"Only we, the public, can force our representatives to reverse their abdication of the war powers that the Constitution gives exclusively to the Congress"
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Ellsberg isn’t flattering “the public” here; he’s drafting it. The line is built like a civic ultimatum, not a civics-lesson reminder: Congress has “abdicated,” the Constitution is unambiguous (“exclusively”), and the only lever left is mass pressure. It’s a deliberately bracing move from a man who spent his life demonstrating how government secrecy turns democratic consent into theater.
The specific intent is tactical. Ellsberg is trying to relocate agency from the familiar ping-pong between presidents and lawmakers to the people who can threaten incumbency. “Force” is the key verb: not persuade, not hope, not trust. He’s arguing that war-making drifted into the executive branch because Congress found it politically convenient to outsource responsibility. Let the president own the bombing; lawmakers keep their seats. “Reverse” implies this isn’t normal evolution but a reversible failure - a choice, not fate.
The subtext is accusatory in two directions. Representatives aren’t merely weak; they’re complicit. The public isn’t merely uninformed; it’s been trained to watch war as an administrative procedure rather than a constitutional crisis. Ellsberg’s irony is that the Constitution’s “exclusive” congressional power survives mostly as a talking point, invoked after the fact.
Context matters: post-Vietnam, post-Pentagon Papers, and later the post-9/11 era of open-ended authorizations and perpetual conflict. Ellsberg is warning that without organized public insistence, “war powers” becomes a ceremonial phrase - and the country slides into wars no one has to formally own.
The specific intent is tactical. Ellsberg is trying to relocate agency from the familiar ping-pong between presidents and lawmakers to the people who can threaten incumbency. “Force” is the key verb: not persuade, not hope, not trust. He’s arguing that war-making drifted into the executive branch because Congress found it politically convenient to outsource responsibility. Let the president own the bombing; lawmakers keep their seats. “Reverse” implies this isn’t normal evolution but a reversible failure - a choice, not fate.
The subtext is accusatory in two directions. Representatives aren’t merely weak; they’re complicit. The public isn’t merely uninformed; it’s been trained to watch war as an administrative procedure rather than a constitutional crisis. Ellsberg’s irony is that the Constitution’s “exclusive” congressional power survives mostly as a talking point, invoked after the fact.
Context matters: post-Vietnam, post-Pentagon Papers, and later the post-9/11 era of open-ended authorizations and perpetual conflict. Ellsberg is warning that without organized public insistence, “war powers” becomes a ceremonial phrase - and the country slides into wars no one has to formally own.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
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