Limits to Congress’ Power

The Democrats elected to Congress in 2006 have encountered understandable pressure to produce the result desired by a majority of the voters—an end to the war in Iraq. Vermont’s new Congressman, Peter Welch, has been a particular target of that frustration, as he tries, earnestly and vigorously, to fulfill his pledge to do his best to end the war.

The Democrats’ dilemma is similar to that faced by anti-war Democrats during Prestident Lyndon Johnson’s build-up of the Vietnam War in 1967. That dilemma is vividly underscored in the recently-published Journals of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., a speechwriter and close advisor of President John Kennedy.

His entry for April 27, 1967 concludes that the country was "reaching some sort of crisis on Vietnam" as Johnson moved toward the bombing of the north. It also concludes that there was little Congress could do to stop Johnson’s war. As a historian, Schlesinger had always been a proponent of a strong presidency—but in 1967 he was having second thoughts:

"We are now confronted by the anomaly of a strong president using these (strong executive) arguments to pursue a course which, so far as I can see, can lead only to disaster. It is not hard to assert a Congressional role; but, given the structure of the American system, it is very hard to see how the Congress can restrain the presidential drive toward the enlargement of the war.

"Voting against military appropriations is both humanly and politically self-defeating. The only hope is to organize a broad political movement; and even this cannot take effect until, at the very earliest, the 1968 primaries, which may be too late."

The "broad political movement" did materialize for the primaries and resulted in Johnson’s resignation, but the next president, Richard Nixon, pursued the war another five years.