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Compare And Contrast The War Powers Act Of 1973

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Article 1 Section 8 of the Articles of Confederation declares that Congress has the sole power to declare War while Article 2 Section 2 gives the President the power to wage war and states that “The President shall be Commander in Chief” (p.A17). These powers are specifically delegated in order to dictate where the legislative power ends and where the president’s power begins. In James Madison’s letter to Thomas Jefferson he implies that those two articles were possibly the most important by suggesting that because history had shown that the executive branch is “the most interested and most prone to [waging war]”, then it should be a power reserved for the legislative branch (press-pubs.uchicago.edu). The War Powers Act of 1973 furthered the …show more content…

The questions of whether or not the President has authority to use the military without congress first having declared war has proven to be a great source of conflict throughout history. The confusion comes from the different interpretations of the clauses. Since the Korean War, it has been accepted that the executive powers are that “The president has the power to initiate hostilities without consulting Congress” (libertyclassroom.com). This is often misinterpreted and has been used to expand executive authority and essentially make war without a congressional declaration of war. Perhaps the first example of this misuse of power dates back to the presidency of John Adams. In 1798, he was authorized by congress to seize any vessels that were sailing to French ports, however, he acted unilaterally and ordered for any ship sailing to or from a French port to be seized and thus started the still undeclared Quasi War (libertyclassroom.com). Also, in June 1950, at the beginning of the Korean War, Harry Truman decided to deploy American forces to Korea without congressional approval just because he deemed it as an emergency (p.321). This wasn’t the first or last time a president had over expanded his constitutional powers, however Congress eventually began to try and combat

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