[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 9 (Wednesday, January 24, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H814-H822]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 1700
LEARNING FROM OUR HISTORY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, while my good friend from Arkansas is in the
chair, I plan not to bore you, sir, but to educate you. You are already
pretty darn educated, and I love your State; and I have told you more
than once,
[[Page H815]]
there are 23 Medal of Honor winners from Arkansas, and it is a great
State. And it is under a cloud for awhile, but it is going to be
liberated 286 days from right now, 285 from when we wake up in the
morning, to regain its place in the pantheon of the 50 American States.
Let me take a moment again to do what I did in one of the five times
I spoke today, a 1-minute four times on the defense bill, and point out
again the headlines from yesterday, last night, or the headlines this
morning.
Mr. Speaker, are you aware that last night, because I was on
television a year ago last night on all three networks, CNN all day
long, PBS, because I inadvertently used formal words from the U.S.
Constitution about giving aid and comfort to an enemy. I had not
realized how archaic this language was.
I carry around a Constitution most of the time. Here it is. What it
says in article III, section 3, in very archaic language, listen to
this and why I should have said sustenance and support to the Communist
enemies in Hanoi, referring to a certain 23-year-old Rhodes scholar who
is ditching class to travel Europe lobbying for a Ho Chi Minh victory.
But here is article III, section 3, and of course I did not mean
treason. You have to be very smart and diabolical and clever to be
engaged in treason.
Article III, section 3, U.S. Constitution: Treason against the United
States shall consist only in levying war against them, meaning the
States, they always wrote that way in our pre-Civil War, true
Federalist period, or in adhering to their, the States', enemies,
giving them aid and comfort; and in the original document, they
actually gave a capital letter A to aid and a capital C to comfort.
No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of
two witnesses to the same overt act or on confession in open court.
Even then, our original Founding Fathers, the colonialists, British
citizens, tell the Concord Bridge and Lexington Green gunfights, they
were very strict about what treason is. So, of course, I meant nothing
about treason.
I had my words taken down, and I refused to apologize because the
essence of my remarks was true and is true now, that when Mr. Clinton
puts in the gallery Barry McCaffrey, I didn't have time in my 1-minute
to really explain that General McCaffrey is one of our combat CINC's.
He is the Commander in Chief of Southern Command, stationed in Panama.
He is an outstanding man, and when I met him in Desert Storm as the
two-star major general division commander of the 24th Mechanized
Infantry Division, not knowing then, unless he had the battle plan,
that Schwarzkopf, General Schwarzkopf would pick him to be the point of
the spear and to be the main trusted armored force, backed up by the
101st Airborne in the Harbor Division like the 101st that is now in
Bosnia coming down from Europe, brigades thereof, that he would be the
point of the spear, circling into Iraq, cutting around Kuwait, and that
he had been allowed to complete his mission and he was shocked that he
was not allowed to, as I saw him so state on television in a
documentary.
He could have taken Basra, cut off the Republican Guard. Tens of
thousands of Kurdish men, women, and children would not have been
butchered in the north. Saddam Hussein would have been captured and
executed by his own officers, 400 of whom he tortured to death because
we didn't end that war, like the person that my good and honorable
friend George Bush called Hitler.
So here is Barry McCaffrey, two stars. He gets a third star. Clinton
comes into office, McCaffrey is coming over as Chief of the Joint
Chiefs, and he is sitting in the waiting room at the White House 2
years, 10 months ago, and a prepubescent puke staffer of Clinton's
walks up to him when he says, good morning, and she comes over to him
and leans in his face and says, we don't talk to people who wear the
uniform down here at the White House.
Now, Clinton told Gen. Colin Powell, who was then Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs, try and get me an I.D. on this young woman staffer and we
will nail her; and Colin Powell promptly said, I am not interested in
who it is or finding out who this one person is. Change the attitude of
your staff toward people in the military.
Well, of course, all of this was picked up from the top down, from
the loathsome remarks in the letter to one of Arkansas's great
retirees, Bataan Death March survivor Col. Eugene Holmes, and had the
honor 11 months ago to have dinner with him and his beautiful Irene,
his wife of 55 or 60 years down in their home in Fayetteville. This
letter still resonates in my head when I look up at Mr. Clinton
standing there at that roster where Winston Churchill has stood more
than once, Douglas MacArthur has stood, all the great and not-so-great
leaders of the world of late, and I look when he talks about families.
And I look at my own stickers and bumper stickers and signs that I
have used all during this Presidential quest and it says, Faith, Family
and Freedom, the motto of all of my congressional campaigns, and I hear
this resonate in Clinton's remarks last night. Faith, family, and he
talks about this noble Gen. Barry McCaffrey fighting for freedom and
for his country.
As I pointed out this morning, Clinton could not gag out of his
throat the word Vietnam. He talked about McCaffrey's Silver Stars, two
of them; most people die earning that highest decoration. It is No. 3
after Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross. He said he had three
Purple Hearts, as my dad did in World War I, but he could not tell us,
sitting next to his beautiful daughter Chelsea and then Mrs. Clinton
and on this side the great hero survivor of the Holocaust, 14 years of
age, survived a hell on Earth, the horror of Auschwitz. Clinton
couldn't refer to General McCaffrey and say, he won those honors
fighting for his country and fighting for the country of Vietnam that I
helped to turn over to communism and that I am now normalizing
relations with the Communist killers who tore up General McCaffrey's
arm, gave him those three Purple Hearts, using Russian equipment and
Russian bullets and AK-47 rifles to tear up this young captain's body.
And where was Clinton when Moscow was sending those weapons to Hanoi?
He was in Moscow. Unbelievable.
Now, here are the headlines, Mr. Speaker. Clinton Embraces GOP Themes
in Setting the Agenda. Wednesday, today, January 24, 21 years ago today
my hero dad died. As I said in my 1-minute, he would be tormented by
the lack of character and integrity at the top of our Government today.
The era of big government is over, Clinton tells the Nation. Here is
the New York Times, America's so-called mother paper, whose motto is,
All the News That's Fit to Print, Clinton offers challenge to the
Nation, the era of big government is over. Subtitle, appeal to voters,
tries to preempt the GOP message.
How about this one; that was the New York Times. Here is the
Washington Times, a better newspaper if you are looking for hard-core
truth or conservative reporting. Clinton concedes the end of the big
government era, State of the Union stresses responsibility and self-
reliance.
Well, before the media would--before the media calls me and says,
well, what would you have done as a theme tonight? I thought back to
something written 23 years ago by Alistair Cooke. Some people may
remember the great character Archie Bunker. He called him Alistair
DeCooke.
Alistair Cooke was one of those rare people who kept his British
homeland citizenship and became an American citizen. He came here in
1938 right before World War II as one of the young reporters for the
BBC. He stayed on to be the immediate prior host of Masterpiece
Theater. He loved the United States, loved our mother country,
brilliantly reported for Vogue. And my colleagues who may be listening,
I am joined on the floor by my pal, Sonny Bono of California. Sonny, I
want you to listen to this for your kids.
