[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 119 (Wednesday, September 11, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H5480-H5481]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    WAR, PEACE, AND THE CONSTITUTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, amidst the international humiliation and 
farce that we've suffered with our abortive war with Syria, there are 
two good things the President has done, and they need to be noted. Last 
night, he stepped back from an international crisis that could have had 
catastrophic consequences by deferring to the Russian diplomatic 
initiative. Thank God. And last week, he stepped back from a 
constitutional crisis by deferring to Congress the decision over 
whether to go to war--as the Constitution requires.
  I've been deeply troubled by suggestions from many otherwise 
responsible officials and commentators--from both parties--that the 
President has independent authority as Commander in Chief to order an 
attack on other countries when he deems it necessary. This cuts right 
to the core of our Constitution's design, and it evinces an alarming 
deterioration of the popular understanding of the separation of powers 
that keeps us free. There is nothing more clear in the American 
Constitution than that Congress has the sole authority to decide the 
question of war or peace. Only after Congress has made that decision 
does the President, as Commander in Chief, have the authority to 
execute that decision.
  For centuries, European monarchs had plunged their nations into 
bloody and debilitating wars on whim, and the Constitution's Framers 
wanted to protect the American Republic from that fate. They understood 
that a President, for example, might someday paint himself into a 
rhetorical corner and feel compelled to save face by exercising force. 
That is precisely why they entrusted that fateful decision to the 
Congress.
  James Madison, the Father of the American Constitution, said that its 
single most important feature was the provision that gave the Congress, 
and not the President, the authority to go to war.

                              {time}  1015

  Here's what he wrote in 1793:

       In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found 
     than in the clause which confides the question of war or 
     peace to the legislature, and not to the executive 
     department. The trust and the temptation would be too great 
     for any one man.
       War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. 
     In war, a physical force is to be created and it is the 
     executive will which is to direct it. In war, the public 
     treasures are to be unlocked, and it is the executive hand 
     which is to dispense them. Those who are to conduct a war 
     cannot, in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges of 
     whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded.

  In Federalist 69, Alexander Hamilton wrote that one of the most 
important differences between the British King and the American 
President is that the King can plunge his nation into war on his 
command, but that the American President has no such authority.
  The Constitutional Convention gave careful consideration to the 
clause that provides that ``Congress shall declare war.'' They chose 
that word carefully to make sure that the only independent war-making 
power of the President is to repel an attack.
  The War Powers Act makes this explicit, that absent congressional 
authority the President can only order our Armed Forces into hostility 
in response to ``a national emergency created by an attack upon the 
United States, its Armed Forces, or its territories or possessions.'' 
Anything else requires prior congressional action.
  The United Nations Participation Act, by which we entered the U.N., 
requires Congress to act before American forces are ordered into 
hostilities in U.N. actions. The War Powers Act specifically forbids 
inferring from any treaty the power to order American forces into 
hostilities without specific congressional authorization.
  Now, some have used the past violation of this constitutional 
stricture--for example, in Kosova or most recently in Libya--as 
justification for its

[[Page H5481]]

violation now. That is precisely the point. If any violation of this 
fundamental constitutional provision can be used as justification for 
its outright nullification, well then any such violation must be 
vigorously resisted lest we lose for all time the most important check 
on the most momentous decision that a government can make: to go to 
war.
  War is destruction on a massive scale. To unlawfully initiate such a 
thing is the highest crime that a public official could possibly 
commit. Indeed, if the power of impeachment were not intended for such 
an act as that, I cannot imagine what it would be for. The President 
was absolutely right not to cross that line.

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