This Independence Day, Declare Your Independence From the Two War Parties!

A Reminder That Peace and Opposition to Militarism is Patriotic

By Rich Whitney, Chair, Independence Party of Illinois

The views expressed in the following essay are those of the author and are not an official statement of the Independence Party.

This Independence Day, check out the Independence Party of Illinois, a new political party that aims to restore government of, by and for the people in the United States – or at least in our part of it.

On this Independence Day, President Trump is signing a budget bill with the nation’s first ever $1 trillion military budget (more than that, actually, when the costs of past wars are added). This follows his recent ordering of an act of war without a Congressional declaration of war, violating both well established international law and Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution.

In this regard, his acts follow a long train of similar acts by his predecessors, both Democratic and Republican presidents, and under both Democratic and Republican-controlled Congresses. Since 2001, the U.S. has launched offensive military operations against Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, and now Iran -- also illegal under established international law, and all without any declaration of war by Congress, contrary to Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution. It’s worth noting in particular that, in Afghanistan, it took the U.S. four presidents, trillions of dollars, many thousands of lives, and over twenty years to replace the Taliban with -- the Taliban.

During the same period, the military budget has grown from $331.81 billion to the present $1 trillion.

In light of this, visitors to our website may want to take particular note of our second Principle of Unity: “End militarism, war, and imperialist foreign policy.”

Our Nation’s Founders Opposed Militarism and War

American voters would do well to review a little history and recall that a permanent Warfare State and near-constant acts of war, ordered solely by the president while a craven Congress abdicates its Constitutional responsibility to declare whether we go to war or not, is not what our nation’s founders had in mind when our Republic was formed.

If there was one thing that the majority of the Founders agreed upon, it was that, having just overthrown the military autocracy of George III, they would not permit another to gain a foothold in the new republic. As expressed in the Declaration of Independence, they rebelled against conscription and the elevation of military over civil society. This anti-militaristic sentiment was so strong that, after the defeat of the British, the United States Army consisted of 80 men and officers! Not until 1790 did Congress authorize a small army of 1,283 men and officers, kept under strict control.

James Madison, one of the authors of the Constitution and later our fourth President, was one of the strongest critics of having a standing army. In addressing the Constitutional Convention, he said:

“A standing military force with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.”

James Madison, Address to the Constitutional Convention (June 29, 1787), in 1 RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787, at 465 (Max Farrand ed., 1911).

He later expanded on this argument, in prophetic words that ring true today:

“Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

“War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.

“In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.

“The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manner and of morals, engendered in both.

“No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

“War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will, which is to direct it.

“In war, the public treasuries are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them.

“In war, the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle.

“The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.” James Madison, “Political Observations,” April 20, 1795, Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, Volume IV, page 491.

Madison and the other founders would be sickened and horrified by our current sprawling military-industrial complex, with its over 750 military bases in other countries, spending far more on its military than any other nation (more than the next 9 countries combined), and costing taxpayers an average of over $3,700 apiece (and climbing) each year.

Our nation began with a commitment to peace. As expressed by our first President:

“I have always given it as my decided opinion that no nation has a right to intermeddle in the internal concerns of another; that every one had a right to form and adopt whatever government they liked best to live under themselves; and that if this country could, consistently with its engagements, maintain a strict neutrality and thereby preserve peace, it was bound to do so by motives of policy, interest, and every other consideration.” George Washington, Letter to James Monroe, August 25, 1796.

In his farewell address, Washington added that the U.S. “will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.”

Under the Constitution, Only Congress has the Power to Declare War – Meaning Only Congress Can Authorize a Military Strike Against Another Nation.

Madison and Washington also understood what the declaration of war clause in Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution meant, in no uncertain terms:

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

“The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war. . . the power of raising armies. . . the power of creating offices. . . .

“A delegation of such powers [to the President] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments.

“The separation of the power of declaring war from that of conducting it, is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted.

“The separation of the power of raising armies from the power of commanding them, is intended to prevent the raising of armies for the sake of commanding them.” (Emphasis added.) James Madison, "Political Observations", April 20, 1795, Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, Volume IV, page 491.

“The Constitution vest the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore, no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.” George Washington, The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts; with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations, page 367.

Madison and Washington were not alone in their understanding of the clause. Thomas Jefferson wrote to Madison that the Constitution provides “one effectual check to the Dog of war by transferring the power of letting him loose from the Executive to the Legislative body.” Letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison (Sept. 6, 1789), in 15 Papers of Thomas Jefferson 397 (J. Boyd ed. 1978). See also, e.g., Michael D. Ramsey, Textualism and War Powers, 69 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1543, 1566 (2002) (“Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, Wilson, Washington, Jay, Marshall, and an array of lesser figures indicated that war power lay primarily with Congress, and no prominent figure took the other side.”)

The evidence is clear: In drafting the declaration of war clause, the authors of the Constitution were not simply concerned with the separation of powers in the abstract. They wanted to make it harder for the nation to go to war. They wanted to ensure that it would only go to war as a last resort.

Yet in modern times, Congress has cravenly abdicated its responsibility to declare war, using such laws as the 1973 War Powers Resolution and the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force as political cover for its retreat – even though presidents have routinely ignored the requirements of those laws as well. These laws clearly violate the intent and spirit (and I would argue the letter as well) of Article I, Section 8.

This is primarily because, with rare exceptions, Congress has been bought by the military-industrial complex and thus feels obliged to deliver ever-larger budgets to its corporate paymasters – even at the cost of imposing a crushing debt burden on future generations. It also stands aside as president after president launch new wars, in part, for the same purpose of feeding the complex. These wars also serve the current misguided effort of America’s ruling class to police and control other nations of the world, in order to control their resources (especially oil), access to cheap labor and markets, and to keep their financial systems under the dominion of the U.S. dollar as the favored international currency. The war planners of the ruling class’s think tanks essentially admit this, and the long record of U.S. military interventions and “regime change” efforts support that conclusion.

These are among the pressing reasons why we need a new political party in this country – a party whose officeholders will be dedicated to principles that serve the public interest, and who cannot be bought or sold. We need a party:

• that is truly for “America First;”

• that will restore the policy of promoting peace and respect the separation of powers as envisioned by our nation’s Founders;

• that will not authorize war unless our nation is actually attacked; and

• that will restore the military to its proper role of defending this nation, not dominating other ones.

In Illinois, these are among the reasons why we have formed the Independence Party. Please support our efforts – and if you are an Illinois voter, please join us!