Mr. Speaker, listen to Alistair Cooke in a birthday present for our
200th bicentennial, written 4 years in advance in 1972, published by
Knopf & Company in 1973, run on television in 13 wonderfully produced
1-hour presentations, 13 documentaries, called Alistair Cooke's
America, rerun 3 years later in our exact bicentennial year.
Here is his present, and imagine if Clinton had said words like this.
Now, remember, this is written 24 years ago this spring and summer.
What is fiercely in dispute, Mr. Cooke says, between the Communist
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and non-Communist nations today is the quality and staying power of
American civilization. Who uses that term more than any of us,
``American civilization''? Why, our Speaker, Newt Gingrich. Maybe Newt
is on to something.
Every other country scorns American materialism while striving in
every big and little way to match it; envy obviously has something to
do with it. But there is a true basis for this debate, and it is
whether America is in its ascendance or its decline.
Cooke continues, and I used to have this memorized, the next three
paragraphs, probably could still recite it without looking at the page,
but I want it to be precisely correct. I traveled to all 50 of our
States on child pornography, all of 1973, 1974, 1975, and intermixed
with my campaigning in my first congressional victory in 1976, opening
my speeches all over America, including Arkansas, Mr. Speaker, with
these words: I myself, Alistair Cooke, think I recognize here in
America several of the symptoms that Edward Gibbon maintained were
signs of the decline of Rome and which arose not from external enemies,
but from inside the country itself.
Then I would take a footnote and quote Abraham Lincoln when he was
about 38 years of age where he said this country would never be
conquered from outside, no despot would ever take a drink of water from
the Ohio River; that if we collapsed, it would be suicide from our own
decadence.
Alistair Cooke continues, the signs of Rome: a mounting love of show
and luxury, a widening gap between the very rich and the very poor, our
liberal colleagues could agree with that one, an obsession with sex.
Think of modern American television today: prime time, afternoon soap
operas, slime-ball talk shows. They are still on, all claiming they
will reform within the next 6 months, still running ads backing, trying
to seek broken and dysfunctional families to come on and make fools of
themselves, an obsession with sex.
Get this next line, Mr. Speaker, and think how many debates we have
had in the last decade; this is written 24 years ago: Freakishness in
the arts masquerading as originality, and enthusiasm pretending to
creativeness, these symptoms are shared by Western Europe, though they
seem to be milder there, only because America has a livelier tradition
of self-criticism. Thank heavens for our self-criticism.
In the past decade, that would be 1963 to 1973, America has
demonstrated the Roman folly of exercising military might in places
remote from the centers of power. He is referring to Vietnam. Could
that also mean Somalia, Haiti, or Bosnia in the Balkan winter?
Cooke continues, And in finding herself, America, so frustrated by
the stamina of primitive peoples on their own ground as to fall back to
the Roman conclusion that, and he is quoting from original Roman 2,000
years old, nothing could reconcile the minds of the barbarians to peace
unless they experienced in their own country the calamities of war.
And who used that immoral Roman policy on the Vietnamese, the
Laotians, and the Cambodians? Robert Strange, his mother's maiden name,
I guess, McNamara. That criminal, McNamara, who has poured salt into
the raw wounds of all of the MIA families across this country with his
groveling Council of Foreign Relations-organized trip to Hanoi and his
appearance on talk shows across this country with some sort of gutless
apology for what he did not only to our young men and our eight nurses
whose names are on the Vietnam memorial wall, but what he did to
millions of South Vietnamese and North Vietnamese, and eventually
created the failed pattern by a gutless President LBJ to turn all of
Southeast Asia over to communism.
{time} 1715
So it is McNamara that he is talking about here in 1973, even though
he resigned 5 years before, but McNamara was still in his 5th of 13
years at the World Bank, drawing about, in now dollars, $800,000 to
$900,000 a year tax free for 13 years since he walked off the
battlefield in Vietnam, McNamara, and only did it come to an end in
Reagan's first year of 1981.
Back to Alistair Cooke's TV series and the book that grew from it,
``America.''
There is too, Cooke says, the general desire to live off the state,
whether it is a junkie on welfare or an airline subsidized by the
Government.
We did end that during my tenure here.
In a notion that Washington, big daddy, will provide, and most
disturbing of all, a developing moral numbness to vulgarity, to
violence, and to the assault on the simplest of human decencies.
This is written 24 years ago. Quo vadis, whither goest thou? What
have we done since then? Yet the original institutions of this country
still have great vitality. The republic can be kept, but only if we
care to keep it.
There Alistair Cooke is paraphrasing the great Benjamin Franklin some
200 years earlier.
Much of the social turmoil in America springs from the energy of
people who are trying to apply those institutions to forgotten memories
and who have awakened after a long sleep.
I thought Republicans, conservatives, because the other power was
decaying and were devoid of ideas, I thought we would take that power
in the late seventies, and because of Watergate, and again corruption
at the top, my party was to wander for 40 years in the political
desert.
Back to Cooke: As to the rage to believe that we found the secret of
liberty, in general permissiveness from the cradle on, that is liberal
permissiveness, this seems to me a disastrous sentimentality, which,
whatever liberties it sets loose, loosens also the cement that alone
can bind any society into a stable compound.
A code of obeyed taboos. That means taboos on child abuse,
homosexuality, adultery, all the taboos that are written into Mosaic
law and written about powerfully and poetically in the Old Testament,
the Bible of the Hebrew people.
I can only recall the saying of a wise Frenchman that ``Liberty is
the luxury of self-discipline.''
Self-discipline. What does Clinton say last night? He stresses
responsibility and self-reliance. Self-discipline. What a source for
those virtues.
Historically, those peoples that did not discipline themselves had
discipline thrust upon them from the outside. Usually, Mr. Speaker, in
a bloody revolution. Or in a bloody revolution. That is why, Cooke
continues, the normal cycle of life and death of great nations has been
first a powerful tyranny, broken by a revolt, the enjoyment of liberty,
then the abuse of liberty, and back to tyranny again. As I see it in
this country, America, a land of the most persistent idealism and the
blandest cynicism, and this is where it ended my memory of these
paragraphs, the race is on between its decadence and its vitality.
The race is on, 24 years ago. And what a race it has been these last
two-and-a-half decades. How did anybody ever believe that somebody with
such disrespect for the Presidency, the office of the Presidency, would
come to us as a perpetual Governor in a one-party State, changed by the
gentleman in the chair and a vibrant growing Republican Party in
Arkansas, that a person would come to the Democratic primary process
with so much baggage that we are still reading in our papers about
grand juries and suicides and is it a murder and Whitewater and one
horrible $100,000 bribe hidden by cattle futures; Jennifer Flower's
name ricocheting around, Paula Corbin Jones, Marilyn Jo Jenkins, Sally
Perdue. And I am lectured to? In the week my grandchild is born, that I
must cherish the children? And I must be a good family man?
Look at these quotes that I wrote down last night. I did not want to
be disrespectful to the office, so I did not sit in this Chamber. Here
is the first note I took down. The era of big government is over.
That is what I said when I ran for Congress in 1976. Citizens must
not be left to fend for themselves. What does that mean? Is that what
Alistair Cooke was talking about, big daddy, let Washington do it? What
has that got to do with self-reliance and responsibility?
