The convention: The Steamship Perseverance
from Constitution Thursday Hosted by Dave Bowman
Today, we debate and discuss the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which may, depending on how you read it, gives the President the authority to make war, while Congress has not declared a war. Oddly enough, the delegates had exactly the same debate, which is why the Constitution gives Congress the power to DECLARE war and the expected the President to MAKE war... as long as the people approved... Needing a bit of a break, most of the Delegates headed down to the shore of the Delaware River to take a ride on a steamship. Yes... a steamship. Twenty years before anybody ever heard of Robert Fulton. Is it possible that little adventure helped them to empower Congress to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts?" Roughly a hundred years after the convention, Otto von Bismark will develop his political maxim of the "realpolitik." He could have learned it from Rutledge, who, in response to Luther Martin's call to accept the immorality of slavery, reminds the Convention that IF there is to be a Union, it WILL be with slavery. And if there is a Union WITH slavery, non-slave States... will make a whole lot of money...
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