The Historical Presidency The Development of Unilateral Power and the Problem of the Power to Warn: Washington through McKinley JEREMY D. BAILEY BRANDON ROTTINGHAUS University of Houston The scholarly turn to the unilateral presidency has expanded our understanding of the presidency and executive power, but, to date, this body of work has focused on presidents since the New Deal. This is somewhat surprising, given that many of the most well-known unilateral orders were issued before 1900. Rather than being isolated events, they are part of a longer list of unilateral presidential orders among early presidents that, as a group, have received little scholarly attention. This article seeks, first, to introduce “settle down” proclamations (which are issued as warnings to the public) issued by presidents before Theodore Roosevelt as a way to further understand the development of executive power in the early presidency. Second, it uses these proclamations to test whether the findings of the unilateral presidency scholarship hold with respect to unilateral power before the twentieth century. The article concludes by comparing unilateral power to prerogative power and proposing a path for future research. Now, Therefore, I, John F. Kennedy, President of the United States, under and by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, including Chapter 15 of Title 10 of the United States Code, particularly sections 332, 333 and 334 thereof, do command all persons engaged in such obstructions of justice to cease and desist therefrom and to disperse and retire peaceably forthwith. —Proclamation #3497, 1962 Jeremy D. Bailey is author of Thomas Jefferson and Executive Power and is now completing a coauthored book on the removal power. His articles on the early presidency and executive power have been published in a variety of journals. Brandon Rottinghaus is associate professor and Senator Don Henderson Scholar at the University of Houston. He is author of The Provisional Pulpit and codirector of the Presidential Proclamations Project. AUTHORS’ NOTE: We would like to thank Tom Langford for expert editorial guidance and the National Science Foundation (SES-1237627) for generous funding. Presidential Studies Quarterly 43, no. 1 (March) 186 © 2013 Center for the Study of the Presidency