Is it the command of Mother Teresa, who shook my hand on December 8
and said, ``When you are President, a special love for the poor and
vulnerable.'' But she means all those little infants in their mother's
wombs. Yes, she commands us and every rich nation in the
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world to love the poor. But I do not think that is exactly what we were
talking about last night, because any time either one of the Clintons
meets with Mother Theresa, they give her great lip service, and then
disregard everything she says the minute when she leaves their country.
The same with Pope John Paul II, Billy Graham, or the head of the
Southern Baptist Convention.
Self-reliance, teamwork, we must have both. That is what we are
developing on this side of the aisle, teamwork. He talks about a new,
smaller Government, finally, when we have $5 trillion of debt and we
are heading for $6 trillion, before we begin to even turn around that
debt.
I was in the well the day before yesterday with Molly Christine Oona
Dornan, Molly O. Dornan, not 10 days old when I had her here, and look
at the debt that we have already put on all of my 10 grandchildren.
Although like I am seventh or eighth here in the House, I am like a
piker compared to Jim Bunning who is sitting here with 28
grandchildren, or Henry Gonzalez, with 31 or 32 and a couple of great-
grandchildren, or Ron Packard, one of my colleagues from Orange County,
who has 32 grandchildren, I think.
What a debt we have put on all of these kids. When I talk about our
posterity or our children around here, I am thinking of names and
faces. I have got five and five now, five grandsons who are going to be
told you can do anything with a woman you want, and have high school
kids say to me. And on my other side, I have five granddaughters. Every
single one of these shows I turn on now is all T&A, and in the trade
they know what that means.
Mr. Clinton says last night he wants to meet with the executives of
the television industry. Sonny Bono is trying to do a terrific job to
try to talk common sense to these people. That was one of the best real
lines in the speech. Produce things you want your children to look at.
That does not means a tough version of Shakespeare or violence where it
is necessary when you are doing a cocaine story in South America or
something. But this mindless violence, even by some conservative
producers, and Sylvester Stallone's name comes to mind, and other
people, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who are supposed to be associated with
the Republican side of events and issues. This worship of violence,
egregious, promiscuous sex, and a sneaky little message that drugs are
OK, I do not know how we are going to get it done under this
Presidency, over the next 286 days, any more than we did under Mr.
Nixon.
Here was the plea last night. Stronger families, a stronger America.
There it is, faith, family and freedom. I guess we can thank God for
small favors, that he did not say he was the new and everlasting
covenant again. That is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
He still does not get the second amendment straight. That was wrong.
And I repeated what got me my words taken down last year about claiming
that there is no Russian missiles pointed at us. What got me a little
exorcised a year ago this week was he said we won the cold war.
That brought to mind the joke I heard as a kid when Tonto and the
Lone Ranger were surrounded. He says ``What are we going to do,
Tonto?'' And says ``What do you mean we, Kemo Sabe?'' No we. Clinton
had nothing to do with winning the cold war. Never lifted a pinkie. As
a matter of fact, he was helping the other side, because it was an
undeclared war. Again, there are people I call traitors. He is not one
of them, not some misguided 23-year-old student ditching class at
Oxford and traveling through all the Scandinavian capitals who were on
the wrong sides of that conflict for freedom against Barry McCaffrey
and his quest to rid Vietnam of oppression, as my dad helped rid France
of oppression at the beginning of this century.
No, we have got one heck of a battle before us. And let me give some
good news here on the defense authorization bill that we just won with
287 votes to 129. Now, just some simple arithmetic for young students
who may be following the course of events here on the floor. Mr.
Speaker. To override a President's veto in this House you need two-
thirds. Two-thirds of 435 is 290. So if you are looking up at the
lights at either end of the Chamber and you see that they hit 145, you
know that the President is going to be supported in a veto. They hit
129.
We did not have to hit 290, although I saw three Republicans running
who missed the vote, who were all going to vote with me, so we would
have hit 290. Now, if he vetoes this defense authorization bill because
of Dornan language in it to cut off abortions, to put out of the
military, respectfully, gently, over 6 months, with full military
hospital service and an honorable discharge, people who stuck a filthy
needle in their arm, rolled up their white, khaki, or blue sleeve to
stick a needle in their arms and get infected with the HIV virus, and
we are going to give them an honorable discharge. If they go to a men's
room and have unsafe sex with a stranger, anal sex, we are going to
give them an honorable discharge in 6 months. If they go to a house of
prostitution and have sex, against orders of their commander, do not go
to that house of prostitution, it is off limits, every prostitute is
infected with AID's, and they break the law, dishonorably, and go, they
get a 6-month time to adjust their affairs, FIIGMO, FIIGMO means, let
me get a softer version, ``forget it, I got my orders.'' They will not
be productive for 6 months. And then they get an honorable discharge,
while Michael New, who would not put on the U.N. beanie or wear the
U.N. patch on his military uniform, which is in the regs that he should
not have to, today he got a bad conduct discharge in Germany. As the
chairman of Military Personnel, Mr. Speaker, you better believe I will
be having hearings on that.
So there is the two bad things about the defense bill today. Why we
had to take out U.N. command and control beats me, but is that going to
be a key Presidential issue of the next 286 days? And I have been on
that trail without much money, back in the track, let me tell you
without refutation, Mr. Speaker, the surest standing ovation in
Republican primaries, whether it is Buchanan or Keyes or Lamar
Alexander or our leader in the other body, Bob Dole, the minute one of
us says to U.S. men and women under foreign or U.N. control, instant
standing ovation, Mr. Speaker, pounding standing ovation, long. And
Clinton wants to take that one on and demanded that we take our
language out of the bill.
Here are a few notes on that. In vetoing the defense bill, in part
due to the provisions on U.N. and foreign command the control, Clinton
demonstrated once again he is more interested in furthering the
multilateral agenda of the United Nations than in looking out for the
welfare of U.S. troops.
This is all from Mr. Spence's team, these talking points. The
provision in question would have required by law that before placing
U.S. troops under the operation and control of the United Nations, or
any other foreign entity, a President would have to certify that it
would be in the national security interest to do so. It would not have
prohibited a President from placing U.S. forces under the U.N. control.
It would have merely required that he formally justify such action in
writing to this Congress, thereby to our American people. Rather than
weaken our provision, the conference agreement drops this provision.
Again, no deal is better than a bad deal.
This action represents a continued commitment to the principle that
only qualified U.S. commanders, like Barry McCaffrey, should command
U.S. troops in battle.
In contrast, the Clinton administration continues to insist, I call
this the Strobe Talbot factor, the Clintons had dinner with him again
on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day while our troops, and I, were in
Germany at the railheads, trying not to mash their fingers in ice
rings, lashing all that heavy armored equipment to trains that go
through disgusting railheads in Hungary where, there were no toilet
facilities or anything, and there is Clinton golfing at Hilton Head at
South Carolina with Strobe Talbot.
