Morgan, America s Road to Empire: The War With Spain and Overseas Expansion (New York, 1967); Robert L. Beisner, Twelve Against Empire: The Anti Imperialists, 1898 1900 ( New York, 1968); Ernest L. May, American Imperialism: A Speculative Essay (New York, 1968'; H. Wayne Morgan, ed., Making Peace With Spain: The Diary of Whitlaw Reid, September December, 1898 (Austin, Texas, 1965); Paolo E. Coletta, ed., Threshold To American Inter nationalism (New York, 1970); Gerald F. Linderman, The Mirror of War: American Society and the Spainish American War ( Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1974); David Healy, US Expansion ism: The Imperialist Urge in the 1890 s ( Madison, Wisconsin, 1970). 11. Quoted in Alfred A. Cave, Jacksonian Democracy and the Historians (Gainsville, Fla., 1964), 2. 12. James Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, 3 vols. (New York, 1861)III, 579. 13. James Schouler, History of the United States of America Under the Constitution ( New York, 1894)IV, 243 44. 14. 081891965 Richard M. Mc McLemorango American Diplomatic Relations: 15 As I have indicated in the body of the paper, all of the biographies and historians who have described this incident have all but ignored Clay's critical role in this crisis This would include James Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, 3 vols. (New York, 1861); John Spencer Basett, The Life of Andrew Jackson, 2 vols. (New York, 1916); and Marquis James, The Life of Andrew Jackson, 2 vols. (Indianapolis, Ind., 1933 and 1937). An interesting account does appear in Charles Summer's study, Andrew Jackson: American Statesman, but although his account is more accurate than the others, he too fails to emphasize the significance of the constitutional check Clay and the Congress imposed upon the President who wanted to use his war powers by enacting forceful reprisals against the French. The account appearing in Robert Remeni's Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy (New York, 1984) is by far the best and most complete version of all of the major blographies, but once again he downplays the importance of Clay s role. The most comprehensive treatment can be found in Richard Aubrey McLemore's Phd. dissertation which was late made into a book, Franco American Diplomatic Relations: 1816 1836 (Batan Rouge, La., 1941). The published letters of both Jackson and Clay were fruitful sources By far the richest yeild was in the public record: The Andrew Jackson, William C. Res. Martin Van Buren, and Henry Clay Papers in the Library of Congress; the Register of Debates, 23rd Congress, 2nd Session; Senate Documents, 23rd Congress, 2nd. Session, No. 40 (the Clay Foreign Policy Committee Report); and various issues of the National Intelligencer and the Globe; excerpts in French papers found in Gigliani s Messenger (1835-36. 16. See U. S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Statement of Information, Book XI, "Bombing of Cambodia,", Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, 93rd Congress, 2nd Sess., May-June 1974; and William Shawcross, Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia (New York, 1979). 17. The War Powers Resolution: A Special Study of the Committee on Foreign House of Representatives, April, 1982, 152-3. 18 The War Powers Resolution, 152. 19. The War Powers Resolution, Appendix 20. Subcommittee on War Powers, Committee of Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 100th Congress, 2nd Sess., 1988 21 Joint Resolution Concerning the War Powers of Congress and the President (1 22. "Presentation on War Powers Resolution, Conference on "Richard Nixon: A Retrospective on His Presidency;" Sixth Annual Presidential Conference, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York, November 20, 1987. Dr. William M. Goldsmith is Emeritus Associate Prof. of American Studies Brandeis University He is the author of a three volume study of The Growth Of Presidential P the co-editor of The Public Papers of Justice Louis D. Brandeis and many academic articles. Professor Goldsmith did his undergraduate work at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland and earned a docterate in Public Law and Government at Columbia University in New York City. He has taught at City College in New York, Hunter College, Brandeis and at Oxford University in Great Britain on a Senior Fulbright Fellowship -15 (From Foreign Affairs) John G. Tower CONGRESS VERSUS THE PRESIDENT: THE FORMULATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY The President is the sole organ of the nation in its external relations, and its sole representative with foreign nations. -John Marshall March 7, 1800 6th Congress ne of the oldest conflicts in the American system of government is that between Congress and the President over the right to formulate and implement foreign policy. Is the President solely responsible for the conduct of external relations? Is the Congress an equal partner? Or does Congress have the right to shape U.S. policy by enacting legislation which proscribes a President's flexibility? These are not just debating points for historians and constitutional lawyers, but critical issues which need to be addressed if we are to see the successful exercise of American diplomacy in the 1980s. Our effectiveness in dealing with the problems ahead, especially U.S.-Soviet competition in the Third World, will depend to a significant degree on our ability to resolve the adversary relationship between the President and Congress. The struggle for control of foreign policy came to the fore in the twentieth century, with America's reluctant entry into world affairs, two World Wars, and a smaller, but more complex, postwar bipolar world characterized by the increasing interdependence of nations. The first significant Congressional challenge to the Executive's foreign policy prerogative occurred during the interwar years. After the Senate rejected President Wilson's Versailles Treaty in 1920, Congress continued to assert itself in the formulation of foreign policy. By the 1930s, a strong Congress was able to prevent presidential initiative in the critical prewar years. The almost universal consensus today is that this Congressional intrusion had been a disaster and had inhibited the United States from playing a useful role in Europe that might have prevented World War II. John G. Tower has been a Senator from Texas since 1961. He is currently Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. 230 FOREIGN AFFAIRS Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and our entry into the Second World War, Congress and the President stood in agreement over the direction of American foreign and military policy. Congressional intervention all but ceased. The post-World War II period was marked by a reasonable balance between Congress and the President in the foreign policy decision-making process. In fact, Presidential foreign policy initiatives were generally accepted and reinforced by bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. American foreign policy was fairly coherent and consistent through changing complexions of the body politic. The United States was perceived as a reliable ally and its leadership generally accepted with a high degree of confidence by the non-communist world. But the relative stability between Congress and the President began to erode in the early 1970s with Congressional disenchantment over the Vietnam War. By middecade the two branches were locked in a struggle for control of American foreign policy. To a certain extent Congress won, and the balance between Congress and the President has swung dangerously to the legislative side with unfavorable consequences for American foreign policy. If the balance is not soon restored, American foreign policy will be unable to meet the critical challenges of the 1980s. We are entering an era of fast change and increasing volatility in world affairs. Political instability and regional conflict are on the rise, especially in the Third World. Developing nations in many parts of the world are being torn apart by civil wars between pro-West and Soviet-supported factions, subverted by externally supported insurrection, or subjected to radical or reactionary anti-Western pressures. The industrialized economies of the West are ever more dependent on a lifeline of resources from an increasingly vulnerable part of the world. The Soviet Union has pursued an aggressive interventionist policy on its periphery and abroad, supported by its emerging global force projection capability and its successful use of less direct means of projecting power. We may well be in a situation today which is analogous to that of the late 1930s, when America's inability to play a more active role in world affairs helped permit the Axis to realize its objectives without serious challenge. During this period Congress tied the President's hands, with disastrous consequences. Now we are back in the same situation, and risk making the same mistakes. If the United States is prevented from playing an active role in countering Soviet and Soviet proxy involvement in the Third World, the 1990s could well find a world in which the resource-rich and |