It’s Time For Congress To Speak On Libya.

By Matt Hawes

Doug Bandow, C4L contributor and former special assistant to President Reagan, has a new piece on Forbes’ website smashing myths about the President’s war powers and calling on Congress to return to its abandoned constitutional role.

First, Bandow cuts directly to the heart of why Congress refuses to step up:

Obviously, more than a few officials don’t care what the Constitution says. Presidents want to wield power, while many legislators seek to avoid responsibility. Let the president decide: Then they can applaud if the conflict goes well or carp if it turns out badly.

Anyone who has observed politics over the last decade has witnessed the reversal of positions on war.  When Bush overstepped, Democrats howled (but now, for the most part, remain silent at Obama’s abuses).  When Obama oversteps, Republicans are right there to criticize (guess they used all their free passes on Bush).  Only a select few, like Congressman Ron Paul, have taken consistent stands on principle.

Bandow then cites several of the Founders as upholding the view that Congress, not the president, decides when to go to war.

Also offering assurance was the great friend of executive power Alexander Hamilton. Being commander-in-chief merely made the president the “first general and admiral” of American forces, Hamilton explained. The president’s authority was “in substance much inferior to [that of the king]. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the land and naval forces … while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war.”…

James Wilson was pleased that the proposed constitution “will not hurry us into war.” Instead, he explained, “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; for the important power of declaring war is in the legislature at large.” Thomas Jefferson wrote of creating an “effectual check to the dog of war by transferring the power of letting him loose.”…

The last president who accepted the limits of the presidential war power may have been Dwight Eisenhower, one of the few chief executives with command military experience: “When it comes to the matter of war, there is only one place that I would go, and that is to the Congress of the United States.” A few months later he explained that “I am not going to order any troops into anything that can be interpreted as war, until Congress directs it.”

Eisenhower was channeling George Washington, who wrote South Carolina Gov. William Moultrie: “The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure.”…

Read the rest.

History speaks clearly on what the Constitution means and why it is written that way.  It’s time for Congress to listen.

Read more at Campaign for Liberty