Political Quotes

“Simply put, here is my understanding of the Constitution and how Congress and the President and the courts interact when it comes to making war. No President has the ability to put America in a state of war. That is reserved for the Congress. It says in the Constitution only Congress can declare war. When you look at the history of the country, we have declared war-- Congress has--five times in the last 250 years. So declaring war is an unusual thing by the Congress: the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II. So I would suggest that declaring war is something America doesn't do a lot, and there is probably good reason. When you declare war, it affects insurance contracts. It is a legal state that has a lot of consequence to it. We have done that five times as a nation. I wonder how many times a Commander in Chief has used military force to defend a nation without a declaration of war--hundreds, if not thousands, of times in the last 250 years.”