394 WRIGHT— POWER TO MAKE POLITICAL DECISIONS. 



" The President is made Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy by 

 the Constitution, evidently for the purpose of enabling him to defend the 

 country against invasion, to suppress insurrection and to take care that the 

 laws be faithfully executed. If Congress were to attempt to prevent his use 

 of the army for any of these purposes, the action would be void." 



223. Purposes for Which the President May Employ Force under 

 Statute. 



Aside from the purposes defined by the Constitution itself, for 

 which the President may utilize the forces, other purposes have 

 been defined by act of Congress. It is true, the general delegations 

 of power to use the militia and the similar delegation to use the 

 army and navy " to execute the laws of the union, suppress insur- 

 rection and repel invasions " have been given an interpretation con- 

 fining such use to the territory.^^ Laws in this phrase has been 

 held to mean laws of territorial application and says Pomeroy : ^^ 



" Insurrection and invasion must be internal. We do not repel an in- 

 vasion by attacking the invading nation upon its own soil. Still there can be 

 no question that the militia may be called out before the invaders set foot 

 upon our territory. It is a fair construction of language to say that one 

 means of ' repelling ' an invasion is to have a force ready to receive the 

 threatened invaders when they shall arrive." 



Attorney-General Wickersham, however, makes the qualification : ^^ 



"If the militia were called into the service of the General government 

 to repel an invasion, it would not be necessary to discontinue their use at the 

 boundary line, but they might (within certain limits, at least) pursue and 

 capture the invading force, even beyond that line. . . . This may well be held 

 to be within the meaning of the term ' to repel invasion.' " 



The expatriation act of July 27, 1868, however, authorizes the 

 President to demand the release of American citizens unjustly de- 

 prived of liberty and : ^^ 



»*Act of Jan. 21, 1913 (Dick Act), 32 Stat, 776, sec. 4; 35 Stat. 400; 

 38 Stat. 284, based on Acts of May 2, 1794, and Feb. 28, 179S, i Stat. 264, 424. 

 Judge Ad. Gen. Davis held in 1908 that the term " laws " might apply to any 

 congressional resolution of extraterritorial effect (Cong. Rec, 42: 6943), but 

 this was not sustained by the Attorney General, infra, note 96. 



S5 Pomeroy, Constitutional Law, 9th ed., p. 387. 



96 Wickersham, Att. Gen., 29 Op. 322 (1912). 



»^ Rev. Stat., sec. 2001 ; Comp. Stat., sec. 3957. 



