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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend....
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To: Sully- who wrote (23749)11/30/2006 3:43:23 PM
From: Sully-   of 35834
 
Congress's wartime history

Betsy's Page

Linked below is my column from the Examiner. I look at the history of congressional oversight during wartime. Here is the beginning.

<<< Congress must be extremely careful in trying to manage our military during wartime.

Our Founding Fathers wisely gave most of that management power to the president. Congress retains the power of the purse and the power of oversight. But history suggests wariness as to Congress’s abilities to use those powers well during wartime.

In December of 1776, at the low-point of the Revolution, during the “times that try men’s souls,” the Continental Congress voted to deny itself war-making powers and gave those powers to Gen. Washington. At the Constitutional Convention, there was little debate about giving the powers of commander-in-chief to the president.

The Founders followed the advice of Gen. Nathaniel Greene, who, as historian David Hackett Fischer quotes, had argued that “The Fate of War is so uncertain, dependent on so many Contingencies. A Day, nay an Hour is so important in the Crisis of publick Affairs that it would be folly to wait for Relief from the deliberative Councils of Legislative Bodies.” Although Congress retained oversight and the power of the budget, the Founders recognized that Congressional committees were not the optimal directors of military policy. >>>

Read the rest to look at wartime oversight hearings from the Civil War through Vietnam.

betsyspage.blogspot.com

examiner.com
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