\u201cThe Congress shall have the powe<\/em>r\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Founding Fathers spent a lot of time thinking about war.\u00a0\u00a0After all, war was a part of their life experience.\u00a0\u00a0Not only did they survive the American Revolution, but many fought in the French and Indian War before (part of the Seven Years War, the first world-wide war).\u00a0\u00a0In fact, the first shots of that first world war were fired by a twenty-two year-old American officer in Western Pennsylvania on his first assignment, Lieutenant Colonel George Washington.\u00a0\u00a0And there continued to be conflict on the frontier with the independent nations of Native Americans.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the reasons for writing the Constitution in the first place was to more efficiently defend the new nation.\u00a0\u00a0The Articles of Confederation, the prior \u201corganizing document\u201d, didn\u2019t have a provision for a Navy, and more importantly, the capacity to raise the funds to create one.\u00a0\u00a0And while there was a provision for a National Army, there still wasn\u2019t funding.\u00a0\u00a0So the individual states were ultimately responsible for National defense.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Constitution put the responsibility for creating and funding both a National Army and Navy on the United States Congress.\u00a0\u00a0It also gave Congress the power to pay for state militias (the National Guard), that could be nationalized, but generally maintained under state command.\u00a0\u00a0But most importantly, the Constitution of the United States gave\u00a0\u00a0the power to declare war to the Congress, not the executive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The President is the Commander-in-Chief of all of various forms of military:\u00a0\u00a0Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, and the National Guards of the several states when Federalized.\u00a0\u00a0The Founding Fathers were clear:\u00a0\u00a0Congress creates, Congress declares, the President executes.\u00a0\u00a0George Washington as President, took personal command of the State Militia to put down an insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.\u00a0\u00a0He was authorized to do so by Congress in the \u201cMilitia Act of 1792\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was historic tension between the Congress and the President throughout history.\u00a0\u00a0In the Civil War, Lincoln took the actions he thought necessary, with Congress getting pulled along.\u00a0\u00a0The classic example was the Emancipation Proclamation, what today we would call an Executive Order.\u00a0\u00a0Lincoln only freed slaves in those states still in rebellion, because his authority only extended to those areas in insurrection.\u00a0\u00a0The states that remained in the Union but maintained slavery (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and the parts of Louisiana and Tennessee under Union control) were not \u201cin\u201d insurrection, and the Order did not apply to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And while Woodrow Wilson staked his Presidency on the treaty ending World War I, guaranteeing American support for the new League of Nations, the United States Senate refused to ratify it.\u00a0\u00a0The United States never participated in the League, perhaps dooming it to failure, and World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the Civil War, and World War I, Congress moved to reclaim war powers away from the Presidency.\u00a0\u00a0However, the threat and expanse of World War II caused the President to gain greater powers over the military than ever before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the real change in the balance of power between Congress and the President came after World War II.\u00a0\u00a0With the advent of nuclear missiles, that could launch a devastating strike within minutes, the process of declaring war seemed cumbersome and probably irrelevant.\u00a0Instead,\u00a0Congress gave the executive long-term \u201cuse of force\u201d powers.\u00a0\u00a0The last \u201cdeclared war\u201d was World War II, but there remains a long list of conflicts, still with Congressional approval:\u00a0\u00a0Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and Kosovo.\u00a0\u00a0And even more actions were justified after the attacks of 9-11; in Iraq and\u00a0\u00a0Syria, and America\u2019s longest war (two decades) in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The term \u201cwar\u201d is used a lot today.\u00a0\u00a0We are \u201cat war\u201d with organized narcotics traffickers, now called \u201cnarco-terrorists\u201d in order to \u201cfit\u201d under the use of force provisions passed by Congress after 9-11.\u00a0\u00a0The United States is committing arbitrary actions on the high seas, destroying a second presumed narcotics trafficking boat just the other day.\u00a0\u00a0What Congress might have defined as piracy back in 1788, now is an ongoing US policy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are also \u201cat war\u201d with undocumented migrants, using some of the same reasoning and executive authority that allowed for the internment of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II.\u00a0\u00a0There\u2019s a \u201cwar on crime\u201d, so much so, that the National Guard is being Federalized to patrol the streets in Los Angeles, Washington DC, and now Memphis. (Even though the Federalized National Guard cannot, by law, do policing actions such as arrests).\u00a0\u00a0And, after the assassination of conservative figure Charlie Kirk by a disturbed individual, the executive branch is ready to \u201cdeclare war\u201d (a power they do not have) on the vocal opposition to their actions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWar\u201d allows for the President to exercise the nearly unbridled authority of the Commander-in- Chief.\u00a0\u00a0There are only two checks on that power:\u00a0\u00a0Congress \u201cclawing back\u201d their authority, or the Supreme Court restraining Presidential overreach.\u00a0\u00a0And, if past actions are prologue, don\u2019t expect either to happen very soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And one final point:\u00a0\u00a0war by definition is violent.\u00a0\u00a0This week we speak constantly of \u201cdialing back\u201d the violence in American life.\u00a0\u00a0But if the Executive is constantly using the language of war and conflict, it\u2019s difficult to conclude that anything other than more violence will be the outcome.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n America has a long way to go, to get beyond our current sad state.\u00a0\u00a0Using \u201cwar\u201d as an excuse for action (or the name for a department of government) won\u2019t help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n
United States Constitution, Art II, Sec 2\u00a0<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The President<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Congress<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Why War?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
War Department<\/h2>\n\n\n\n