The American presidency as James Madison, George Washington, and Alexander Hamilton conceived it would be a source of national pride and unity, a check on the tyranny of the majority, and a neutral guarantor of the nation’s laws. This talk will focus on how Thomas Jefferson’s “Revolution of 1800” remade the presidency, paving the way for Andrew Jackson to elevate “majority rule” into an unofficial constitutional principle—and contributing to the disenfranchisement, and worse, of African Americans and Native Americans. In Woodrow Wilson, Knott finds a worthy successor to Jefferson and Jackson. More than any of his predecessors, Wilson altered the nation’s expectations of what a president could be expected to achieve, building the foundation for what became known as “presidential government.” As difficult as it might be to recover the lost soul of the American presidency, this talk will highlight those presidents who remained true to the founders vision, including John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, and William Howard Taft. These presidencies suggest an alternative and offer hope for the future of the nation’s highest office.