Which Branch of Government Can Declare War?

Which branch of government can declare war? In the United States, Congress, which makes the rules for the military, has the power under the constitution to “declare war”.

Which Branch of Government Can Declare War?

The Framers of the Constitution were abundantly clear in assigning to Congress what one scholar has called “senior status in a partnership with the president for the purpose of conducting foreign policy.” Consider what the Constitution has to say about foreign affairs. Congress possesses the power “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations,” “to raise and support Armies,”  to“grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal,” to “provide for the common Defense,” and even “to declare War.” Congress shares with the president the power to make treaties and to appoint ambassadors. As for the president himself, he is assigned only two powers relating to foreign affairs: He is commander in chief of the armed forces, and he has the power to receive ambassadors.

At the Constitutional Convention, the delegates disclaimed any intention to model the American executive after the
British monarchy. James Wilson, for example, remarked that the powers of the British king did not constitute “a proper guide in defining the executive powers. Some of these prerogatives were of a Legislative nature. Among others that of war & peace.” Edmund Randolph likewise contended that the delegates had “no motive to be governed by the
British Government as our prototype.”

To repose such foreign-policy authority in the legislative rather than the executive branch of government was a deliberate and dramatic break with the British model and that of other nations. The Framers of the Constitution believed that history amply testified to the executive’s penchant for war. As James Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson, “The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature.”

These are a few important aspects of the U.S. Constitution of which all Americans should be aware. If the Constitution were to be preserved, Thomas Jefferson explained, the people would have to keep vigilant watch over the federal government and be alert to its encroachments upon the rights of the states and of the people. As Jefferson said, “In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down by the chains of the Constitution.”