There have been forty-three different men who have occupied the office of the President of the United States. The powers and responsibilities that are associated with the presidency have their foundation in the Constitution, but each president has interpreted those powers in their own way, based on their own personal characteristics, life stories and ideas about governance. With those traits, each of those forty-three men have helped to shape the presidency into what it is today, but some have left a more successful legacy than others. Comparisons between presidents are inevitable, and they help us to understand both where the presidency has been, and where it is going in the future. The evolution of the presidency can be traced by comparing the administrations of Abraham Lincoln, William Taft and George W. Bush. All three men represented the Republican party, but each took drastically different approaches as the chief executive. Some of these differences can be explained as the result of external circumstance, but there is also a personal and political philosophies that led each to execute the office as they did. As we consider their successes and failures, we will come to see how the individual styles of each man had as much influence on the presidency as the Constitution.