But the Strobe Talbot factor is to place U.S. troops under the
operational command of U.N. commanders during so-called peacekeeping or
peace enforcement operations, this in spite of the U.N. having
repeatedly demonstrated in Bosnia and Somalia, and I have left out
Haiti, a nightmare waiting to explode, the incompetence of the U.N.,
their negligence in attempting to
[[Page H818]]
carry out the most rudimentary of military operations.
{time} 1730
The Army officer friend of mine just back from Haiti said the
whorehouses in Haiti are thriving with U.N. personnel on a revolving-
door visit policy, just as they went to the houses of prostitution like
Sonia's Kontiki in Bosnia where some of the women being held there were
slaves under the control of renegade Serbian Bosnians.
Accordingly, we conservatives remain committed to limiting the
ability of any administration to place U.S. forces at risk on behalf of
the United Nations and will aggressively pursue our policy in any
number of legislative vehicles during the upcoming session of Congress,
and we are well into it.
Now, national missile defense. This one blows my mind. In the week
that one of my heroes, Danny Graham, three-star general, West Point
graduate, son of an Army sergeant major, Danny Graham was buried at
Arlington this week. In the week that General Graham is buried, the
father of high frontier. The main civilian, albeit retired military,
proponent of strategic defense, the strategic defense initiative. One
of the men, that great genius, Dr. Edward Teller brought the idea to
Ronald Reagan.
Danny Graham died too young a man. He was 75, and Danny was buried
with full military honors, because he is a former head of DIA, a No. 2
man at CIA. A three-star general's funeral at Arlington is something
that will not leave any dry eye with any patriot in the audience. The
week he is buried, this Paul Revere, as I used to call him when I would
introduce him. I worked for him during the 2 years I was out of this
House when I had to move from West Los Angeles to Orange County to
continue my congressional career.
In that week, Clinton vetoes, jerks out of our bill with his veto
power, National Missile Defense. Clinton's veto of the original defense
bill further the differences between the Congress, which supports the
deployment of a national defense way in the majority here and in the
Senate, and Clinton who has now demonstrated his opposition to
defending the American people at home in America from ballistic missile
attack.
Rather than compromise on an issue of principle, the national missile
defense language opposed by Clinton was removed from the bill we passed
today. To modify it to meet the White House's objections would have
weakened to the point of making it meaningless.
The fight goes on, Mr. Speaker. On a matter of principle, no deal is
better than a bad deal. Other ballistic missile defense related
provisions have been retained, particularly the one I championed, Navy
high-tier, upper-tier missile defense. We kept in the additional $450
million for the establishment, just transferring it to a core theater
missile defense, TMD.
The acceleration of key theater missile defense systems, that is
where we protect our men overseas and women, and the allies who are
with us, which is fine, should be done and a moral thing to do. But
what about the wives and husbands and children and families back in the
good old U.S.A.?
We have provisions which will prevent Clinton from implementing any
agreement with Russia on theater missile defense demarcation, quote-
unquote, unless certain conditions are met. We House Republicans remain
committed as ever to pursuing an aggressive policy to protect the
American people from ballistic missile defense. Our fight will continue
on several fronts, including the fiscal year 1997 budget cycle, which
begins any day now, where we start our housekeeping with 13
appropriations spending bills.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Bono from the gorgeous lower
desert of California, Palm Springs and that area, it was a year ago
tonight, give or take a few days, that the gentleman regaled the
glitterati, the cognoscenti, the Washington press corps, and told them
that his introduction to the rough and tumble in the House was Bob
Dornan in the well with a 1-minute critiquing Clinton, and he thought I
was going to eat the lectern that he is now leaning on.
Mr. BONO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California [Mr.
Dornan]. I did, approximately a year ago, joke with him and that is the
way he took it. But I just want to say about Congressman Dornan that he
is not to be taken lightly. He is a fighter, if I have ever seen a
fighter. He is a man that lives, breathes, and sleeps what he believes.
There is not a hypocritical bone in his body. There is no hypocrisy
in the man whatsoever. And so I am proud to be his friend. When I
listen to him sometimes, the determination that he pursues a fight to
bring America where it should be, and continues, whether the odds are a
million to one or 1 to 1, and I know this, until his dying breath, he
will never quit.
So, I am proud to call him my friend and I am proud that he is on our
side. I am proud that he is working so hard for this country, and I
thank him.
Bob, did I hear the President say he wanted charter school systems
last night?
Mr. DORNAN. Yes, you sure did.
Mr. BONO. I find that fascinating, because in California, we had
Proposition 174. I think you recall that. The Democrats were vehement
against Proposition 174, which simply said we should have the right to
school choice. Last night I heard the President say we should have the
right to school choice. That is baffling me, Mr. Speaker.
I think he even mentioned vouchers, did he not, Bob?
Mr. DORNAN. He sure did.
Mr. BONO. Mr. Speaker, we again said we want vouchers, not for the
rich, but for everybody so that they could choose what school their
children went to.
I was not going to come down here, but I heard Congresswoman Woolsey
talk about education. First of all, our budget increases education. It
does not decrease. So, where or why she has concluded that it is a
decrease is simply not the facts.
It is so frustrating to come to this body and listen to talk or
rhetoric or whatever you want to call it, and hear people just say
whatever they want to say and it has nothing to do with the truth. I
guess that is why I ran for office.
Last night, the President talked about education. He revered
education. Education is a wonderful thing, and as I said, we have
increased funding for education. But he left out, I guess, kindergarten
to elementary because in elementary schools now, they have barbed wire
along the fences right now. I would love to send my children to a
public school, but I would not dare.
Mr. DORNAN. Not to keep people in, but to keep thugs and drug pushers
out.
Mr. BONO. I would love to send them to a public school so they would
have that kind of exposure to total life, but I would fear for their
lives.
I remember when I was a little boy, the President was saying how rosy
things are now, but I remember when I was a little boy, 5 years old or
6, I could walk to school. I guarantee you if your child walked to
school now at that age, he would get kidnaped and molested and probably
killed. So to say things are so much rosier and better now is simply
not true. Our public education system at that level is horrible. It is
dastardly.
If you send your child to elementary school now, the chances of him
or her getting an education are impossible. It cannot happen.
Fortunately, I have a few dollars. I can send my kids to a private
school.
Mr. DORNAN. You mean like Sidwell School, like where beautiful
Chelsea goes?
Mr. BONO. Exactly. Exactly. Which again is very interesting, because
schools are so safe and so wonderful, but our very own President sends
his child to a private school. I never could figure out the
justification for that.
Mr. DORNAN. Sonny, reclaiming my time. Let me read one of those
opening paragraphs.
Mr. Speaker, how much time do we have left?
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hutchinson). The gentleman has 20
minutes remaining.
Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, listen to this. This is the paragraph after
the ``thank you'' to the Speaker and Mr. Vice President and Members of
the 104th Congress, and other pleasantries. ``I want to begin by saying
to our men and women in uniform around the world.'' That is great. He
is always with them taking photo opportunities, but we wonder still why
he cannot gag
[[Page H819]]
out the word Vietnam, although he did slip once last night in
introducing another hero from the Oklahoma City bombing. He slipped and
said he had been a Vietnam veteran. That is the first time I ever heard
him say the word. He did not say that in the order to sending our men
to Bosnia. He mentioned Northern Ireland and every war we have been in,
but he forgot to mention Vietnam. Interesting. And all the Vietnam
senior sergeants and officers noticed it. Now he says the state of our
Union is strong, but your kids cannot walk to school.
