The Constitution gives Congress the sole power to declare war. But is it an irrevocable decision? Or is it something that Congress can give and then take back?
Suppose for example that Congress had passed a declaration in 1968 ordering the President to withdraw all forces from Vietnam and end the American involvment in the war within ninety days. Would a President have the legal power to defy such an order?
On a related note, does Congress have the power to give the President orders on how to conduct a war? Suppose in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, Congress had issued an order stating that no troops could be used to invade Europe until after Japan had surrendered? Could Roosevelt and the joint chiefs have defied that order as being bad strategy or would they have been obligated to follow it?
I figure I might as well put this in Great Debates because given America’s current situation I’m sure it would have ended up there anyway. But I’m looking more for general information about whether this can be done rather than opinions on whether it shoudl be done.
Sure, Congress could declare peace. GeeDubya would simply add a signing statement that interprets the legislation as declaring him Supreme Leader.
Given the emotional climate that surrounds issues like allocating funds to support our heroes/squandor on a futile adventure, thats down towards the lastest of the resorts, just short of impeachment in terms of the political bloodletting necessary. The carpets of Congressional hallways would be soaked in chickenshit.
I heard other people express the same opinion that Kucinich gave (in the article linked in Doctor Who’s post) - that the only way Congress can get troops out of a country is to cut off their funding and starve them out. It’s always seemed like a ridiculous assertion to me on the face of it. (And I don’t take everything Dennis Kucinich says at face value.)
I think if the President is really determined to keep a war going, cutting off funding is going to be difficult - he’ll just divert funding from other areas to pay for the war.
As Common Tater notes, the last dozen or so “military unpleasantnesses” the U.S. have been involved in have not been “wars” in the strict Constitutional sense. Now, this is not the ultra-technical nitpick I’ve seen that “if it ain’t a formally Congressionally-declared war, we ought not to be there.” But it is pertinent.
U.S. troops are involved in this war, as they have been in wars since Korea, on the basis of a Congressional resolution authorizing the President to authorize the military to use force. Legally, that resolution can be rescinded in the same manner it was passed. And that is the legal authority which the President has for entering into a foreign conflict. It’s worth noting that this gives Congress opportunity to nuance the situation more than a peace/war dichotomy – they can authorize the use of limited force to combat something they see as a menacing act that falls short of an act of war, etc.
Now, his duties in case of invasion or attack are distinct. If armed Bahamian troops seize Miami Beach, the President does not have to wait for Congress to declare war on the Bahamas – it’s his duty under Article II to interpose troops to end and reverse the armed incursion.
And once we are at war, in whichever sense, his authority as Commander in Chief is paramount, subject to Congressional control of the pursestrings. To take the hypothetical WWII example in the OP, once we had declared that a state of war exists between the U.S. and Japan, and Hitler had declared war on us, it was the good judgment of the President, obviously aided by his military advisors, as to where we should fight and to what extent, where to put our priorities, etc. (Remember that we were technically at war with Hungary, Romania, Manchukuo, Slovakia, and who knows what else – but those puppet states were so far from being an issue that I don’t even notice them mentioned except in passing (Romanian and Hungarian troops participating in the invasion of the Ukraine, the Ploesti raid, etc.) in histories of the time.) Congress could not say, “Invade Japan first, then think about Hitler” except by tying the military appropriations to such a policy, which would frankly have been political suicide.
But there would be nothing wrong in Congress passing a resolution
Complicating things further, are all sorts of “emergency” powers enacted and given/taken/assumed for the last one hundred years or so. Roosevelt utilized the 1917 world war I inspired “Trading With The Enemy” act to confiscate gold bullion, certificates from Americans (making one ponder just who the “enemy” was in this case). In most, if not all, cases one assumes the “state of emergency” has never passed, so all the “wartime” measures taken are still extant. In a similar fashion, “Martial Law” hasn’t been invoked in recent memory that I’m aware, although the Patriot Act has a parallel device that is specifically tailored to avoid those various legal inconveniences that would arise for politicians who wish to accept federal aid dollars without inviting any scrutiny on their fiscal, er, policies.
But they are negotiated by the State Department, which is part of the executive branch. So if the President doesn’t want a treaty, there will be none for Congress to ratify.
W insists on 50,000 more troops in Iraq. The country goes ballistic, Congress cuts off the funding, the war ends, the troops come home, the GOP blames the loss on the Democrats and Bush saves face.
He could also add signing statements saying that 2+2=7 and that bears don’t shit in the woods. It wouldn’t grant him the power to make those things true. Congress can still stop the war.
Everything Bush has done, he has done because Congress has let him do it.
