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How does the United States go to war? It’s not as clear cut as many think. And it’s been a while since we’ve done it as laid out in the Constitution.
The last time, as written in the Constitution, War was declared by a joint resolution of Congress and executed by the President was against Rumania (yes, spelled that way) on 4 June 1942.
Article One, Section Eight, of the Constitution declares that “Congress shall have the power to declare War.”. However, it’s not designated exactly how Congress does that. In fact, war isn’t in Section Eight until Clause 11, where it also allows us to hire pirates to attack our enemies. Seriously.
We’ve Declared War that Way 11 Times. The first was 17 June 1812 when we declared was against Great Britain.
On Mexico. 12 May 1846
On Spain. 25 April 1898
On Germany. 6 April 1917
On Austria-Hungary. 7 Dec 1917
On Japan. 8 Dec 1941
On Germany. 11 Dec 1941
On Italy. 11 Dec 1941
On Bulgaria, Hungary and Rumania. 4 June 1942
Korea, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Grenada (remember those?), Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. etc. were Congress allowing the…