``We have created nearly 8 million new American jobs.'' That is still
way below what Ronald Reagan created, and he created it by cutting
taxes. If Clinton had not created the largest tax increase in the
history of any nation and all of civilization, because we cannot codify
what the Egyptians got out of slave labor, this is the biggest tax
increase in history.
But here is a part germane to what the gentleman is talking about. He
says, ``Our leadership in the world is strong.'' We are the last
superpower because of what Reagan and Cap Weinberger and George Bush
did, not because of him; not the way we are chopping back the military.
He says, ``We are gaining ground and restoring our fundamental
values.'' Not according to what the gentleman just said. He said, ``The
crime rate is down.'' That is a misrepresentation. The baby-boomers are
aging out of their high-testosterone-lending-itself-to-violence period.
But at the bottom. The violence among young people is worse than ever.
He says, ``Welfare rates are down.'' They are not. ``The food stamp
rolls are down.'' They are not. That is a misrepresentation. And then
he says, ``The teenage pregnancy rate is down.'' That drove our Whip,
the gentleman from Texas, Tom DeLay, up the wall. What country is he
looking at? Because I saw the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Traficant] take
him on, and I saw our one Independent, the gentleman from Vermont [Mr.
Sanders], cheering, ``That is right.'' It is not that rosy.
We do have problems with our workforce. And then he says, ``We live
in an Age of Possibility.'' That sounds like Jack Kemp and Newt and the
Opportunity Society and all the upbeat stuff that we Republicans are
getting Bob Dole to talk about, and that is what is giving Steve Forbes
the shot, with his inherited millions, in the number 2 spot.
But, back to Mr. Bono and a reality check on how rosy things are.
Mr. BONO. Thank you for pointing out exactly what I am talking about.
You know, I chose to be a Republican because the symbol of Republicans
is responsibility. Selling the message of be a victim is an easy
message to sell. It is probably 200-to-1 to sell, a message of ``Be
responsible.'' But this man has been talking for half an hour about
that we have to become responsible. Well, we must become responsible.
I get so fed up when I hear the other side come down here in this
well and just say whatever they feel like saying. And when
Congresswoman Woolsey took off on education, education stinks. I cannot
say it another way. It stinks.
We spend more money than anybody and have the worst results. So now
the solution to that is to spend even more money and still have it not
achieve anything? No, that is not the truth. No, that is not what we
should do. We should really look at our educational system and find out
what we are doing wrong, which is staggering, and make an attempt to
start doing things right so that all children, like when I was a little
boy, can go back to public school again, which is almost impossible in
this day.
Public schools do not teach. They are not safe. They have become
political. They do not stand for what they are supposed to stand for
any longer.
So, to paint that rosy picture about education just disturbed me so
much because I wanted so badly for my two little children to go to
public school and experience that, but I cannot. I would not dare do
that to them.
Now, I am telling you the truth, and I guess the other side finds the
truth unpleasant and, therefore, they prefer to not tell reality.
Reality, when they say how mean we are. Well, when we talk about
Medicare, all we are trying to do when we talk about Medicare is
instead of ending it in 7 years, which is what will happen now if we
continue on this rosy path that supposedly exists, it will end in 7
years.
{time} 1745
We have extended it to 5 years. So we are telling you the truth. It
is so hard to tell you that truth because it is so much easier to hear,
do not worry about anything. There is plenty of money here and we will
give it all to you. That is a lie. We do not have plenty of money. We
owe $5 trillion and we are starting to work on 6, and that is going to
accumulate fast and that rubberband is going to break very soon.
I think that all my colleagues, including Mr. Dornan, I give them
credit for being brave because what we are trying to convey to you is
not necessarily popular and it can hurt our polls. It can hurt our
public relations. It is so much easier to say rosy things, but to not
tell you the truth, to not let you really confront the future as it is
going to exist in reality but paint a rosy picture is a lie.
I did not come here to lie. I came here because I think we are at the
edge. We are right at the cliff. If we do not grab this country and
bring it back, it will dissipate and explode and we will not have it
anymore.
Mr. DORNAN. Let me ask Mr. Bono, a freshman, as well known as any of
the freshmen in that exciting group of 73 people, was this first year
for you more difficult than you imagined it would be? Did we accomplish
more than you thought? Is your energy and your optimism level still at
high pitch?
Mr. BONO. I follow your example. I am very impressed by the amount of
energy that you put into this job and not necessarily deal with the
consequences. I happily go in that path of whatever the--I am dedicated
to saving this country. So my energy will always be 110 percent.
Mr. DORNAN. We only have about 6 months. We are going to vote
tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday next week, then no votes until after the
Iowa caucuses and the primary at the end of February, February 20 in
New Hampshire. Because Bob Dole is the leader and wants to be in those
States, there will not be any votes in the Senate, none. So then we
have March, April, May, June, and July, that is 5 months, out for
August. We come back for a wild September, hoping to get our 13
spending appropriations bills, our housekeeping work here finished by
September 30. We will be out in the first few days of October to have 1
month to campaign. So we are talking about 6 months.
What I am building up to is, do you appreciate how the American
people in their own enlightened self-interest should give the
Republicans for the third time in 66 years more than one of 2-year
berths. If we are defeated and lose this on November 5 of this year,
that means in 66 years, since 1930, before I was born, we have had
three 2-year berths.
What I am going to recommend the rest of this year is give us a 100-
percent disabled charging war hero, if Dole prevails, and I am trying
to overtake him but I need some money to do it, if Dole prevails, put
Dole in the White House, a man who put his blood into the soil of your
native land, Italy, in Europe and Trent Lott is a leader in the Senate
and Newt Gingrich reinvigorated, listening more to his true
conservative friends in this House than the person who says he embraced
him as he sobbed uncontrollably, so this person says, and then this
farm State Congressman leaked all of that to Newt's enemies at the
Washington Post for a front page story last week. I know who that dairy
farm State Congressman was. Newt better pay attention to his friends in
this House, his friends who believe in family and faith and freedom and
espouse it in their life styles.
If he comes back to home base and is inspired by Trent Lott and we
have a Republican in the White House, we are going to need not just the
next 6 months but the 105th Congress, two exciting sessions, to try and
bring us, as you put it, on the edge of the lectern, back from the
brink or as Alistair Cooke said, we are at a crossroads. We are almost
schizophrenic, tearing ourselves in half. We better make the right
decisions.
Let me read something to you, where Mr. Clinton last night said, here
are the seven challenges. First, cherish our children and strengthen
the American
[[Page H820]]
family. This weekend I went to Memphis, Sonny, and I stayed with two
families, the Langstons and the Fergusons. They had both been to
Promise Keepers, the big event in Dallas, tens of thousands of fathers
swearing to not commit adultery on their wives, swearing to be loyal to
their children and their brides. And who attacks them? NOW. Patricia
Ireland, chief spear carrier for the lesbian movement in America. She
is yelling at Promise Keepers because men are standing up and saying
they want to be loyal to their families. Unbelievable.
