[nitpick] The USA, while not the senior partner in either case, was involved in China and Burma in WW2. [/nitpick]
In order to say that you first have to make the argument that my OP is incorrect, which you have not done thus far.
Is the Constitution still relevant to our current government? I keep hearing about how it’s in disgrace and/or held in low regard.
If they’re not using it any more, why should its provisions matter?
Sailboat
Who says that they’re not using it anymore? Some of the things that they are doing seemingly in defiance of the Constitution are not necessarily in defiance of the Constitution. They merely await a hearing on the matter of their Constitutionality.
The ultimate demonstration that they are, in fact, adhering to the Constitution will come on January 20, 2009 at noon when President Bush becomes ex-President Bush.
That said, the issue at hand here will be around long after the current administration is gone.
I have @15. Any thoughts?
You have, perhaps, demonstrated that the War Powers Resolution, which I maintain was passed directly as a result of our involvement in Vietnam, is inconsequential to the argument I’m making. That in no case makes an argument that the rest of my OP is incorrect.
To make the statement that I quoted, you first have to accept that the facts in question are already settled. They are not settled.
Airman, I went back and re-read your OP after focusing mostly on the replies at first.
I’m sorry, but your line of reasoning is simply strained and I do not believe that it is an accurate reflection of the legislative history of the War Powers Resolution. But let me first back up a bit.
As has already been discussed, from the earliest days of our country it has been practice for Congress to make a distinction between an authorization for the use of force and a declaration of war. There’s been other terms for it – limited war vs. total war; imperfect war vs. perfect war, and so on. It’s been well-established that Art I, Section 8 gives Congress a general “power to declare war,” and that Congress has discretion in choosing whether it wishes to approve a limited war or a total war. That is all contained within the “war power.”
Now, your professor seems to be arguing that use of force resolutions are somehow not legitimate, because they are not formal declarations of war. He’s simply wrong as pretty much everyone here has described.
But you seem to be laying out a convoluted path about how authorizations for limited war are actually declarations of war, because the term “war” is used in both instances. (Pardon the simplification.) That’s really an argument by equivocation, which is a fallacy; not to mention that the War Powers Resolution really does nothing at all to redefine, amend, or otherwise explain the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, so you’re also making a post hoc ergo propter hoc argument there. I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I get the feeling that you’re trying to divine Congress’ intentions simply by comparing titles of bills, rather than having studied the history of these two acts.
The only significance of the title of the War Powers Resolution is that the substance of it was to try to define the limits of the “war powers” of the President in emergencies, and to try to protect the “war powers” of the Congress in the process.
So the bottom line is that authorizations for use of force and declarations of war are two ways by which Congress can exercise its war powers, but that does not mean that an authorization is a declaration, or vice versa. They are different things because law prescribes that each one is treated differently, as MEBuckner gave an example of.
Because they are different, neither the Tonkin Gulf Resolution nor the resolution on Iraq give the President the extraordinary powers triggered by a declaration of war. So if an authorization for the use of force is distinguishable from a declaration of war, they can’t be the same; even though they are both ways in which Congress can exercise its Art I Section 8 powers.
As long as the subject is that particular sentence of Art. 1, Section 8, can anyone explain what a letter of marque and reprisal is?
Or is that too much of a hijack?
Personally, I’d like to insist that Congress make formal declarations of war, when it intends to pay for the President’s prosecutions of them.
First: of course the War Powers Act “was passed directly as a result of our involvement in Vietnam.” Nobody’s arguing to the contrary.
However, it was not legislating on our involvement in the Vietnam War. Our military involvement in that war was over.
Second, this doesn’t in the least prove that the WPA is inconsequential to your argument. Your argument is “that the naming of this law constitutes de jure recognition that Vietnam was in fact a war and that the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was in fact a Declaration of War, else the would have named it the “Conflict Powers Resolution” or something else.” That argument hasn’t a leg to stand on.
What you’re left with is your other argument, that a declaration of war can be any sort of authorization of force, because the Constitution isn’t specific that a declaration of war must use a standard phraseology.
My answer to that would be a question: were there norms at the time of the Constitution for declaring war? Did one nation issue a particular form of statement to another when going to war against it? Many things are unstated in the Constitution that were taken for granted at the time, because no one saw the need to spell them out.
One can make the statement using common, accepted parlance, whether or not you have an argument that that parlance rests on a shaky foundation.