http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0310-29.htmThe Constitution gives to Congress, in Article 1, Section 8, the powers:
“To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas and offenses against the law of nations;
“To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
“To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
“To provide and maintain a Navy;
“To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;”
And, “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers.”
These powers are numerous, and the authority to “make all laws” for executing those powers could not be more sweeping.
Throughout our history, Presidents have tried to usurp that authority. In doing so, they have run into the principled opposition of some of our foremost constitutional authorities in the Senate.
Here is Daniel Webster, speaking about the Mexican War, on November 6, 1846:
“If the war should become odious to the people, if they shall disapprove the objects for which it appears to be prosecuted, then it will be the bounden duty of their representatives in Congress to demand of the President a full statement of his objects and purposes, and if those purposes shall appear to them not to be founded in the public good, or not consistent with the honor and character of the country, then it shall be their duty to put an end to it, by the exercise of their constitutional authority. . . . If Congress, in whom the war-making power is expressly made to reside, is to have no voice in the declaration or continuance of war, if it is not to judge of the beginning or carrying it on, then we depart at once from the Constitution.”
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