The Astonishing Reign of King George II

with reference also to the troubled reigns of King William, King George I, King Ron, King Jimmy, King Richard, King Lyndon, King John, King Harry, and King Franklin

Expending much of his political prestige in a detailed speech Al Gore warned Americans the other day of the "dangerous" assertions of Executive power now being made "in perpetuity"--- by President Bush. The White House immediately called Gore, not without some justification, "a hypocrite." As the childish insult runs: "It takes one to know one". Afterall, it was President Clinton, under whom Gore served, who defended the "right" of the President of the United States to make war at any time, anywhere around the globe he pleases without a obtaining a specific Congressional authorization. Clinton argued for his "right" to use troops in Haiti and Bosnia with the qualified and murky words :

"All I can tell you is that I have a big responsibility to try to appropriately consult with members of Congress in both parties-- whenever we are in the process of making a decision which might lead to the use of force. I believe that. But I think that, clearly, the Constitution leaves the President, for good and sufficient reasons, the ultimate decision-making authority... Like my predecessors I have not agreed that I was "constitutionally mandated" to obtain the support of Congress."

Is the President merely only supposed to TRY to consult with members of Congress when faced with war? Does the Constitution adopted in 1787, under which, oddly enough, our government still claims to govern us, really permit the President of the United States to make war on his own? Is this is a power that the American colonists, then so recently abused by a irresponsible King, wished to pass to yet another "chief magistrate"? What "good and sufficient reasons" would the framers of the Constitution have had for wishing for a single man to possess the unlimited power to wage offensive war? The answer is: none. Indeed, their revulsion toward such power in the hands of one man is well known. James Madison's opinion might stand for that of all of the framers:

"It is 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."

Even the most conservative of the framers, Alexander Hamilton, never envisioned that that the Presidency would possess such powers. In the Federalist Papers Hamilton wrote: "The power of a King "extends to the declaring of War and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies. The President will have only the occasional command of such part of the militia of the nation as by legislative provision may be called into the actual service of the Union."

This language reflects the very wording of the Constitution itself--- which limits the power of the President to be "Commander and Chief", to those moments when the navy and the militias of the states had been called into "actual survive" of the nation. It is abundantly clear the words "actual service" imply that there were to be no standing armies in America, and thus no chief exceutive could conceivably be possessed of any permanently delegated Constitutional power to command them, then or now.

Of course the framers did debate, and did generally agree, that in certain cases the Executive could act to "repel" a sudden attack, but such a "defensive" strategy would be limited and brief. (Even this language, however, was not added to the Constitution itself.) In order for the nation to conduct an offensive war--- Congress would need to act. This understanding of the war powers of the Presidency prevailed for most of our nation's history. It received its first validation when President Washington refused to attack the Chickamagga Indians in 1792. Writing to Governor Blount of Tennessee Secretary of War Knox summarized why the Executive alone could not take offensive actions against of the Indians of Chattanooga, who were then the "terrorists" of their day:

"All your letters were submitted to the President of the United States. Whatever his impression relative to the proper steps to be adopted, he does not conceive himself authorized to direct offensive operations against the Chickamaggas. If such measures are to be pursued they must result from the decisions of Congress who solely are vested with the powers of War".

The working consensus of the national period of American history on war powers was best enunciated by John Calhoun in during the Mexico crisis of 1846: "There may be invasion without war, and the President is authorized to repel invasion without war. But it is our sacred duty to make war, and it is for us to determine whether war shall be declared or not. If we have declared war, then war exists, and not till then."

But it is not until the Presidency of Franklin Roosevelt and especially of Harry Truman that we witness an Executive branch claiming truly extraordinary powers. When Truman seized control of eighty-seven major steel comapnies in 1952, claiming his inherent right as "Commander and Chief" obligated him to defend the nation, Judge Jackson's Supreme Court opinion was telling:

"no court," Jackson wrote "can keep the power of Congress in its own hands if it is not wise and timely in meeting its own problems...only Congress can prevent power from slipping through its fingers. .." he concluded.

