The Relevance of the War Clause and the Rule of Law in Our Time

Genovese, Michael A.; Adler, David Gray

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-57931-7_3

Michael A. Genovese⁴ &
David Gray Adler^5,6

Part of the book series: The Evolving American Presidency ((EAP))

382 Accesses

Abstract

The constitutional grant to Congress—not to the president—of authority to initiate war on behalf of the American people remains adequate to our national security needs in the age of terrorism. The argument for further concentration of power in the president ignores the practice of presidential usurpation of the war power, which has become commonplace, and rests on mistaken assumptions of executive perception, judgment, expertise, and the need for immediate military actions. It ignores as well the fact that unilateral presidential decision-making has resulted in tragic wars. The constitutional arrangement on matters of war and peace rightly exalts congressional discussion and debate—collective decision-making—over the judgment of a single person before the nation is plunged into war.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Chapter: USD 29.95; Price excludes VAT (USA)

eBook: USD 34.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Softcover Book: USD 45.00; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Hardcover Book: USD 99.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
“The government of the United States,” Marshall wrote in Marbury, “has been emphatically termed a government of laws and not men.” 5 U.S. (I Cranch) 137, 163 (1803).
2.
Schechter Poultry Co. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495, 528.
3.
Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 646 (1952).
4.
For discussion of the Bush Administration’s assertions of sweeping executive power, see Adler, “George Bush and the Abuse of History,” UCLA Journal of Int. Affairs (Spring 2007). (Adler 2007).
5.
Benjamin N. Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1921), p. 136. (Cardozo 1921).
6.
Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1,16–17 (1957).
7.
Article XVIII, Benjamin P. Poore, ed., Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, 2 vols., I:959; New Hampshire (1784), Article 38, 2 Poore 1283; North Carolina (1776), Article XXI, 2 Poore 1410; Pennsylvania (1776), Article XIV, 2 Poore 1542; Vermont (1777), Article XVI, 2 Poore 1860.
8.
Hamilton, Federalist No. 22, p. 141 (Mod. Lib. Ed., 1937) (emphasis in original). Wilson, quoted in Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA, 1967), 174. (Bailyn 1967).
9.
1 Annals of Congress 500.
10.
For detailed examination and analysis of the Framers’ discussions and debates on the war power, see, generally, Louis Fisher, Presidential War Power, 3rd ed. Revised (Lawrence, KS, 2013) (Fisher 2013); Adler, “Constitution and Presidential Warmaking,” Political Science Quarterly 103, No. 1–36 (1988), 1–36 (Adler 1988), and sources cited in note 94. See, also, Francis D. Wormuth and Edwin B. Firmage, To Chain the Dog of War: The War Power in History and Law (Dallas, 1986), (Wormuth and Firmage 1986); James P. Pfiffner, Power Play: The Bush Presidency and the Constitution (Washington, D.C., 2008); Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr. and Aziz Z. Huq, Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror (New York, 2007). For the view that the president possesses unilateral war-making authority and, indeed, plenary powers in the conduct of American foreign policy, see the works of John Yoo, including The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs After 9/11 (Chicago, 2005). For more recent commentary, see Charlie Savage, Power Wars: Inside Obama’s Post-9/11 Presidency (New York, 2015), and Chris on Terror Edelson, Emergency Presidential Power: From the Drafting of the Constitution to the War on Terror (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2013).
11.
McKean, quoted in Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Convention, 2nd edition, ed. Jonathan Elliott 2 (Washington, D.C., 1836), p. 251; Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Oxford, 1894), 242–243. Locke’s teachings were instructive for Thomas Jefferson. Alexander Hamilton’s constitutional arguments in support of President George Washington’s Proclamation of Neutrality infuriated Jefferson, who commissioned James Madison to refute them. “Nobody answers him,” he wrote, and “his doctrines will therefore be taken for confessed. For God’s Sake, my dear Sir, take up your pen, select the most striking heresies and cut him to pieces in the face of the public.” Letter from Jefferson to Madison (July 7, 1793), in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson 1792–1794, p. 338.
12.
Schlesinger, Foreword to The Constitution and the Conduct of American Foreign Policy, eds. Adler and George, p. ix. (Adler and George 1996).
13.
