Government is Limited, not War

"Kinetic and non-Kinetic Activity"
Barack Obama recently defended his hapless "lead-from-behind" military intervention in Libya, claiming that the president has the authority to intervene in a limited capacity without congressional approval. In addition to "man-caused disasters" (terrorism), and "overseas contingency operations" (war), Barack has introduced another bizarre term to the military lexicon - "kinetic and non-kinetic activity." Since the United States' role in Libya is "non-kinetic," according to Barack, he does not require congressional authorization to remain in Libya indefinitely. Unfortunately for Barack and the warfare-state political coalition, in the Constitution, only Congress is given the power to declare war (Article I.8). The president, as commander-in-chief, can wage war once it has been declared, but he cannot initiate offensives without Congress (Article II.2). Once Congress declares war, the president has broad authority to wage war against the enemy at his discretion, but until that declaration is issued he must stay on the defensive. There is no mention of exceptions in which the president can wage war without congressional approval, and certainly no mention of "kinetic and non-kinetic activity." For the Founding Fathers to divide the power to declare and wage war between a legislature and executive was a radical departure from the monarchical tradition of Britain, where the Crown held sovereign authority over warfare. Since the executive's power peaks during wartime, the Founding Fathers feared the president would have a bias towards war, which they recognized as a terrible yet sometimes inevitable event. Therefore, giving Congress, rather than the president, the authority to declare war ensured that the U.S. government was more likely to fight only just wars in its own interests, not self-aggrandizing wars of conquest, glory, or simply poor judgment. Since Congress has not authorized a war against Libya, Barack has absolutely no right to continue his "overseas contingency operations." Just as he refused to obey two federal judge's rulings, Barack's circumvention of Congress puts him once again in contempt of the Constitution. James Madison - the "Father of the Constitution" - defined this centralization of legislative, judicial, and executive roles as tyranny.

Washington and Jefferson Defer to Congress
The Founding Fathers respected the division between the federal powers to declare and wage war, and scrupulously stayed within the confines of their limited constitutional authority. George Washington's battles with the Northwestern tribes, for example, were all fought defensively. Since Congress did not declare war against the tribes, Washington was not authorized to wage war, and so remained on defense. As Washington said, "The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress. Therefore, no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure." Washington did not attempt to rationalize limited or preventive wars, but obeyed the original intent of the Constitution to limit his powers as commander-in-chief to the will of Congress.

Thomas Jefferson offers another example of presidential probity in the face of temptation to wage war. Following the Louisiana Purchase, Spain disputed the terms of the sale, arguing that France had illegally ceded Spanish territory in Louisiana and Florida. When Jefferson denied Spain's claims, he feared Spain would forcibly seize the disputed territory. Yet rather than strike first in a preventive war, Jefferson dutifully reported to Congress that, "It is their intention to advance on our possessions until they shall be repressed by an opposing force. Considering that Congress alone is constitutionally invested with the power of changing our condition from peace to war, I have thought it my duty to await their authority for using force...but the course to be pursued will require command of means which it belongs to Congress exclusively to yield or to deny." Jefferson took defensive action to ready Americans residing in the territories, but deferred to Congress' constitutional authority when it came to taking offensive action. Spain never retaliated against the U.S., though if Jefferson had held the power to declare war he may have struck and driven the U.S. into a war against Spain. Because of the Constitution's constraints on presidential power, a possible war was averted. In addition to his conflict with Spain, Jefferson's famous Barbary Wars were also waged constitutionally. After the regency of Tripoli - part of the Ottoman Empire at the time - declared war against the United States, Jefferson dispatched a naval force to the Mediterranean to guard U.S. vessels and citizens against piracy. Jefferson, however, acknowledged that he was "unauthorized by the Constitution, without the sanction of Congress, to go beyond the line of defense." Several years later, Congress passed legislation empowering Jefferson to wage war against not only Tripoli, but all of the Barbary pirates. If great men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson can so faithfully obey the Constitution, surely Barack can humble himself before the laws of the land as well.