He asked the broadcast industry to rate the programming, as the movie
industry does. I do not know where we are going to go with that.
Second, provide Americans with educational opportunities. You are on
the right committees. Listen to this. He wants to lash every classroom
to the information highway by 2000. What is going to be on that
highway? He says schools and communities must adopt national standards.
What is that, dumbing down to the lowest common denominator.
Then under challenge 3, this is the one that caught your attention
among several items, he said help every American achieve economic
security, create a $2,600 voucher for the unemployed or underemployed
to use for their education and training. How about vouchers for all of
our children? That will be stopped by the liberal dominant wing of his
permissively liberal party.
Then he says, fourth, take back our streets from crime, gangs, and
drugs. That is what I have been trying to do as a father and since I
have come here a grandfather all my life. It is liberal permissiveness
and liberal fascination, not with the victims of crime but with the
perpetrators of crime, trying to figure out how to help them work their
way through the legal system and get back out on the streets more
quickly.
He says keep the crime bill of 1994 on the books. You could have lost
because of that crime bill. And because 11 Republicans went down to the
White House and gave him what he wanted, we lost 10 to 20 Republican
seats. We should be at 256, if it were not for the political garbage
and waste of billions in that phony crime bill of 1994.
Mr. BONO. I would like to ask the gentleman a question, since you are
making these points on crime and crime prevention. Are we not at war?
Mr. DORNAN. It is a war.
Mr. BONO. Is it crime prevention anymore or is it full blown war?
Mr. DORNAN. Sonny, you may not know Gen. Barry McCaffrey personally.
Nothing is all dark in life. Clinton's appointment to the FBI, Louis
Freeh, father of five kids, great guy, tough judge, tough agent in the
street, Barry McCaffrey and the southern, the CINC, Commander in Chief
of Southern Command down there in Panama. He came to the Heritage
Foundation recently and gave this startling statistic: 100 percent of
the cocaine in the world comes from South America through the Panama
Canal, through the Caribbean area. He is going to be a great general in
command of a war against this poison of narcotics.
Mr. BONO. Would you consider it a war when a family accidentally
drives down the wrong street and is blown to oblivion because they
simply accidentally made a wrong turn? Can crime prevention help that
or is that war?
Mr. DORNAN. I was in Los Angeles the night that story broke on the
news. We had not recovered from the travesty of justice that O.J.
Simpson got away with, slitting two throats to the spine and stabbing
an innocent young man 17 times. The whole city is still in the throes
of that, all these divisions. And here comes this unbelievable story,
throwing ashcans. I do not know the ethnic background of anybody in
that story. I never saw enough pictures.
I did see one crying uncle, trying to make a statement to the press,
but it was a little 4-year-old girl that took a bullet in the head as
the father tried to drive out of a cul-de-sac where he had gotten off
the freeway and took a wrong turn. A gang decided to take him on.
Let me tell you something, Sonny. I only have one classic car I am
trying to rebuild.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hutchinson). Members are reminded to
refer to other Members by their last name and State.
Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Bono, last week a car that I was restoring--just
spent about $3 to $4,000 on it last year--a 31-year-old classic 1964
fire mist red El Dorado automobile, was towed by a tow truck out of my
son's carport on Church Lane in west Los Angeles, a few blocks from
OJ's Rockingham house--but an apartment building. They came at noon on
a slight rainy, drizzly day last week, hooked it up to a tow truck,
because the battery is not hooked up, the gearbox is not finished. I am
restoring the car that I bought 31 years ago used.
I got it with some residuals from the series ``Twelve O'clock High.''
It is gone now to some shop down somewhere in Los Angeles. The people
that stole the car were sitting in it 3 days before. My son was back
here with me, got snowed in with that blizzard. Neighbors saw them.
They said, would he sell this car, the owner? No way, they are
restoring it. Cut the Club off the wheel. Police were called by my
son's neighbors. They came and said somebody has to call the owner.
They forgot who.
They said this car is going to be stolen. Two or three days later at
noon, by tow truck. My 31-year-old classic is towed away.
I heard somebody asking for help to bring down a child molester. Let
me be creative, Sonny, since this well goes into homes all over
America, maybe 1,300,000 people. I do not want to get too wild with the
reward, but I will give $2,000. I will cash the check, 2,000 bucks cash
for whoever will get me back my 1964, I call it my POW El Dorado
because I got it the month the first POW as shot down. I was going to
give it to a POW, I fantasized, at the end of that war, get back my
fire mist red, and that license plate, this historical vehicle, HV295,
D for Dornan, HV295, D for Dornan. This is what I will give, 2,000
bucks cash to get my El Dorado back.
By the way, that is my fourth automobile stolen in Los Angeles in 20
years, three of them in the last 10. I have only gotten back one. It
was in Tijuana sitting on a hill with the tires off it, but I got that
back and I still own that red Bronco.
Mr. BONO. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to say that, do not ever take
Congressman Dornan lightly. One thing you can be sure of, as certain as
these are chairs, that he will always tell you the truth. And whether
it is pleasant or unpleasant, he will tell you the truth. And that is
why I am a Republican. So you are an inspiration to me.
For that reason, of which I am very proud of you, and I hope that I
can always follow in your footsteps in that I will always, whenever I
speak to the public, tell them the truth.
With that, I thank the gentleman for giving me the time in the well.
Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, I have got one final valuable contribution
to offer here.
Turning back to my Constitution, printed by the bicentennial
committee that I have been carrying for years here, as far as the
President's Commander in Chief responsibilities, I quoted article III,
section 3 earlier, here is article II, section 2; III.3 is on aid and
comfort to the enemy. II.2 says this, 16 words: The President shall be
the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.
Bingo. Sixteen more words on militia, and of the militia of the several
States, 13 then, when called into the actual service of the United
States. There was no National Guard then. So that is 18 more words, if
you strip away all the the's and the and's, and the Army and the Navy
and the in chief and all of this, it says President, Commander in
Chief. That is it. That is it. There is nothing else in the
Constitution.
Who says that our Presidents, and this is my disagreement with one of
our great leaders on the other side, who says the President of the
United States can send people to Somalia, to Bosnia, to Haiti, or to
Lebanon without getting the approval of this Congress? That is why I
argued with my friend Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense, and the Navy
combat attack pilot, carrier pilot George Bush. You cannot go to the
gulf in a serious major conflict. I do not care if you have 28 nations
banded together.
{time} 1800
They are all getting the permissions of their Dumas and their
congresses
[[Page H821]]
and their Knessets and their various legislatures. You must come here.
Dick Cheney used to tell me ``We will lose.'' I said ``You will not
lose. You will lose the liberal leadership in the Senate and the House,
and if we lost every one of them, but you win enough Democrats, we will
have a big victory.'' The victory was 180 saying no, we cannot free
Kuwait and protect world oil sources and stop Saddam Hussein from
getting biological, chemical, and nuclear warfare terror capability,
and on the winning side, how could I forget the winning side and
remember the losing side, 253 to 180, a great vote.
