In the days immediately following September 11th, the most powerful people in the country were panic-stricken. Radical decisions about how to combat terrorists and strengthen national security were made in a state of chaos and fear, but the key players, Vice President Cheney and his powerful, secretive adviser David Addington, used the crisis to further a long-held agenda to enhance presidential powers to a degree never known in U.S. history, and...

"A timely account of a raging debate: The history of the ongoing struggle between the presidents and Congress over who has the power to declare and wage war. The Constitution states that it is Congress that declares war, but it is the presidents who have more often taken us to war and decided how to wage it. In Waging War, United States Circuit Judge for the United States Court of Appeals David Barron opens with an account of George Washington and...

"The clashes between President Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney over slavery, secession, and the president's constitutional war powers went to the heart of Lincoln's presidency. Legal historian Simon brings to life the passionate struggle during the worst crisis in the nation's history, the Civil War. The issues that underlaid that crisis--race, states' rights, and the president's wartime authority--resonate today in the nation's political debate."--Publisher...

This book examines a fundamental question in the development of the American empire: What constraints does the Constitution place on our territorial expansion, military intervention, occupation of foreign countries, and on the power the president may exercise over American foreign policy? Worried about the dangers of unchecked executive power, the Founding Fathers deliberately assigned Congress the sole authority to make war. But the last time Congress...