Biden: ‘Framers Intended To Grant Congress Power To Initiate All Hostilities, Even Limited Wars’

After studying the constitutional language governing the use of military force and the debates that the Framers had on the issue, Joe Biden determined that the Founding Fathers had vested the power to authorize even the limited use of military force in the Congress not the president---unless it was necessary for the president to act swiftly to repel an attack on the United States or to rescue U.S. citizens.

Biden derided the opposite position—that the president could use military force without congressional authorization—as a “monarchist” view of presidential power.

That was in 1998, however, when Biden was in the Senate.

Today, Biden serves as vice president to a commander in chief who has just committed the U.S. military to an action in Libya that was authorized by the U.N. Security Council but was never even so much as debated in the U.S. Congress let alone put to a vote.

Nor has the president argued that the aim of the military action in Libya is to repel an imminent attack on the United States or rescue U.S. citizens.

“The rationale for vesting the power to launch war in Congress was simple,” Biden said in a Senate speech delivered on July 30, 1998. “The Framers' views were dominated by their experience with the British King, who had unfettered power to start wars. Such powers the Framers were determined to deny the President.”

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