Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Letter to Congressional Representative

It has come to the attention of myself and many of your constituents that you represent, that President Barak Obama has gone to war without fullfilling his Constitutionaly mandated duty of allowing Congress to declare war or approve, or at the very least, pass resolution in favor of such an action.

  Congress' powers to declare war and related military concerns are enumerated in the U. S. Constitution per Article 1, Section Eight: as follows:

" The Congress shall have power To... declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy; To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces; To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

Founding Father James Madison reported that in the Federal Convention of 1787, the phrase "make war" was changed to "declare war" in order to leave to the Executive the power to repel sudden attacks but not to commence war without the explicit approval of Congress. One of the earliest Supreme Court cases on this subject (Talbot v. Seeman, 1801) states Congress alone, the court unanimously ruled, had the "whole powers of war," whether that meant authorizing "general hostilities" or "partial war." Much later, Justice Thurgood Marshall referred to this ruling and noted that "nothing in the 172 years since those words were written alters that fundamental constitutional postulate (Holtzman v. Schlesinger, 1973)."

Congress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in January 1971 and as President Richard Nixon continued to wage war in Vietnam, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution (Pub.L. 93-148) over the veto of Nixon in an attempt to rein in some of the president's claimed powers. Today, Congress recognizes no claimed power of the president to wage war outside of the War Powers Resolution.

I could go into deeper analysis, study and proof texts than what the limited space of a letter could politely contain. So, I will simply state that this President, despite his claim of Constitutional scholarship and in disregard of his sworn oath to uphold, has violated our Constitution and snubed you as well as the other members of Congress, by this latest military engagement regarding Libya. The merits of the action, nor political ideology, nor the Presidents popularity, should have any bearing on a decision to formally impeach or at least censure the President for his unlawful action. The Executive Office does not reside above the highest law of the land.


I woulld also like to remind you, not in a scolding tone, but rather as a plea to your good conscience, that you also took a sworn oath to uphold, protect and defend our Constitution from all enemies, foreign or domestic. It doesn't matter where those enemies reside, whether in a mountain cave along the Pakistan border or in the Executive Mansion. Anyone who asserts himself against or assaults our Constitution should be held to account.

If you choose to remain silent or inactive on this, then the precedent will be set for further disregard of our Constititution by future elected officials to the larger danger of our Republic and our sacred liberties.

I thank you in advance for your attention to this grave matter and please feel free to correspond with me at anytime. Thank you for your valuable time and service! God Bless & protect America.

  Regards,


Richie L.