Quotations: The Power to Make War
The following quotations are taken from Alexander DeConde's Presidential Machismo: Executive Authority; Military Intervention, and Foreign Relations (2000). Mr. DeConde observes:
The framers did not view the title of commander in chief as conferring control over the power to declare or instigate war. They perceived it as amounting to "nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces" so as to maintain civil authority over them. In later years, presidents, students of the office, and others would follow a far more expansive interpretation that would, in their judgment, make the Commander in chief Clause "one of the most important in the Constitution." Even so, most constitutional scholars hold to the original view. It states essentially that the clause "vested in the president only the authority to repel sudden attacks on the United States and to direct war, 'when authorized or begun.' "
UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION
Article 1, Section VIII, regarding the powers granted to Congress:
To Declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and sea
Article II, Section II, regarding the powers of the President
The President shall be commander in chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States, when called into the actual service of the United States.
JAMES WILSON
This system will not hurry us into war; it is calculated to guard against it. It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress.
JAMES MADISON (1793)
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 honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed. Hence it has grown into an axiom that the executive is the department of power most distinguished by its propensity to war; hence it is the practice of all states, in proportion as they are free, to disarm this propensity of its influence.... It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered, and it is the executive brow they are to encircle.
JAMES MADISON (1793)
Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON (1801)
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 on the part of Congress is nugatory; it is at least unnecessary.
THOMAS JEFFERSON (1810)
In time of peace, the people look to their representatives; but in war, to the executive solely.
THOMAS HART BENTON (1854)
The war power--the power to make war--is, as a grant to Congress, a mere illusion--a form without substance ... the real power of making war resides elsewhere--resides in the Executive Government alone--which, in its power to conduct our foreign relations, has power to make a quarrel with any nation that it pleases; and when the quarrel is got up, our people will fight.
HENRY ADAMS (1918)
Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had been always tragic, chiefly as an almost insane excitement at first, and a worse reaction afterwards; but also because no mind is so well balanced as to bear the strain of seizing unlimited force without habit or knowledge of it.
HARRY TRUMAN (1950)
There is a lure in power. It can get into a man's blood just as gambling and lust for money have been known to do.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (1960)
When the push of a button may mean obliteration of countless humans, the President of the United States must be forever on guard against any inclination on his part to impetuosity; to arrogance; to headlong action; to expediency; to facile maneuvers; even to the popularity of an action as opposed to the rightness of an action. He cannot worry about headlines; how the next public opinion poll will rate him; how his political future will be affected.
DEAN RUSK (1960)
As Commander-in-Chief, the President can deploy the armed forces and order them into active operations. In an age of missiles and hydrogen warheads, his powers are as large as the situation requires.
RICHARD NIXON (1976)
In short, there have been--and will be in the future--circumstances in which Presidents may authorize lawfully actions in the interests of the security of this country, which if undertaken by other persons, or even the President under different circumstances, would be illegal.
RONALD REAGAN (1986)
Every nickel-and-dime dictator the world over knows that if it [sic] tangles with the United States of America, he will pay a price.
GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH (1991)
If I have to go, it's not going to matter to me if there isn't one congressman who supports this, or what happens to public opinion. If it's right, it's gotta be done.