Not likely. Democrats are at least smart enough to not serve themselves up as the party that starved the troops on the field of battle. They will approve whatever the White House asks for. However, I think they could attach a sort of signing statement of their own, stating the appropriation is to be used for withdrawal only. Of course, Dubya is under no obligation to abide by it, but it makes him look like the asshole, not the Dems.
Congress would just have to repeal the AUMF that they passed in Oct 2002. A veto proof majority would be a good idea, too. I suppose a defunding measure might be necessary, although if the president no longer has the authority to continue the war, that might be moot. Still, with Bush in the helm a little extra caution is propbably a good thing.
More or less what I said, or intended to have said. Question for poli-sci wonks: is a Joint Resolution of this sort subject to veto, as a statutory bill would be? Based on the fact that it’s the method used to propose constitutional amendments, which are not subject to Presidential veto, my impression would be that they are not.
Briefly, prior to the Chada decision, it was the view of Congress that it could direct the president to withdraw troops or end a war resolution through the approval of a resolution that would not be sent to the President. For example, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution provided such a termination authority, as did the War Powers Resolution. However, the new judicial rulings since then mean that Congress must present such a termination to the President for his signature or veto.
On the larger question, Congress terminated the Tonkin Gulf Resolution in (IIRC0 1971. Nixon essentially continued the war, even though the numbers of troops in Vietnam were greatly declining. It wasn’t until 1975 (again, IIRC) that Congress ended funding for the war, putting the final nail in the coffin. With the advent of the War Powers Resolution, I do not believe that the President could continue a war in the way Nixon did in the absence of a congressional authorization. If he did, cutting off funds would be a highly appropriate response for Congress.
So, just for the sake of political practicality, Congress would be well advised to first terminate the war resolution before taking the politically risky step of cutting off funds to the troops.
Any joint resolution except one proposing a constitutional amendment can be vetoed. President Wilson vetoed a joint resolution which would have “ended” World War I in May 1920, because he wanted another chance to seek ratification for the Versailles Treaty.
I think it depends on what the “can” means. “Can” Congress declare peace? Probably. However most of the mechanisms that Congress could use to force a peace would require Presidential approval. What’s of most important is really the political climate of the time.
If there is a very unpopular war that the citizenry want ended, and Congress takes some sort of legislative act to end it (be it a rescinding of an authorization for force, or using the purse strings) then most Presidents historically would go a long with it. If the people are firmly on the side of the President he has much greater power to stand up to Congress.
Congress clearly has the power of the purse, however the President is also clearly Commander in Chief. There are a lot of unresolved issues concerning the War Powers Resolution, chief of which is the issue as to whether or not Congress has the constitutional authority to put such restrictions on the President’s command of the military. These are issues that have never been firmly settled constitutionally, and they were not so settled at the time because I think during the Vietnam war the executives in question realize the political situation wasn’t favorable to strenuous opposition to the act.
I think the claim that Congress could stop a war at any time is without basis. The Congress has never really tried to stop a major war, and I think it’s impossible to predict how such an act would play out.
As a sort of historical footnote, I think it’s worth recognizing that when the Constitution was written formal declarations of war were the normal process of the day. And a formal declaration of war was in fact fairly common, also common were declarations of war that were made without meaning (ie between two powers that never actually engaged in military hostilities despite a state of war existing between them.)
Whereas in the modern era formal declarations of war are very rare, and aren’t even seriously considered most of the time.
But as a further historical aside, the Americans who wrote the Constitution were definitely familiar with military hostilities that occurred outside of formally declared wars. Many such hostilities broke out between border forces in the Americas, and between the European colonists and the natives. Why exactly the Constitution wasn’t clear on how to deal with such undeclared hostilities is any one’s best guess. It could be because often times these hostilities were concluded and done long before word of them would ever get back to the seat of government.
It may not qualify as “major”, but Congress did successfully use the power of the purse to force President Nixon to stop bombing Cambodia in August, 1973.
As the atricle discusses, Nixon originally vetoed an appropriation bill which would have forced an immediate bombing halt, but accepted and signed a halt as of August 15, 1973 as a compromise.
Of course, this involved a distracted President with a sinking approval rating and a war which had ground the public into exhaustion after nine years. Nevertheless it has happened.
In order to bring the troops home by non-budgetary means, Congress would need to override a Presidential veto. Because it goes without saying that Bush would veto any Congressional resolution terminating or limiting the 2002 AUMF.
I would propose that the Dems try this anyway, just to get everyone on record as to where they stand on the war. I think the appropriate instrument for this should be an AUMF that would, if passed and signed, (a) supersede the 2002 AUMF, and (b) authorize such use of force necessary to protect the troops’ safety in the course of a withdrawal to be completed by a date certain.