Commander in chief : partisanship, nationalism, and the reconstruction of congressional war powers / Casey B. K. Dominguez.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dominguez, Casey B. K., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

War and emergency powers--United States.

War and emergency powers.

War and emergency legislation--United States.

War and emergency legislation.

Executive power--United States.

Executive power.

Presidents--United States.

Presidents.

United States--Politics and government.

United States.

Physical Description:

xii, 251 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lawrence, Kansas : University Press of Kansas, [2024]

Summary:

"Based on an original, comprehensive dataset of every congressional reference to the commander-in-chief clause from the Founding through 1917, this study systematically analyzes the authority that members of Congress ascribe to the president as commander in chief, and the boundaries that they put around that authority. Commander in Chief: Partisanship, Nationalism, and the Reconstruction of Congressional War Powers shows that for more than a century, members of Congress defined the commander in chief's authority narrowly, as similar to that of any high-ranking military officer. But in a wave of nationalism during the Spanish American War, members of Congress began to argue that Congress owed deference to the commander in chief. Members of Congress also tended, throughout the history of the republic, to argue that a copartisan's presidential war powers should be defined broadly, while those of a president in the other party should be defined narrowly. Together, these two dynamics suggest that the conditions for presidentially dominated modern constitutional war powers were set at the turn of the twentieth century, far earlier than is often acknowledged"-- Provided by publisher.

"The constitutional balance of war powers has shifted from Congress to the president over time. Today, presidents broadly define their constitutional authority as commander in chief. In the nineteenth century, however, Congress was the institution that claimed and defended expansive war powers authority. This discrepancy raises important questions: How, specifically, did Congress define the boundaries between presidential and congressional war powers in the early republic? Did that definition change, and if so, when, how, and why did it do so?Based on an original, comprehensive dataset of every congressional reference to the commander-in-chief clause from the Founding through 1917, Casey Dominguez's Commander in Chief systematically analyzes the authority that members of Congress ascribe to the president as commander in chief and the boundaries they put around that authority.Dominguez shows that for more than a century members of Congress defined the commander in chief's authority narrowly, similar to that of any high-ranking military officer. But in a wave of nationalism during the Spanish-American War, members of Congress began to argue that Congress owed deference to the commander in chief. They also tended to argue that a president of their own party should have broad war powers, while the powers of a president in the other party should be defined narrowly. Together, these two dynamics suggest that the conditions for presidentially dominated modern constitutional war powers were set at the turn of the twentieth century, far earlier than is often acknowledged"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Stable interpretations of the commander in chief clause

Constructing the authority to initiate the use of force before 1898

Authoritative sources and constitutional scripts

Hail to the chief : a new script for a new century

Scripts and precedents

Scripts, congressional preferences, and battlefield emancipation.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Dominguez, Casey B. K. Commander in chief

ISBN:

9780700636518

070063651X

OCLC:

1417599885