Presidents, Congress, and the Use of Force: A Critique of Presidential Powers

Abstract

DEBATES OVER Congressional involvement in foreign military engagements trace back to America's founding. However, a basic point still remains unresolved: does Congress have the Constitutional right to constrain presidents from unilaterally exercising force abroad? If so, is directly adhering to the Constitution a government responsibility? In principle, the Constitution provides the Congress with enough power to make it a major participant in foreign policy.' Yet, the past forty years represent a dramatic departure from the mandates of the Constitution in that they have allowed an unmistakable trend toward executive domination of United States foreign affairs. Presidential military action without Congressional authorization subverts clearly specified Constitutional powers, undermines the notions of Constitutional and limited government, and encourages citizens to accept a government that acts without authorization, thereby posing an enormous threat to individual liberty. The most comprehensive discussion of the power to make war occurred at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. No group has ever thought more deeply about how a free people ought to be governed than the men who wrote the Constitution of the United States.2 The framers of the Constitution were drawn to a formulation of governmental pow-