See, generally, Adler, “The Framers and Treaty Termination: A Matter of Symmetry,” Arizona State Law Journal (1981), pp. 891–923; Adler, “The Constitution and Presidential War-Making: The Enduring Debate,” Political Science Quarterly 103 (1988), 1–36 (Adler 1988); Adler, “The President’s Recognition Power,” in The Constitution and the Conduct of American Foreign Policy, eds. Adler and Larry N. George (University Press of Kansas, 1995), pp. 133–158 (Adler and George 1996); Louis Fisher and David Gray Adler, “The War Powers Resolution: Time to Say Goodbye,” Political Science Quarterly 113 (1988), 1–20 (1998) (Fisher and Adler 1998); Adler, “The Clinton Theory of the War Power,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 30 (March 2000), 155–169; Adler, “Virtues of the War Clause,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 30 (December 2000), 777–783; Adler, “George Bush and the Abuse of History: The Constitution and Presidential Power in Foreign Affairs,” UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs 12 (Spring 2007), 75–144 (Adler 2007); Adler, “Presidential Power and Foreign Affairs: The Use and Abuse of Alexander Hamilton,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 40 (September 2010), 531–545.
14.
Gerhard Casper, “Constitutional Constraints on the Conduct of Foreign Policy: A Nonjudicial Model,” Chicago Law Review 43 (1976), 477; reprinted in Adler and George, eds., Constitution and the Conduct of American Foreign Policy, 259–274. (Adler and George 1996).
15.
See, e.g., David Gray Adler, “The Constitution and Presidential War-Making: The Enduring Debate,” Political Science Quarterly 103 (Spring 1988), 1–36 (Adler 1988); Adler, “Constitution, Foreign Affairs and Presidential War-Making: A Response to Professor Powell,” Georgia State University Law Review 19 (Summer 2003), 947–1019 (Adler 2003b); Adler, “George Bush and the Abuse of History,” UCLA Journal of Int. Law and Foreign Affairs, 114–120. (Adler 2007).
16.
For analysis of the War Powers Act, see Fisher and Adler, “The War Powers Resolution: Time to Say Goodbye.”
17.
Annals of Congress, I: 503 (1789).
18.
5 U.S. [ I Cranch] 137 (1803).
19.
Quoted in Gerald Gunther, John Marshall’s Defense of McCulloch v. Maryland (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1969), 190–191. (Gunther 1969).
20.
The Federalist No. 22, (George W. Carey & James McClellan, eds. 2001), 111.
21.
The Federalist No. 15, 69.
22.
In the Constitutional Convention, James Wilson, second in importance to James Madison as an architect of the Constitution, and a future Supreme Court Justice, declared that “the prerogatives of the British Crown [are not] a proper guide in defining the Executive powers.” The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 1 (M. Farrand ed., 1911), pp. 65–66. In order to allay fears that the Convention had created an embryonic monarch, Hamilton launched into a minute analysis of presidential power in Federalist No. 71 and noted that nothing “was to be feared” from an executive “with the confined authorities of a president of the United States.” The Federalist No. 71, p. 373.
In the First Congress, Roger Sherman, who had been a delegate at the Convention, argued in defense of the shared-power arrangement in foreign affairs: “The more wisdom there is employed, the greater security there is that the public business will be done.” I Annals of Congress 1123 (Joseph Gales ed., 1834) (1790). The Framers’ attachment to collective decision making in foreign affairs reflected, in part, their distrust of executive unilateralism. Hamilton explained that the treaty power—the essential vehicle for formulating foreign policy in the minds of the Framers—was withheld from the president since it was not “wise” to commit such awesome authority to a single individual. Greater wisdom and security would be procured by combining the skills and strengths of the president and the Senate in treaty-making. The Federalist No. 75, 389.
23.
Frankfurter, concurring opinion, in Fed. Power Comm’n v. Natural Gas Pipeline Co. of America, 315 U.S. 575, 609. Bickel, “The Original Understanding and the Segregation Decision,” Harvard Law Review 69 (1955), 1, 3–4 (emphasis in original). (Bickel 1955).
24.
Memorandum Opinion from John C. Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, for the Deputy Counsel to the president (September 25, 2001) (regarding The President’s Constitutional Authority to Conduct Military Operations against Terrorists and Nations Supporting Them).
25.
Yoo, “Judicial Review and the War on Terrorism,” George Washington Law Review 72 (2003), 427. (Yoo 2003).
26.
Powell, The President’s Authority Over Foreign Affairs: An Essay in Constitutional Interpretation (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2002), 122. (Powell 2002).
27.
299 U.S. 304 (1936); Powell, President’s Authority, p. xv (Powell 2002).
28.
John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government, secs. 146–148 (1690).
29.
William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 2 (1765–1769), 238–250. (Blackstone 1765–1769).
30.
Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, 37 (October 15, 2001), 1447.
31.
Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, 38 (October 21, 2002), 1779.
