WRIGHT— POWER TO MAKE POLITICAL DECISIONS. 371 



results."* Now the ultimate causation of war may have nothing 

 to do with the war powers of organs of the government. An act 

 of a state legislature discriminating against aliens or a judicial 

 decision depriving foreign nations of rights under international 

 law may be a casus belli. Yet neither states nor courts have any 

 war powers at all. The President especially is endowed with 

 powers which in their exercise may lead to war. 



" The President," says Pomeroy, " cannot declare war ; Congress alone 

 possesses this attribute. But the President may, without any possibility of 

 hindrance from the legislature, so conduct the foreign intercourse, the diplo- 

 matic negotiations with other governments, as to force a war, as to compel 

 another nation to take the initiative; and that step once taken, the challenge 

 cannot be refused. How easily might the Executive have plunged us into 

 a war with Great Britain by a single dispatch in answer to the affair of the 

 Trent. How easily might he have provoked a condition of active hostilities 

 with France by the form and character of the reclamations made in regard 

 to the occupation of Mexico." ^ 



But the President's powers go even beyond this. As Commander- 

 in-Chief, he may employ the armed forces in defense of American 

 citizens abroad, as he did in the bombardment of Greytown, the 

 Koszta case and the Boxer rebellion, and thereby commit acts of 

 war, which the government they offend may consider the initiation 

 of war. Thus on April 23, 1914, after the occupation of Vera Cruz 

 by American marines, the Huerta government handed Charge 

 d'affaires O'Shaughnessy his passports with the comment : ^ 



" According to international law, the acts of the armed forces of the 

 L^nited States, which I do not care to qualify in this note out of deference 

 to the fact that your honor personally has observed toward the Mexican 

 people and Government a most strictly correct conduct, so far as has been 

 possible to you in your character as the representative of a government with 

 which such serious difficulties as those existing have arisen, must be 

 considered as an initiation of war against Mexico." 



Such presidential acts, though perhaps a casus belli, are not making 

 war in the strict sense, as the intention to initiate that condition does 

 not exist. '^ If war results it is one recognized or declared by the 

 foreign power. 



* Supra, sec. 191. 



5 Pomeroy, Constitutional Law, p. 65. 



6 Ant. Year Book, 1914, p. 235. 

 ''Supra, sec. 210, note 20. 



PROC. AMER. PHIL. SOC, VOL. LX., Y, MARCH I3, I922. 



