War in the Constitution!

“The separation of the power of declaring war from that of conducting it is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted.”
- James Madison

In the United States, there is a rich history of war, though it’s not as rich as it could be. Whether this is a good thing or not is a matter of personal opinion, but what can be agreed upon is that the U.S.’s mode of war is a unique one – as it was designed to be.

When the Constitution was forged, it is inferred that the intent of the handing of war power to Congress (“The Congress shall have power … to declare war.” – Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution) was an attempt to keep the nation from falling to the same problems that Britain had. As the provision goes, Congress has the power to declare war, while the President has the power to wage war. Simple, isn’t it?

Simple, but wise.

By giving the power of declaring war to Congress, the Founders were putting the veritable security of the nation in the hands of a larger, more diverse group, rather than a single, potentially biased person. When broken down, the fact of the matter is that declaring war is what allows that war to exist in the annals of the empire. Without the declaration, the act of war would either not be a centralized act of war, simply by not existing, or it would have the unspeakable ability to break codes of morals maintained by the greater populace. Declaring is enabling, which isn’t something that the developing democracy wanted to hand out lightly. Which is why they offered the power of waging war to the President, rather than declaring. Waging war is safer – there is, supposedly, less room for biased intent in the act of realizing and already accepted action.

To make it simple:

Congress – power to declare war
President – power to wage war
(It follows that war cannot be waged without first being declared, as waging entails acting upon a previously stated intent.)

Congress – enables war
President – realizes war

In a sense, this could be construed as a sort of foresighted genius. In another sense, it’s also rather paranoid. As a basic principle, democracy is supposed to be a way of hearing the people speak, in that the people choose their leader. By not giving the people’s chosen leader such a dangerous power, the Founders were stating that the people are not infallible, and that they could, indeed, make such a grievous mistake as to put the reins of office into the hands of someone not capable of making an informed, objective decision. As Madison would have it: “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.”

Anyway, the point is that war is pretty much the most dangerous thing considered in the constitution, as the power to gather an army of armed, trained men together for the purpose of attacking another nation is a heavy one. Because of this, the basic provision in the Constitution is that Congress ultimately makes the decision, as it tends to be of a more neutral tone, consisting of as many differing opinions as it does. The Founders didn’t want to leave the President out, though, so they gave him the power to control the actual execution of the declaration, which, though it holds a great deal of power, is not as dangerous and anxiety-inducing as it would be without the necessity for approval by Congress.