32.
George Bush, Introduction to the White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (September 17, 2002).
33.
Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal convention of 1787, 2 (1911), 319.
34.
Letter of Madison to Jefferson, April 2, 1798, in The Writings of James Madison, ed. Gaillard Hunt 6 (New York, 1906), 312.
35.
For discussion, see my article, “Presidential Greatness as an Attribute of Warmaking,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 33 (2003), 466. (Adler 2003a).
36.
John Jay, Federalist No. 4, J.R. Pole, ed. (Indianapolis, 2005), 36.
37.
Madison, “Letters of Helvidius, No. IV” (1793), reprinted in Madison Writings 6 (1790–1802), 174.
38.
Quoted in Alexander DeConde, Presidential Machismo (Boston, Northeastern University Press, 2000), 18. (DeConde 2000).
39.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 75, 487.
40.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 69, 448.
41.
Quoted in Deconde, 16. (DeConde 2000)
42.
Works of John Adams 6 (1969), 260.
43.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 6, 28.
44.
Adler, “The President’s Recognition Power,” in The Constitution and the Conduct of American Foreign Policy, eds. Adler and George, 133–158 (Adler and George 1996); Adler, “Jerusalem Passport Case: Judicial Error and the Expansion of the President’s Recognition Power,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 44 (Summer 2014), 537–554. (Adler 2014).
45.
Adler, “The President’s Pardon Power,” in Inventing the American Presidency, ed. Thomas E. Cronin (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1989), 209–235. (Cronin 1989).
46.
Writings of James Madison, 6:108–109.
47.
Editorial Note, Hamilton Papers, 22:5; quoted in William Michael Treanor, “Fame, the Founding and the Power to Declare War,” Cornell Law Review 82 (1997), 695, 751.
48.
The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams 9 (Free Port, NY, 1969), 309–310.
49.
Quoted in David H. Donald, Lincoln (New York, NY, 1995), 124. (Donald 1995).
50.
Richard M. Nixon, In the Arena: A Memoir of Victory, Defeat, and Renewal (New York, NY, 1990), 27. (Nixon 1990).
51.
Quoted in Bob Woodward, The Commanders (New York, NY, 1991), 6. (Woodward 1991).
52.
Quoted in Treanor, “Fame,” 764.
53.
Fred Emery, Watergate (New York, NY, 1995), 408–409. (Emery 1995).
54.
Walter Isaacson, “Weighing the Proper Role,” Time Magazine (Nov. 7, 1983), 44.
55.
Annals of Congress, 12th Cong., 2d. sess., January 1813), 561.
56.
DeConde, Presidential Machismo, 249, 255. (DeConde 2000).
57.
Louis Fisher, Congressional Abdication on War and Spending (College Station, TX, 2000), 81. (Fisher 2000).
58.
DeConde, Presidential Machismo, 269. (DeConde 2000).
59.
Forrest McDonald, The American Presidency (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994), 466–467. (McDonald 1994).
60.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., “The Democrat Autocrat,” New York Review of Books 50 (May 15, 2003), 18–19. (Schlesinger 2003).
61.
Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 643 (1952).
62.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 69, at 448.
63.
For discussion see Adler, “George Bush as Commander in Chief: Toward the Nether World of Constitutionalism,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 36 (September 2006), 525. (Adler 2006).
64.
John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government, ed. Thomas P. Peardon (New York: Macmillan, 1986 [1690]). For a discussion of prerogative, see Donald L. Robinson, “Presidential Prerogative and the Spirit of American Constitutionalism,” in The Constitution and Conduct of American Foreign Policy, eds. Adler and George, 114–132 (Adler and George 1996); Adler, “The Framers and Executive Prerogative: A Constitutional and Historical Rebuke,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 42 (June 2012), 376–390.
65.
Cong. Debates 12 (1836), 4037–4038.
66.
See, e.g., Myers McDougal and Asher Lans, “Treaties and Congressional-Executive or Presidential Agreements: Interchangeable Instruments of National Policy,” Yale Law Journal 54 (1945), 181, 612.
67.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., The Imperial Presidency (Boston, MA, 1973), 95–96. (Schlesinger 1973).
68.
Officer of the Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State, “The Legality of the United States Participation in the Defense of Vietnam,” Department of State Bulletin 54 (1966), 474.
69.
Hamilton, Works of Alexander Hamilton 6 (1906), 166.
70.
Hamilton, Federalist No. 78, 509.
71.
David S. Friedman, “Waging War against Checks and Balances—The Claim of an Unlimited Presidential War Power,” St. John’s Law Review 57 (1983), 213, 228. (Friedman 1983).
72.
Eliott, Debates, 4 (1836), 14.
73.
Theodore Sorenson, Decision-Making in the White House (New York, Columbia University Press, 1963), 78. (Sorenson 1963).
74.
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 3 vols., 5th edition. 2 (Boston: Little, Brown 1833, 1905), 1561. (Story 1833[1905]).