Now, we have a scholar at the Library of Congress, Lewis Fisher.
Mr. Speaker, I will include for the Record Lewis Fisher's scholarly
treatise on the Barbary wars, with more to come on why the President
does not have the constitutional authorities to send young men and
women all around the world at his whim.
The material referred to is as follows:
The Barbary Wars: Legal Precedent for Invading Haiti?
(By Louis Fisher)
SUMMARY
The claim that President Clinton has constitutional
authority to invade Haiti without first obtaining
congressional authority is often linked to early presidential
actions. Supporters of broad executive power argue that a
President may deploy troops on his own authority and that
Congress can restrain him only after he acts. As support for
this position, the Barbary Wars during the time of Presidents
Jefferson and Madison are often cited. However, the
historical record demonstrates that these military operations
received advance authority from Congress. To the extent that
presidential initiatives were taken before congressional
action, they were defensive in nature and not offensive (as
contemplated for Haiti).
BACKGROUND
During the presidencies of George Washington and John
Adams, U.S. military action conformed to the framers'
expectation that the decision to go to war or to mount
military operations was reserved to Congress and required
advance authorization. For example, President Washington's
military actions against Indian tribes were initially
authorized by Congress. Stat. 96, Sec. 5 (1789); Stat. 121,
Sec. 16 (1790); Stat. 222 (1791). Consistent with these
statutes, military operations were confined to defensive
measures. Offensive action required authority from Congress.
The Writings of George Washington (John C. Fitzpatrick ed.
1939).
Similarly, when President Washington used military force in
the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, he acted on the basis of
statutory authority. Stat. 264, Sec. 1 (1792). President John
Adams engaged in the ``quasi-war'' with France from 1798 to
1800. Although Congress did not declare war, military
activities were fully authorized by more than two dozen
statutes in 1798. Stat. 547-611.
ACTIONS BY JEFFERSON AND MADISON
Elected President in 1800, Thomas Jefferson inherited the
pattern established during the Washington and Adams
administrations: Congress had to authorize offensive military
actions in advance. One of the first issues awaiting
Jefferson was the practice of paying annual bribes
(``tributes'') to four states of North Africa: Morocco,
Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. Regular payments were made so
that these countries would not interfere with American
merchantmen. Over a period of ten years, Washington and
Adams paid nearly $10,000,000 in tributes.
In his capacity as Secretary of State in 1790, Jefferson
had identified for Congress a number of options in dealing
with the Barbary powers. In each case it was up to Congress
to establish national policy and the executive branch to
implement it:
Upon the whole, it rests with Congress to decide between
war, tribute, and ransom, as the means of reestablishing our
Mediterranean commerce. If war, they will consider how far
our own resources shall be called forth, and how far they
will enable the Executive to engage, in the forms of the
constitution, the co-operation of other Powers. If tribute or
ransom, it will rest with them to limit and provide the
amount; and with the Executive, observing the same
constitutional forms, to make arrangements for employing it
to the best advantage. 1 American State Papers: Foreign
Relations 105 (Walter Lowrie & Matthew St. Clair Clarke, eds.
1832).
On March 3, 1801, one day before Jefferson took office as
President, Congress passed legislation to provide for a
``naval peace establishment.'' 2 Stat. 110, Sec. 2 (1801). On
May 15, Jefferson's Cabinet debated the President's authority
to use force against the Barbary powers. The Cabinet agreed
that American vessels could repel an attack, but some
departmental heads insisted on a larger definition of
executive power. For example, Albert Gallatin, Secretary of
the Treasury, remarked: ``The Executive can not put us in a
state of war, but if we be put into that state either by the
decree of Congress or of the other nation, the command and
direction of the public force then belongs to the
Executive.'' Other departmental heads expressed different
views. Franklin B. Sawvel, ed., The Complete Anas of Thomas
Jefferson 213 (1903).
After hearing these opinions from his Cabinet, Jefferson
chose to rely on statutory authority rather than theories of
inherent presidential power. Citing the statute of March 3,
the State Department issued a directive on May 20 to Captain
Richard Dale of the U.S. Navy, stating that under ``this
[statutory] authority'' Jefferson had directed that a
squadron be sent to the Mediterranean. If the Barbary powers
declared war on the United States, American vessels were
ordered to ``protect our commerce & chastise their
insolence--by sinking, burning or destroying their ships &
Vessels wherever you shall find them.'' 1 Naval Documents
Relating to the United States Wars With the Barbary Powers
467 (1939). Having issued that order, based on congressional
authority, Jefferson also wrote that it was up to Congress to
decide what policy to pursue in the Mediterranean: ``The real
alternative before us is whether to abandon the Mediterranean
or to keep up a cruise in it, perhaps in rotation with
other powers who would join us as soon as there is peace.
But this Congress must decide.'' The Writings of Thomas
Jefferson 63-64 (Ford ed. 1897).
Insisting on a larger tribute, the Pasha of Tripoli
declared war on the United States. Jefferson did not
interpret this action as authority for the President to
engage in unlimited military activities. He informed Congress
on December 8, 1801, about the demands of the Pasha. Unless
the United States paid tribute, the Pasha threatened to seize
American ships and citizens. Jefferson had sent a small
squadron of frigates to the Mediterranean to protect against
the attack. He then asked Congress for further guidance,
stating that he was ``[u]nauthorized by the Constitution,
without the sanction of Congress, to go beyond the line of
defense. . . .'' It was up to Congress to authorize
``measures of offense also.'' Jefferson gave Congress all the
documents and communications it needed so that the
legislative branch, ``in the exercise of this important
function confided by the Constitution to the Legislature
exclusively,'' could consider the situation and act in the
manner it considered most appropriate. A Compilation of the
Messages and Papers of the Presidents 315 (James D.
Richardson ed. 1897-1925) (hereafter ``Richardson'').
Alexander Hamilton, writing under the pseudonym ``Lucius
Crassus,'' issued a strong critique of Jefferson's message to
Congress. Hamilton believed that Jefferson had defined
executive power with insufficient scope, deferring too much
to Congress. But even Hamilton, pushing the edge of executive
power, never argued that the President had full power to make
war on other nations. Hamilton merely argued that when a
foreign nation declares war on the United States, the
President may respond to that fact without waiting for
congressional authority:
The first thing in [the President's message], which excites
our surprise, is the very extraordinary position, that though
Tripoli had declared war in form against the United States,
and had enforced it by actual hostility, yet that there was
not power, for want of the sanction of Congress, to capture
and detain her cruisers with their crews.
. . . [The Constitution] has only provided affirmatively,
that, ``The Congress shall have power to declare War;'' the
plain meaning of which is, that it is the peculiar and
exclusive province of Congress, when the nation is at peace
to change that state into a state of war; whether from
calculations of policy, or from provocations, or injuries
received: in other words, it belongs to Congress only, to go
to War. But when a foreign nation declares, or openly and
avowedly makes war upon the United States, they are then by
the very fact already at war, and any declaration of the part
of Congress is nugatory; it is at least unnecessary.'' The
Works of Alexander Hamilton 745-747 (John C. Hamilton ed.).
Congress responded to Jefferson's message by authorizing
him to equip armed vessels to protect commerce and seamen in
the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and adjoining seas. The
statute authorized American ships to seize vessels belonging
to the Bey of Tripoli, with the captured property distributed
to those who brought the vessels into port. 2 Stat. 129
(1802). Legislators had no doubt about their constitutional
authority and duties. ``The simple question now,'' said Cong.
William Eustis, ``is whether [the President] shall be
empowered to take offensive steps.'' Cong. Samuel Smith
added: ``By the prescriptions of the law, the President
deemed himself bound.'' Annals of Cong., 7th Cong., 1st Sess.
328-329 (1801).
Congress continued to pass legislation authorizing military
action against the Barbary powers. Legislation in 1803
provided additional armament for the protection of seamen and
U.S. commerce. 2 Stat. 106. Legislation the next year gave
explicit support for ``warlike operations against the regency
of Tripoli, or any other of the Barbary powers.'' 2 Stat.
291. Duties on foreign goods were placed in a ``Mediterranean
Fund'' to finance these operations. Id. at 292, Sec. 2.
Further legislation on the Barbary powers appeared in 1806,
1807, 1808, 1809, 1811, 1812, and 1813. 2 Stat. 391 (1806); 2
Stat. 436 (1807); 2 Stat. 456 (1808); 2 Stat. 511 (1809); 2
Stat. 616 (1811); 2 Stat. 675 (1812); 2 Stat. 809 (1813).
Jefferson often distinguished between defensive and
offensive military operations, permitting presidential
initiatives for the former but not for the latter. In 1805,
he notified Congress about a conflict with the Spanish along
the eastern boundary of the Louisiana Territory (West
Florida). After detailing
[[Page H822]]
the problem he noted: ``Considering that Congress alone is
constitutionally invested with the power of changing our
condition from peace to war, I have thought it my duty to
await their authority for using force in any degree which
could be avoided.'' 1 Richardson 377.
Military conflicts in the Mediterranean continued after
Jefferson left office. The Dey of Algiers made war against
U.S. citizens trading in that region and kept some in
captivity. With the conclusion of the War of 1812 with
England, President Madison recommended to Congress in 1815
that it declare war on Algiers: ``I recommend to Congress the
expediency of an act declaring the existence of a state of
war between the United States and the Dey and Regency of
Algiers, and of such provisions as may be requisite for a
vigorous prosecution of it to a successful issue.'' 2
Richardson 539. Instead of a declaration of war, Congress
passed legislation ``for the protection of the commerce of
the United States against the Algerine cruisers.'' The first
line of the statute read: ``Whereas the Dey of Algiers, on
the coast of Barbary, has commenced a predatory warfare
against the United States. . . .'' Congress gave Madison
authority to use armed vessels for the purpose of protecting
the commerce of U.S. seamen on the Atlantic, the
Mediterranean, and adjoining seas. U.S. vessels (both
governmental and private) could ``subdue, seize, and make
prize of all vessels, goods and effects of or belonging to
the Dey of Algiers.'' 3 Stat. 230 (1815).
An American flotilla set sail for Algiers, where it
captured two of the Dey's ships and forced him to stop the
piracy, release all captives, and renounce the practice of
annual tribute payments. Similar treaties were obtained from
Tunis and Tripoli. By the end of 1815, Madison could report
to Congress on the successful termination of the war with
Algiers.
legislative controls on prospective actions
Can Congress only authorize and declare war, or may it also
establish limits on prospective presidential actions? The
statutes authorizing President Washington to ``protect the
inhabitants'' of the frontiers ``from hostile incursions of
the Indians'' were interpreted by the Washington
administration as authority for defensive, not offensive,
actions. 1 Stat. 96, Sec. 5 (1789); 1 Stat. 121, Sec. 16
(1790); 1 Stat. 222 (1791). Secretary of War Henry Knox wrote
to Governor Blount on October 9, 1792: ``The Congress which
possess the powers of declaring War will assemble on the 5th
of next Month--Until their judgments shall be made known it
seems essential to confine all your operations to defensive
measures.'' 4 The Territorial Papers of the United States 196
(Clarence Edwin Carter ed. 1936). President Washington
consistently held to this policy. Writing in 1793, he said
that any offensive operations against the Creek Nation must
await congressional action: ``The Constitution vests the
power of declaring war with Congress; therefore no offensive
expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they
have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a
measure.'' 33 The Writings of George Washington 73.
The statute in 1792, upon which President Washington relied
for his actions in the Whiskey Rebellion, conditioned the use
of military force by the President upon an unusual judicial
check. The legislation said that whenever the United States
``shall be invaded, or be in imminent danger of invasion from
any foreign nation or Indian tribe,'' the President may call
forth the state militias to repel such invasions and to
suppress insurrections.'' 1 Stat. 264, Sec. 1 (1792).
However, whenever federal laws were opposed and their
execution obstructed in any state, ``by combinations too
powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial
proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by this
act,'' the President would have to be first notified of that
fact by an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court or by a
federal district judge. Only after that notice could the
President call forth the militia of the state to suppress the
insurrection. Id., Sec. 2.
In the legislation authorizing the Quasi-War of 1798,
Congress placed limits on what President Adams could and
could not do. One statute authorized him to seize vessels
sailing to French ports. He acted beyond the terms of this
statute by issuing an order directing American ships to
capture vessels sailing to or from French ports. A naval
captain followed his order by seizing a Danish ship sailing
from a French port. He was sued for damages and the case came
to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Marshall ruled for a
unanimous Court that President Adams had exceeded his
statutory authority. Little v. Barreme, 6 U.S. (2 Cr.) 169
(1804).
The Neutrality Act of 1794 led to numerous cases before the
federal courts. In one of the significant cases defining the
power of Congress to restrict presidential war actions, a
circuit court in 1806 reviewed the indictment of an
individual who claimed that his military enterprise against
Spain ``was begun, prepared, and set on foot with the
knowledge and approbation of the executive department of the
government.'' United States v. Smith, 27 Fed. Cas. 1192, 1229
(C.C.N.Y. 1806) (No. 16,342). The court repudiated his claim
that a President could authorize military adventures that
violated congressional policy. Executive officials were not
at liberty to waive statutory provisions: ``if a private
individual, even with the knowledge and approbation of this
high and preeminent officer of our government [the
President], should set on foot such a military expedition,
how can be expect to be exonerated from the obligation of the
law?'' The court said that the President ``cannot control the
statute, nor dispense with its execution, and still less can
he authorize a person to do what the law forbids. If he
could, it would render the execution of the laws dependent on
his will and pleasure; which is a doctrine that has not been
set up, and will not meet with any supporters in our
government. In this particular, the law is paramount.'' The
President could not direct a citizen to conduct a war
``against a nation with whom the United States are at
peace.'' Id. at 1230. The court asked: ``Does [the President]
possess the power of making war? That power is exclusively
vested in congress. . . . it is the exclusive province of
Congress to change a state of peace in a state of war. Id.
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