Here's a letter-to-the-editor in the 04/11/02 New Yorker in response to the Hendrik Hertzberg editorial that I posted here a while ago. Normally a liberal (in the US sense), Hertzberg had argued that there was precedent for US presidential declarations of war (although he didn't use that term -- he meant there were loopholes).
It's nothing new, as Hendrik Hertzberg points out, for Presidents to find a way around the provision of the Constitution giving Congress the power to declare war (The Talk of the Town, September 30th). But repetition doesn't make it any less wrong. The problem is the same as that cited by Abraham Lincoln in 1848, when he was a congressman, in a letter to his law partner: "Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object." This, he wrote, the framers "understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions." The view that Presidents had the authority to make the decision to go to war, he added, "destroys the whole matter, and places our Presidents where Kings have always stood." Andy Jacobs, Jr. Indianapolis, Ind. -- Marc A. Schindler Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada -- Gateway to the Boreal Parkland “Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on” – Winston Churchill Note: This communication represents the informal personal views of the author solely; its contents do not necessarily reflect those of the author’s employer, nor those of any organization with which the author may be associated. ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /// ZION LIST CHARTER: Please read it at /// /// http://www.zionsbest.com/charter.html /// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ==^^=============================================================== This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?aaP9AU.bWix1n.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^^===============================================================
