"In their great wisdom, our Founding Fathers, gathered in Philadelphia to draft the new U.S. Constitution, gave the sole authority to declare war to the U.S. Congress. ... our Founders understood that it was essential, to secure a representative form of republican self-government, that the power to declare war must be in the hands of Congress, and not in the Executive Branch. ...
Nothing has transpired in the intervening centuries to justify any alteration in their wise decision. Under our Federal Constitution, only the Congress has the power to declare war, and that must remain a cardinal principle. In recent decades, we have seen an erosion of that Constitutional principle, and I fully concur that this erosion must be halted and reversed." | Quote by: | Gen. Joseph P. Hoar
(1934-) US Marine Corps four-star general (retired), Chief of Staff and later the Commander in Chief of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) |
Source: | Sep 21, 2012, press conference to introduce HCR 107, which reasserts the Constitutional clause on Congress' exclusive responsibility to declare war, and states that any president who does not get Congressional authorization before entering war will be immediately subject to impeachment. |
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