ABSTRACT
The framers of the American constitution worried often during their Philadelphia deliberations about the prospect of a chief executive who engages the country in war, and then exploits the inevitable fear and fervor to usurp legislative and judicial authority, effectively becoming an elective monarch. Nothing less than a new civic understanding about the limits of the war powers is required to demonstrate that Americans take the constitution seriously. The war powers implicate liberty, as several of the framers said during the debates in Philadelphia, not only because of the serious consequences of war but because of the potential they offer for executive self-aggrandizement, particularly in the presence of a standing army. It is jarring to hear of monarchic pretensions by a president of the United States (US). Yet after nearly two terms of the Bush administration, such references are no longer all that controversial.
