Founders' Fuzziness

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The President proposes, and the Congress disposes," the old saying goes, and it suggests that while Presidents take the initiative, the Legislative Branch has the ultimate say. But when it comes to warmaking, that homely aphorism is dead wrong. President Bush has proposed sending more troops to Iraq. In theory, it is now up to Congress to ratify or reject his request. But neither the Constitution's genius nor more than two centuries of experience have managed to make this a contest between equals. As has happened so often in the past, Congress will once again be struggling to punch above its weight.

War gave birth to the U.S., but when the men who made the American Revolution went on to make a Constitution, they agonized over the rules for the new Republic's warmaking powers. They had no doubt that the state's very existence depended on its ability to field an armed force swiftly and effectively. Yet they also read history as a sorry record of warlords, monarchs and tyrants who exercised power arbitrarily. The founders meant to create a new political order in which sovereignty would reside not with the rulers but with the people, especially when it came to the fearsome sanction of military power.

Thus they invested in Congress--the most broadly representative and directly accountable branch of government--the authority to "declare War," to raise and support armies (while specifying that "no Appropriation of Money for that use shall be for a longer term than two years"), to "provide and maintain a Navy" and to summon into federal service, organize, arm and discipline the state militias. But they also anointed the President--theoretically, at least, somewhat insulated from popular whim by the Electoral College--as the "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several states" when called into national employ.

Nowhere has the fabled system of checks and balances proved more contentious. Because so much is at stake in questions of war and peace, the founders in effect crafted an invitation to perpetual conflict between Congress and the President. On no occasion has Congress compelled the President to undertake a military action against his will (although it came close to forcing John Adams to make war against France in the 1790s)--providing at least some support for the notion that the processes of democratic deliberation can help keep the peace. On some occasions Congress has served as a kind of sheet anchor, restraining or even extinguishing the martial urge. In the isolationist 1930s, for example, Congress passed several neutrality statutes, aimed at keeping Franklin D. Roosevelt from intervening in the brewing international crisis that finally erupted as World War II. And on only five occasions has Congress formally declared war--each time in response to a presidential request: the War of 1812, the war against Mexico in 1846, the Spanish-American War in 1898 and World Wars I and II.