Of course Congress has the constitutional authority to end any war, declared or not, by a two-thirds vote of both houses. Of course the present congress is as far short of a two-thirds majority as the Dumbocrats are short of two-thirds of a backbone.
>I'm not an originalist, but the framers...
"Framers?" Nonsense. The constitution was not "framed"--it was "Ordained and Established" by "We the People." Talk of "framers" is and can be nothing but an excuse for robed reactionary lawyers to disregard the "supreme law of the land" on the basis of what they claim some slaveowner thought in 1788.
>...certainly didn't contemplate the circumvention of Congress'[s] power to
>declare war by the simple expedient of not declaring
>war. However there's another doctrine that says, in
>essence, long-unchallenged common practices _become_
>constitutional, so my guess is that after almost 60
>years, it's constitutional for the president to
>conduct undeclared wars...
Another "doctrine" claiming that judges can overrule the supreme law of the land by refusing to enforce it for a long enough time (they can do it so easily under *stare decisis* for a blatantly wrong ruling, or even more easily by simply refusing "standing" to any challenger). According to this, racial discrimination would forever be legally enforceable and there would be no right to birth control, abortion, sexual privacy, and much else. Moreover, in the past "almost 60 years" unconstitutional presidential wars have been repeatedly and most vociferously challenged, though for some reason the courts have always found ways to deny "standing" to the challengers. Nevertheless, conducting an unconstitutional war (though only in Cambodia) was foremost among the charges in the impeachment proceeding against Nixon. Alas, the Dumbocrats on the Judiciary Committee declined to press that charge, recalling the immortal words of Gibbon on the destitution of Pope John XXIII (Cossa, not Roncalli):
"All the serious charges having been dropped, the Holy Father was
convicted of sodomy, simony, incest, and murder."
Shane Mage
"This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures."
Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 30