Providing for Congressional Disapproval Under Chapter 8 of Title United States Code, of the Rule Submitted By the Environmental Protection Agency Relating to ``Air Plan Approval; South Dakota;

Floor Speech

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Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Virginia for leading this effort. There is likely no issue more important that confronts us as a nation, as a people, as a Congress, than whether or not to send our young men and women to war.

I take a backseat to no one in my disdain and loathing of state- sponsored socialism. In fact, I wrote a book, ``The Case Against Socialism,'' describing the historic link between socialism and state- sponsored violence.

I wish the people of Venezuela well and sincerely hope that they will not repeat the mistake of electing socialists that have plagued the nation since the 1970s.

Whether or not socialism is evil, however, is not the debate today. The debate today is about one question and one question only: Does the Constitution allow one man or one woman to take the Nation to war without the approval of Congress? Full stop.

That question is bigger than regime change in Venezuela, bigger than the claims that the ends justify the means, bigger even than the depredations and evils that multiple socialist autocrats have perpetrated upon the once great country of Venezuela.

Even those who celebrate the demise of the socialist, authoritarian regime in Venezuela, as I do, should give pause to granting the power to initiate war to one man. The power to initiate war is so vast a power that it must be confined by checks and balances.

The debate today would not be happening if our leaders read and understood the Federalist Papers. The constitutional power to initiate war is placed squarely on the shoulders of Congress.

Current congressional leaders squirm and would like to shift the burden of initiating the war to the President. Less than courageous Members of Congress fall all over themselves to avoid taking responsibility to avoid the momentous vote of declaring war.

But make no mistake, bombing another nation's capital and removing their President is an act of war, plain and simple. No provision in the Constitution provides such power to the Presidency.

No Supreme Court has allowed the Congress to abdicate its role in the decisions of war and peace, and no Congressman of any self-respect will argue otherwise.

Our leaders debated fully whether or not to grant this power to the President. To a man, from Jefferson to Hamilton, the spectrum of our Founding Fathers, they all agreed with the words that Madison wrote that the executive is the branch most prone to war, and, therefore, the Constitution, with studied care, vested that power--vested the power to declare war in the legislature.

Founding-era arguments in support of ratifying the Constitution demonstrate that our government does not entrust the decision to go to war to just one person. At the Constitutional Convention, Charles Pinckney argued that uniting the war powers under a single Executive would grant to the President monarchical powers.

It would make him like a King. They did not want a King. They were tired of the endless wars of Europe. They took that power and placed it with the people's representatives. They didn't want to make it easy to go to war. They wanted to make it hard to go to war.

Some will argue--they will say that Congress is so feckless. They will never declare war.

Well, guess what, when we have been attacked, we have been virtually unanimous. When we were attacked on 9/11, the vote was virtually unanimous to go after the people who attacked us. When we were attacked at Pearl Harbor, once again, the vote was virtually unanimous to go to war.

James Wilson, one of the Founders, assured Americans at the Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention that the proposed Constitution would not allow one man or even one body of men to initiate hostilities.

In Federalist 69, Alexander Hamilton stated the Constitution gave the Presidency fewer war powers than those of the British Monarch and that the American President would be restricted to conducting the operations of the Armies and Navy. In other words, the Constitution, the declaration of war, that power would remain with the legislature. The execution of the war--how many troops are stationed here; how many battleships are stationed here--that would be the prerogative of the President.

The beginning of the war, the initiation of the war, the declaration of the war would reside with the people and their representatives to make it less likely that we go to war.

The founding generation was largely united in the opinion that the American President would not be endowed with the monarchial powers to initiate war unilaterally. These Founders were not just engaged in a sales pitch; they were accurately representing the Constitutional Convention's decision on how to divide the war powers. Initiation, declaration of war, would be the prerogative of Congress; execution, fighting the war, would be the prerogative of the President.

An early draft of the Constitution gave Congress the power to ``make war'' rather than to ``declare war.'' This was debated, and during the debate over this, South Carolina's Pierce Butler rose to defend the proposition that the new American Government should vest the war-making powers with the President.

So this one man from South Carolina rose and said, not only should the President execute the war, he should initiate the war also.

But others stood up. Elbridge Gerry, a delegate from Massachusetts, was so aghast by Butler's suggestion that he rose to say that he ``never expected to hear in a republic a motion to empower the Executive alone to declare war.''

And in response to Butler's proposal to vest all the war powers with the President, Gerry joined with James Madison to successfully propose amending the draft of the Constitution to give Congress the power to ``declare war.'' They specified that Congress would have the power to initiate or declare war, but the execution of a war would be the President's power.

But they wanted to make sure that the President would be able to defend the country against foreign attack without awaiting congressional action.

This comes up all the time about: What if we are being attacked? What if it is an emergency? Can the President act without Congress?

