'War Powers': Original Intent

By EMILY BAZELON
Published: August 21, 2005

For conservatives as well as liberals, the Constitution has its inconvenient moments. Take the text's division of war powers between the president and Congress. The framers made the president commander in chief but, determined not to create a despot, gave Congress the power ''to declare war. . . . To raise and support armies. . . . To provide and maintain a navy'' and to send private ships to mount limited reprisals against other nations. Executive powers ''do not include the rights of war and peace,'' James Madison argued at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, ''but should be confined and defined -- if large we should have the evils of elected monarchies.'' The hawks in the executive branch were to be kept caged.