But it took the debacle of Vietnam before Congress, belatedly, took Judge Jackson's advice. Yet once again Congress failed to fully defend its perogative to both declare and make war. Language was inserted in the War Powers Resolution of 1973 regarding "hostilities", as distinguished from "war". In addition to this, Congress allowed the President to "report" the commencing of "hostilities" before the clock starts to tick on congressional approval. Naturally, the Executive has found many creative ways of not turning the clock on at all. The word "hostilities" actually makes it easier for the President to attack or invade countries who have not attacked us, our territory, or our troops. Combined with the use of UN resolutions to justify Presidential military adventures, the Congress has now virtually ceded its war-making responsibility to the President. When Congress "authorized" the first President Bush to take offensive action against Iraq in 1991, King Bush I stated:

"As I made clear to congressional leaders at the outset, my request for congressional support did not, and my signing this resolution does not, constitute any change in the long-standing positions of the executive branch on either the President's authority to use the Armed Forces to defend U.S. vital interests, or the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution."

In other words, " I will sign your statement of support, but I don't need it, and I don't need you to make war, whatever laws you may pass". Notice that where the early American nationalists debated the propriety of how to constitutionally defend the territory of the United States from an attack, King Bush the First discusses the unlimited use of military power merely to defend a metaphysically vague notion of "U.S. vital interests" EVERYWHERE.

How has it come about that a document specifically written to prevent the unlimited license and abuse of Kings is now being used to employ just such an arbitary power, a power to be exercised not only at home, but anywhere around the globe? There can, of course, be only one explanation: the moral collaspe of Congress. It is likely that the War Powers Resolution of 1973 is itself unconstitutional, but what court would dare to enter the fray? If Congress cedes its powers to the Executive, can any court regain them? Were the War Powers Resolution not in effect, or revised, it is possible that there would today be NO CHECK at all on the Executive, thus making things worse rather than better.

Now King George the Second has risen, in his ermine mantle, to make his claims. These include the right to spy on citizens without a warrant, the right to jail citizens indefinitely without trial or counsel, the right award "marque" to foreign governments who will torture prisioners on our behalf; the right also, as have clamied all the other modern Kings, to invade countries, overthrow governments, and make war on anyone he pleases, all to protect "US vital interests". These "vital interests" now extend around the world and no nation or political group is free, knowingly or unknowingly, from an entanglement in them. Indeed, it may be sincerely wondered whether anything which happens anywhere in the world today is not, at least potentially, a "US vital interest". Do we find it startling that this sort of unprecented dominance, so little allied with democratic sentiments, is so universally resented? So contorted and so tangled and so contradictory have these "US vital interests" become, over the years, that entire countries and now even religious groups have become enraged by the United States and are now willing to murder themselves simply in order to murder us. Why has this occurred? It is time for us to soberly reflect that if the Constitution intended for one man to possess the power our modern Presidents assert--- then there was never any need for us to break away from Britain to start with, for we could simply have adopted the powers of the British monarchy whole cloth, and conferred them on our own magistrate or civil General. Indeed, the "unitary" view of Presidential power argued by apologists for the Bush Administration states that this is precisely from whence the Presidency derives its powers.

Judge Robert Jackson, in rejecting Truman's claim to the seizure of the Steel Companies, noted that, between the powers of the Congress and the power of the Executive there lay a "zone of twilight" in the constitutional delegation of authority. It is this "twilight zone" that is responsible for the very wars it now claims to remedy, indeed it uses these as the basis for yet further claims and aggrandizments.

The history of last half-century proves, and over two hundred American interventions and wars abroad amply prove, that the exercise of this power is not bringing us peace, but rather inciting constant war, just as the framers feared. This unchecked authority is, in reality, the very the poison that has created our latest "enemies", and will create countless others yet to come. Until we exorcise this demon, once and for all, we will suffer the violent results.

Will Morgan

January 19, 2006