Student Question
Why did the Vietnam War lead to the War Powers Act?
Quick answer:
The Vietnam War led to the War Powers Act due to concerns over presidential overreach in military engagements without Congressional approval. The prolonged and costly conflict, primarily authorized by the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, highlighted the erosion of Congress's constitutional authority to declare war. In response, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution in 1973, aiming to reclaim its power by limiting the president's ability to deploy troops without legislative consent, despite President Nixon's veto.
The United States had been involved in long and difficult conflicts in Korea and Vietnam without a Congressional Declaration of War. Under the Constitution, only Congress can declare war, and the President acts as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Congress also has the authority under the Constitution to maintain an army and navy. A large number of congressmen became concerned that allowing the President to engage in undeclared war on his own authority usurped the authority of Congress. There was the fear that presidential action was gradually eroding the intent of the framers of the Constitution to gtive Congress the ultimate authority on committing U.S. forces to combat. The situation was perhaps aggravated because the Vietnam conflict was much longer and more involved than anyone had previously expected. This led Congress to pass the War Powers Resolution which was vetoed by President Richard Nixon. Both Houses of Congress overrode the...
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veto and the Resolution became law.
Why did the Vietnam War lead Congress to pass the War Powers Act?
The entire war was basically fought under the authorization of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which, while it passed by a combined vote of 504 - 2, the members of Congress likely did not envision they were signing off on a nine year war with nearly 60,000 American deaths and hundreds of billions of dollars in expenditures. If they had, they probably would have voted differently.
At the time the War Powers Act passed in 1973, the Vietnam War was very unpopular and elected officials were trying to appear against it as well, even when many of them had already supported it with funding for years.
Korea and Vietnam also set a dangerous precedent we still live with that allows Presidents to engage us in wars without exit strategies without the Constitutional permission of a formal declaration of war, essentially eroding the Legislative Branch's power.
After the war ended, Congress felt that the war had just been pushed through by the various presidents and that the presidents had not consulted with Congress. Congress felt that the presidents were taking away Congress's constitutional right or duty to be the one to declare war.
So the Congress passed this law to try to define how long a president could keep troops in combat without the approval of Congress. They did this to try to get some power back to their branch of government. It is not clear if what they did is constitutional, but the law is still on the books.