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Mark's avatar

Bravo!

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Brian McGlinchey's avatar

** Stark Outtakes and Extras **

The article includes Madison's famous quote about legislative authority over war-making. Here are two more interesting ones I came across:

--Alexander Hamilton: " 'The Congress shall have the power to declare war;' the plain meaning of which is, that it is the peculiar and exclusive duty of Congress, when the nation is at peace, to change that state into a state of war."

--James Wilson, as he addressed Pennsylvania's ratifying convention: "This system will not hurry us into war; it is calculated to guard against it. It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress; for the important power of declaring war is vested in the legislature at large. . . ."

I hadn't heard of Wilson before. Some background on the Scottish-born Pennsylvanian: "Wilson reached the apex of his career in the Constitutional Convention (1787), where his influence was probably second only to that of Madison. Rarely missing a session, he sat on the Committee of Detail and in many other ways applied his excellent knowledge of political theory to convention problems. Only Gouverneur Morris delivered more speeches." https://teachingamericanhistory.org/resources/ratification/people/wilson/

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