Of course, he can. No one has disputed that. Military action in defense from another military attack has always been the prerogative of the President.

People say: Well, this had to be a secret.

Well, guess what. It was no secret that we had an entire armada lined up outside and across the coast from Venezuela. They knew we were there. They knew it was a possibility that we were coming in. Had we voted to declare war, yes, they might have been chastened even more. They might have even decided to negotiate before, had the entire Congress said: We are declaring war.

So in some ways, a declaration of war actually is more potent if you are trying to effect diplomacy. But, instead, we didn't vote. People said: Oh, they wouldn't be surprised.

If we had voted to declare war, the President still doesn't have to divulge the time or place of the war. Those secrets can still exist.

And, in fact, it is even more justified for the President not to tell us anything about the attack until afterward, if we have already given him permission to initiate a war.

And people say: Oh, this is just a technicality. Why should we care?

Well, if you have sons or daughters, you should care, because if we have unlimited war, if we have no limitations on the war-making power of one person, what happens when you get someone who will run amok with war?

I am not even talking about this President. I am talking about ``what if.''

That is why the rules are in place. The rules are in place to prevent a President, at one point in time, from running amok and having millions of our soldiers strewn around the world.

Does anybody remember the Battle of the Somme? A million soldiers died over an 18-day period in World War I. Now, that war was authorized, and it was still awful. But can you imagine a million soldiers dying without a declaration?

And people say: Well, what are you talking about? They are already gone. No one is in Venezuela.

What we are talking about is taking a country to war. We aren't just talking about Venezuela. We are talking about the power of a President to have a million soldiers die in an 18-day war.

People say: We are not talking about that.

Then we would declare war. You have to declare war at the beginning.

And then people say: Well, it is not a war. All it was was an arrest warrant. It was just a drug crime.

Oh, he was guilty of possessing machineguns. That sounds like that is being made up as humor.

In 1934, we passed a law in our country saying you can't own machineguns. It is an American law. Does anybody in their right mind-- does any sane individual who can read in our country--believe that it applies to the security forces of a foreign dictator or a foreign President; that if their guards have machineguns, they are guilty of breaching a 1934 U.S. law? What kind of world would we live in if we could accuse people around the world and simply go arrest them and send the military to quiet down all of their defense systems so we could arrest them?

We had intelligence reports in our country that reported that, per our intelligence, the leader of Saudi Arabia was guilty of or was involved with killing an American journalist. What if a President decided they wanted to arrest him? Can they do that without a congressional vote or permission?

There are arguments that the current President of Brazil has unfairly imprisoned the previous President of Brazil. Now, you can have an argument on both sides. You can listen to the facts, but would you want your President to be allowed to go to Brazil, free the former President, and put the current President in jail without a vote of your representatives? What kind of world would that be? Who could be for that?

The Constitution empowers the President to defend the country against sudden attacks initiated by any foreign power. The initiation of hostilities by the United States that requires deliberation and authorization must be voted upon in Congress.

Our Founders' intent was not a close call open to equivocation. Pundits argue that Presidents have been ignoring this restriction for decades. That is true. But that is not an argument. That is just an excuse, and a lame one at that.

The Constitution is clear: Only Congress can declare war. The power to declare war was too important to be left to the competence of one man. As Jefferson wrote, ``in questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.''

See, the Constitution isn't chains on the people; it is chains on your representatives so they don't usurp the power, so your representatives don't take you to war without careful deliberation.

Our Founding Fathers were explicit, and yet they still worried that a branch of government might resist the chains of the Constitution. So in pondering how they would enforce these checks and balances, they took to heart Montesquieu's maxim that if the powers of the Executive and the legislature, if they are combined--if there is no difference between the legislature and the Executive, if they are combined together--there can be no liberty. Those are strong words. They felt liberty would be endangered or imperiled if all the power resided in one person.

Madison wrote that by dividing the powers, by separating the powers within the Constitution, within the branches of government, that would pit ``ambition against ambition.'' The ambitions of a President to usurp power would be pitted against the natural ambitions of the legislature to keep power. The natural allure of power would be checked by each branch jealously guarding the prerogative of power.

Who among the Framers would have ever guessed or conceived of a time when Congress would lack any ambition--any ambition at all? Who would have predicted a time when Congress would be so feckless as to simply and obediently abandon all pretense of responsibility and any semblance of duty so as to cede the war power so completely to the President?

It is as if a magical dust of soma has descended through the ventilation systems of the congressional office buildings. Vague faces, permanent smiles, and obedient applause indicate the degree that the majority party has lost its grip and become eunuchs in the thrall of Presidential domination.

A President is never truly checked by the minority party, other than through elections. Meaningful checks and balances require the President's party to stand up and resist unconstitutional usurpations of power. Until that happens, the dangerous precedent of unlimited war- making power will continue to be abused by Presidents of both parties.

I recommend a ``yes'' vote on this resolution.

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