James Madison Quotes

Under our Constitution the Congress alone has the power to declare war.

The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.

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

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?

When the President decides to go to war, he no longer needs a declaration of war from congress.

We were having problems with the War Powers Act, so I hesitate to use the term war.

I question the Constitutional authority of the President to conscript unwilling Americans and send them abroad without a declaration of war by the Congress.

As the Executive cannot decide the question of war on the affirmative side, neither ought it do so on the negative side by preventing the competent body [Congress] from deliberating on the question.

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.

A constitutional power may not be delegated

The Constitution is clear, Article I, Section 8, power vetted in Congress to declare war. If you go back to the founding documents of this nation, the decision of going to war was to be made by people closest to the ground - the elected officials - to make those decisions.

The Constitution is designed to inconvenience one person from taking us to war. War is a very solemn and sobering and extraordinary act, and it should not be granted to one person.

U.S. Constitution declares rather unambiguously that Congress has the responsibility to “declare war.

[W]ar is a question, under our constitution, not of Executive, but of Legislative cognizance. It belongs to Congress to say whether the Nation shall of choice dismiss the olive branch and unfurl the banners of War.

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? ... [T]hese remarks originate purely in a desire to maintain the powers of government as they are established by the Constitution between the different departments, and hope that, whether we have conquests or no conquests, war or no war, peace or no peace, we shall yet preserve, in its integrity and strength, the Constitution of the United States.

I wish the press were paying more attention to the erosion of the Constitution and the slippery slope that we're getting into, by giving up the right of the Congress to talk about when and how and where we go to war.

I cannot think of any circumstances in which a government can go to war without the support of parliament.

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

The Constitution's pretty clear. The Federalist papers are pretty clear... They very specifically delegated the power to declare war to Congress. They wanted this to be a congressional decision; they did not want war to be engaged in by the executive without approval of Congress.

Again, in Wag the Dog, war has to be declared by an act of congress. But if you go to war, you don't have to declare war. You're just at war and we did that, which is not legal.

The Constitution is very clear on the - on the declaration of war or reacting to international crimes - crimes against nations. It is the role of Congress to debate and authorize this before the President acts precipitously.

We know the Constitution gives the purse strings to the House.

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.

In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war and peace to the legislature.... [War is] the true nurse of executive aggrandizement.

[I am] against giving the power of war to the Executive, because [he is] not safely to be trusted with it.