Marvin Kalb Quotes

The authority to declare war rests in Congress, not in an out-of-control president.

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

Every American war has brought a struggle between Congress and the Executive over war powers. The Constitution is somewhat annoyingly ambiguous on the point declaring that the President is Commander in Chief but empowering Congress to provide for the common defense, declare war, and raise and support armies.

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.

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.

The Constitution grants only Congress - not the president - the power 'to borrow money on the credit of the United States.'

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 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.

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

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.

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.

I will say, nothing in my time in the Senate has more surprised me than senators and House members want to weigh in on everything under the sun, but they do not want to weigh in on a clearly defined constitutional duty to declare war. It just stuns me.

When we look at how, constitutionally, only Congress can declare war, and that is routinely ignored. Not NATO or the UN, but Congress has to authorize these endless wars, and it isn't.

[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.

Was the Vietnam conflict a war which should have, as a matter of constitutional law, required a declaration of war by Congress?

The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature.

We are for abiding by the Constitution and recognize that Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 enumerates the power of establishing 'an uniform process of naturalization' to the Congress.

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

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

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.

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.

President’s don’t have the authority to go to war.

We [the Supreme Court] may say that power to legislate for emergencies belongs in the hands of Congress, but only Congress itself can prevent power from slipping through its fingers.

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 Constitution gives the Congress absolute authority within the District of Columbia on any legislative issues whatsoever.