Abraham Lincoln Quotes

[In wartime] there is almost always an overstretch [for power] by the President.

Since the 1st World War, U. S. Presidents have 18 times asked the Congress for authority to go to war or use military force. The Presidents have never been turned down by Congress.

The Congress decides when to make war and the President decides how to make war.

Without the authority of Congress, the President cannot fire a hostile gun in any case except to repel the attacks of the enemy.

Is there really a way to restrict the powers of the Commander in Chief ... when one man's swiftly pressing the button may be necessary for some degree of national survival?

The power to make war is vested in Congress and not in the President. Congress has no constitutional authority to grant such authority to the president.

This talk of blindly following the President in everything pertaining to war—except as to his conduct of military operation in the field—is blithering idiocy.... The Constitution still abides. It defines the powers and duties of Congress. It gave Congress every war power, except that it left with the President the right to direct all military operation in the field. It gave him no other war power.

The involvement of the government in military adventures always results in the expansion, at least temporarily, of Presidential power.

No man has the right to use the great powers of the Presidency to lead the people, indirectly, into war.

The President has the power to wage war but not against U. S. laws…. He is a President; not a king.

The respective powers of the President and Congress of the United States, in the case of war with foreign powers are yet undetermined. Perhaps they can never be defined.

The constitution has never greatly bothered any wartime President.

When a President asserts constitutional powers he needs to be pretty certain he has those powers.

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion … and you allow him to make war at pleasure. … If today he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may see no probability he would say to you, “Be silent!, I see if you don’t.”

In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body.

I don't think people realize how many decisions the president of the United States makes about military action.

The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. As commander in chief, the president does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the president would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent.

No power but Congress can declare war, but what is the value of this constitutional provision, if the President of his own authority may make such military movements as must bring on war?

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

My belief was that it was not only the President's right but his duty to do anything that the needs of the nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws. Under this interpretation of executive power I did and caused to be done many things not previously done by the President.

Congressional power has not so much been usurped by the Presidency as given up to the Presidency by Congress.

Congress ... is far more than the simple, limited advisory council that most Presidents would like to maintain.

The powers that are surrendered [by Congress] to one President remain to be used by others.

I do not believe that the President has any powers at all except such as the Constitution expressly gives him or such as are necessarily inferred.

The President ... should be merely the executor of a power of decision that rests elsewhere; that is, in the Congress.