Lincoln's Illegal War
Most of what is wrong with Washington D.C. today originated in the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, so it is no surprise that Lincoln was the first commander-in-chief to declare war in spite of Congress. The results of this executive excess was a terrible disaster of historic proportions, and a sobering lesson in the importance of restraining executive war-mongering. After Lincoln pandered his way to the presidency on a platform of mega-high protective tariffs, South Carolina soon seceded, followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas - all of the "Cotton States" in the Deep South. The Upper South, however - Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas - were still debating secession, hoping to preserve the union without compromising states' rights. Virginia even championed an effort to reconcile the United States and Confederacy. Under the original intent of the Founding Fathers, secession was the sovereign right of the states, meant to deter federal abuses against the people of the states. Of course, the Founding Fathers hoped secession was a sword that would remain sheathed, and would never need be drawn in defense. The Constitution, after all, was a voluntary compact between the states, founded as a means to preserve the ends of peace and liberty. If, however, as Jefferson stated in the Declaration of Independence, "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government." The Southern states, for generations, had suffered under the unconstitutional federal policy of protective tariffs, which artificially depreciated foreign currencies (penalizing Southern cash-crop exports of cotton, tobacco, sugar, rice, etc.), perpetuated a government-granted monopoly which inflated the price of manufactures. Furthermore, although the incidence of the federal tariffs fell on Southern exporters, tax revenue was funneled northward for "internal improvements," the 19th-century equivalent of "pork-barrel spending." Clearly, at least to the Southern states, the federal government had become "destructive" of the purposes for which it was founded. Lincoln, however - and the Republicans in general - had radically different opinions about the power of the federal government and the rights of states, favoring centralization over federalism. When Lincoln took office, the United States was a decentralized republic, unlike any other country in the world, yet Lincoln admired the trend towards unified nation-states emerging in Europe. In the United States, the independence of the states was an impediment to the nationalism of the Republican Party.

Several months after assuming office, Lincoln ordered the states to marshal 75,000 troops with which he would quell the so-called rebellion in the Deep South. Congress, however, had not declared war against the Confederacy, thus rendering Lincoln's command blatantly unconstitutional. Jefferson Davis called the order "a plain declaration of war," and noted that "under the Constitution of the United States, the president is usurping a power granted exclusively to Congress." Lincoln's declaration of war also lacked a just cause, since the Southern states had peacefully seceded and had no aggressive aims toward the United States. Contrary to popular belief, the Confederacy was not waging a civil war for control of the federal government, but had merely withdrawn from a voluntarily compact between the states - the Constitution - which it believed no longer served its best interests after years of encroachment upon its rights as sovereign states and damage upon its economic wellbeing. Other than a lust for the centralization of power and a cold contempt for the traditions of the Founding Fathers, Lincoln had no reason to declare war on the Confederacy. The decision to go to war, of course, is beyond the judgment of a single man - especially Lincoln - which is why the people of the states gave the power to the Congress rather than the president. As Davis said at the time, "We protest solemnly in the face of mankind, that we desire peace at any sacrifice, save that of honor. In independence we seek no conquest, no aggrandizement, no concession of any kind from the states with which we have lately been confederated. All we ask is to be let alone - that those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms." Because of Lincoln's illegal command, the states of the Upper South were impelled to secede, the Confederacy assembled its defenses against invasion, and the hope of peace between the North and South was lost. Hundreds of thousands of American lives might have been saved if Lincoln had obeyed the law and not violated the powers of the presidency, yet the awful precedent he set has endured to this day. The reverence in which Lincoln is held across the entire political spectrum is a sad sign of how far this country has fallen.

Love of Country, not Government
Voices for stronger presidential war powers often impugn the patriotism of those who side with the Constitution over the government. There is nothing patriotic, however, about supporting the unconstitutional centralization of power in the presidency, especially when those powers place American soldiers at risk. Patriotism is simply pride in one's country - its people, culture, and heritage - not submission to the will of the government. When the government becomes hostile towards the country, the true patriot sides with the people rather than the politicians. As Ron Paul wrote in his latest book, "Patriotism never demands obedience to the government, but rather obedience to the principles of liberty." Confusing patriotism with support for the government's actions has misled many Americans into unwittingly undermining what they are for and empowering what they are against. Denying the president the right to declare war is not to naively argue for pacifism or world peace, but to recognize that given the tremendous costs to life and liberty, wars cannot be entered into cavalierly, but require adherence to a strict process to ensure they are just so that sacrifices are not made in vain. Lincoln's bloody legacy shows that a single man cannot be trusted with the gravity of such a momentous decision, and will often conflate the aggrandizement of his administration with the national interest. Far greater than any puny politician's pretense to patriotism, however, is the Constitution, which casts its towering shadow over all of Washington D.C., even the ballyhooed Barack Obama.