War and Constitutions

Thomas Paine

While reading this, keep in mind that the first French Constitution (1791) was adopted just two years after that of the USA was ratified (1789). The French, after arguably winning the American Revolution for Americans [more on this in another post] were both intimately involved with and watching the development of republican constitutionalism.

Thomas Paine, writing in the same year 1791:

“The French Constitution says that the right of war and peace is in the nation. Where else should it reside but in those who are to pay the expense? … In despotic governments wars are the effect of pride; but in those governments in which they become the means of taxation, they acquire thereby a more permanent promptitude.

The French Constitution, therefore, to provide against both these evils, has taken away the power of declaring war from kings and ministers, and placed the right where the expense must fall ...

On this question of war, three things are to be considered. First, the right of declaring it: secondly, the expense of supporting it: thirdly, the mode of conducting it after it is declared. The French Constitution places the right where the expense must fall, and this union can only be in the nation. The mode of conducting it after it is declared, it consigns to the executive department. Were this the case in all countries, we should hear but little more of wars.”

Thomas Paine
RIGHTS OF MAN
Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution.