Presidents of War: The Epic Story, from 1807 to Modern Times.

• Author: Coyne, Christopher J.
• Position: Book review

Presidents of War: The Epic Story, from 1807 to Modern Times

By Michael Beschloss

New York: Crown, 2018.

Pp. 752. $35 hardcover.

The American constitutional project was an attempt to deal with the fundamental paradox of government--any government strong enough to protect the rights of citizens is also strong enough to undermine those rights. War poses an especially unique challenge to constraining Leviathan since war making tends to increase the scope and scale of state power over almost all aspects of citizens' lives. To check the state's war-making powers, the American Founders designed a set of checks and balances through a separation of powers. The legislative branch was empowered to declare war, and the executive branch was empowered to serve as the commander in chief once war is declared. As Michael Beschloss's new book Presidents of War clearly demonstrates, this system has failed. As he notes in the opening pages, "[D]uring the past two centuries, Presidents, step by step, have disrupted the Founders' design," with the result that "the life and death of much of the human race has now come to depend on the character of a single person who happens to be the President of the United States" (p. viii).

To provide insight into this process of constitutional erosion, Beschloss examines eight presidents and the wars they oversaw. His sample includes James Madison and the War of 1812, James Polk and the Mexican-American War, Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, William McKinley and the Spanish-American War, Woodrow Wilson and World War I, Franklin Roosevelt and World War II, Harry Truman and the Korean War, and Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War. These cases offer insight into three general correlates of war in societies with mature, constitutionally constrained governments.

First, war making is associated with expansions in the scope of state power and the trampling of civil liberties. Beschloss provides numerous examples of this correlate across instances of war. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and authorized the use of military tribunals to try citizens. Wilson implemented loyalty tests and lobbied Congress for an espionage bill, resulting in the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, to punish disloyalty and language that demonstrated contempt for America. Roosevelt authorized the internment of Japanese Americans, secretly gave J. Edgar Hoover the power to engage in illegal wiretapping of domestic "enemies," and ordered...