Select Bibliography

Adler, David Gray. “Constitution, Foreign Affairs and Presidential War Making: A Response to Professor Powell.” Georgia State University Law Review 19 (2003b): 947–1019.
Google Scholar
Adler, David Gray. “George Bush and the Abuse of History: The Constitution and Presidential Power in Foreign Affairs.” UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs 12 (2007): 75–144.
Google Scholar
Adler, David Gray. “George Bush as Commander in Chief: Toward the Nether World of Constitutionalism.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 36 (2006): 525–540.
Article Google Scholar
Adler, David Gray. “Jerusalem Passport Case: Judicial Error and the Expansion of the President’s Recognition Power.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 44 (2014): 537–554.
Article Google Scholar
Adler, David Gray. “Presidential Greatness as an Attribute of War Making.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 33 (2003a): 466–483.
Article Google Scholar
Adler, David Gray. “The Constitution and Presidential War Making: The Enduring Debate.” Political Science Quarterly 103 (1988): 1–36.
Article Google Scholar
Adler, David Gray., and Larry N. George, eds. The Constitution and the Conduct of American Foreign Policy. Lawrence: Kansas, 1996.
Google Scholar
Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967.
Google Scholar
Bickel, Alexander. “The Original Understanding and the Segregation Decision.” Harvard Law Review 69 (1955): 1–65.
Article Google Scholar
Blackstone, Sir William. Commentaries on the Laws of England. 3 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1765–1769.
Google Scholar
Cardozo, Benjamin N. The Nature of the Judicial Process. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1921.
Google Scholar
Cronin, Thomas E. Inventing the American Presidency. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1989.
Google Scholar
DeConde, Alexander. Presidential Machismo. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000.
Google Scholar
Donald, David H. Lincoln. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.
Google Scholar
Emery, Fred. Watergate. New York: Crown Publisher, 1995.
Google Scholar
Fisher, Louis. Congressional Abdication on War and Spending. College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2000.
Google Scholar
Fisher, Louis. Presidential War Power. 3rd ed., revised. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013.
Google Scholar
Fisher, Louis. and David Gray Adler. “The War Powers Resolution: Time to Say Goodbye.” Political Science Quarterly 113 (1998): 1–20.
Article Google Scholar
Friedman, David S. “Waging War Against Checks and Balances—The Claim of an Unlimited Presidential War Power.” St John’s University Law Review 57 (1983): 213–273.
Google Scholar
Gunther, Gerald. John Marshall’s Defense of McCulloch v. Maryland. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1969.
Google Scholar
McDonald, Forrest. The American Presidency. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994.
Google Scholar
Nixon, Richard M. In the Arena: A Memoir of Victory, Defeat, Renewal. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990.
Google Scholar
Powell, Jefferson H. The President’s Authority Over Foreign Affairs: An Essay in Constitutional Interpretation. Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2002.
Google Scholar
Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. “The Democrat Autocrat.” New York Review of Books 50 (2003): 18–19.
Google Scholar
Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. The Imperial Presidency. Boston: Houghton Miflin, 1973.
Google Scholar
Sorenson, Theodore. Decision-Making in the White House. New York: Columbia University Press, 1963.
Google Scholar
Story, Joseph. Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. 3 vols., 5th ed. Boston: Little Brown, 1833[1905].
Google Scholar
Woodward, Bob. The Commanders. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991.
Google Scholar
Wormuth, Francis D. and Edwin B. Firmage. To Chain the Dog of War: The War Power of Congress in History and Law. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1986.
Google Scholar
Yoo, John. “Judicial Review and the War on Terrorism.” George Washington Law Review 72 (2003): 427–451.
Google Scholar

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Political Science, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California, USA
Michael A. Genovese
President, Alturas Institute, Alturas, Idaho, USA
David Gray Adler
Lecturer, University of Idaho College of Law, Idaho Falls, Idaho, USA
David Gray Adler

Authors

Michael A. Genovese
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar
David Gray Adler
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Genovese, M.A., Adler, D.G. (2017). The Relevance of the War Clause and the Rule of Law in Our Time. In: The War Power in an Age of Terrorism. The Evolving American Presidency. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57931-7_3

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57931-7_3
Published: 22 November 2016
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-59353-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-57931-7
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics