leading up to the war. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-us-government-re-the-president/1026851/24 "2026-01-23T02:58:47Z")
And at the time of the writing of the Constitution, the PM had been for several years William Pitt the Younger, who was a commoner. And not the first. The Founders would have very conscious that the position was coveted by many and available to all the elite, not just the nobility. George III was violently opposed to American independence, and apparently took the DoI as a personal slight against him, good propaganda that it was. Though Parliament controlled the country, the King was vastly more influential then than today. George’s intransigent stance weakened the power of those against the war, even Lord North who realized early on that the war was unwinnable. George kept North on, regardless, because he seemed the best to abide by his wishes. North was therefore forced to resign after Yorktown. Another clear signal that after Washington any President would be vulnerable to political enemies and shifting fortunes, which encouraged his party in Congress to protect and empower him whenever possible. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-us-government-re-the-president/1026851/25 "2026-01-23T03:11:27Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > the PM had been for several years William Pitt the Younger, who was a commoner “Commoner” here in the English sense of “younger son of an Earl”, of course. 😁 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-us-government-re-the-president/1026851/26 "2026-01-23T04:20:07Z")
Ooh, a nepo baby. Of course, his father was known as “The Great Commoner” because he wouldn’t accept a title before he became PM. And he had been Leader of the House of Commons earlier, just as North and Pitt the Younger would be. I got your joke, although the nuances of the English class system have always been a mystery to me. But politics is politics, with titles or without, and the politics of the Founders was politics. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-us-government-re-the-president/1026851/27 "2026-01-23T05:05:09Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Now, sure. But at the time of the American Revolution, was there even a British Prime Minister, and did they have any significant level of power? Here’s a couple of Wikipedia articles about the two main groups during the revolution: the Tories led by Lord North, and the Rockingham Whigs, led the Marquess of Rockingham. Both were prime minister at different times. > **[Frederick North, Lord North](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_North,_Lord_North)** > > Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford (13 April 1732 – 5 August 1792), better known by his courtesy title Lord North, which he used from 1752 to 1790, was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1770 to 1782. He led the Kingdom of Great Britain through most of the American Revolutionary War. He also held a number of other cabinet posts, including Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer. > North's reputation among historians has varied wildly, reaching its lowest point in the late 19th centur... > **[Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Watson-Wentworth,_2nd_Marquess_of_Rockingham)** > > Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham (13 May 1730 – 1 July 1782), styled The Honourable Charles Watson-Wentworth before 1739, Viscount Higham between 1739 and 1746, Earl of Malton between 1746 and 1750, and the Marquess of Rockingham from 1750, was a British Whig statesman and magnate, most notable for his two terms as Prime Minister of Great Britain. He became the patron of many Whigs, known as the Rockingham Whigs, and served as a leading Whig grandee. He served in only two h... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-us-government-re-the-president/1026851.md?page=1)