Tim Kaine Timothy (Tim) Michael KaineNames to watch as Trump picks Ginsburg replacement on Supreme Court Barrett seen as a front-runner for Trump Supreme Court pick Biden promises Democratic senators help in battleground states MORE is right – it is time this war had a vote. On June 7, 2016, before he was tapped as Clinton’s Vice Presidential running mate, Kaine introduced legislation that not only would put a 2-year sunset clause on the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that has given the Executive extensive war-making powers, but he has also put a bill forward, mirroring a bill he proposed last year, that would require the Congress to vote on authorizing this current war against ISIL. This is not only a good idea because the war is a just war with a just cause, but it is also imperative to take a vote as the structure of the American government that was brilliantly balanced by our Founders requires it.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution vests the power “to declare war” to the Congress alone. Though in Article II, Section 2, the Constitution vests the power to “be the commander and chief of the army and navy” to the President, the Executive is not entrusted with declaring or even proclaiming war. “Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded,” says James Madison, because “in war, the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered, and it is the executive brow they are to encircle.”

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Madison was acutely aware that men of ego, throughout history, have jeopardized the lives of soldiers for the sole reason of gaining personal reputation. As John Jay says in Federalist Paper No. 4, “absolute monarchy will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans.” These motivations have not been eradicated from human nature; in fact, in a Western culture that heaps praise and accolades on fame, strength, and wealth, these selfish motivations for making war have only be exacerbated in the soul.

Yet in today’s America, we have a situation in which the Executive has the general authority from Congress, and implicitly the American people, to unilaterally wage war on foreign nations. Libya, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and a litany of African countries are all hot, live-fire conflicts in which American soldiers are on the front lines fighting and dying – none of which are officially declared as war. Based on the singular will of the Executive, this nation goes to war. This stands starkly in contrast to the voices of James Madison, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and a plethora of our nation’s Founding Fathers. Even James Madison’s intellectual sparring partner and real-life rival Alexander Hamilton found agreement with Madison on this point. In addressing critics of President Washington’s Proclamation of Neutrality in 1793, Hamilton pointed out that “[i]f the Legislature have a right to make war on the one hand – it is on the other the duty of the Executive to preserve Peace till war is declared.” Instead of the blanket status quo of preserving tranquility and peace until directed otherwise by Congress that Hamilton imagines as the role of the Executive, today we have a status quo of sustained war carried out unilaterally by the Executive as the Congress remains silent and complacent.

And logically, or certainly forwarded by political self-preservation, elected Congressmen and women are more than happy to surrender this Constitutional obligation to the Executive, as no politician wants to be held accountable for the body bags on the tarmac of Andrews Air Force Base. Instead of being forced into responsibility for the sacrifices so many of our brave warriors make, such as Captain Humayun Khan, Naval Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Charles Keating IV, or the countless other warriors who have lost their lives, politicians can now shrug their shoulders and point blame at the Executive.

Let us also not forget that this is a bi-partisan problem. From Vietnam to Iraq and everything in between, the Executive has used these broad sweeping powers to put our warriors into harm’s way while the Congress has sat, more or less, idly by. Republican and Democrat presidents have taken advantage of these powers, and Republican and Democrat Congressmen have shirked responsibility. This is an institutional problem, one in which the monarchy and unilateral control of the military that our Founding Fathers warned about is coming to fruition. Though America has been blessed to have reasonably responsible Executives since WWII that have performed their duties with the American people in mind, we have situated our law and Constitutional interpretation in a way that opens up the exploitation of our military by a singular man or woman for personal gains.

This is not what our Founding Fathers intended. They intended Congress to be held responsible for the lives lost in foreign wars, and as the branch of government most connected with We the People, it is incumbent upon us to hold these men and women responsible for shirking the burdensome responsibility of war making. Speaker Paul Ryan Paul Davis RyanKenosha will be a good bellwether in 2020 At indoor rally, Pence says election runs through Wisconsin Juan Williams: Breaking down the debates MORE is a man of principle, and one that understands that the Founders intended for Congress to be the branch that authorized our military to act. He knows that the power of We the People should be in its most representative body, Congress, not the Executive. He knows that Congress must do more to take back the powers it has ceded to the Executive for the past three decades and become the governmental engine that it is intended to be. And that is why Tim Kaine is correct – if we want this war to continue, Congress must authorize it. Specifically, pointedly, and with the appropriately heavy weight on the soul that such a decision deserves.

Mercer May is a J.D. Candidate at the University of Richmond and has worked in numerous public policy and legislative rolls - including the Virginia House of Delegates, the Senate of Virginia, and the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia. He holds a B.A. in Political Science, a B.A. in Religious Studies, and a minor in Economics from Virginia Commonwealth University.

The views expressed by authors are their own and not the views of The Hill.