Related Citations
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Anthony J. Bellia Jr. & Bradford R. Clark, The Law of Nations As Constitutional Law, 98 Va. L. Rev. 729 (2012).
Noting why the power to issue letters of marque and reprisal was necessary.
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Theodore M. Cooperstein, Letters of Marque and Reprisal: The Constitutional Law and Practice of Privateering, 40 J. Mar. L. & Com. 221 (2009).
Describing origins of privateering and arguing that the clause could have modern applications.
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Saikrishna Prakash, Unleashing the Dogs of War: What the Constitution Means by “Declare War”, 93 Cornell L. Rev. 45 (2007).
Questioning whether an executive power to declare war is consistent with vesting the much less significant power to grant letters of marque and reprisal in Congress.
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J. Gregory Sidak, The Quasi War Cases–and Their Relevance to Whether “Letters of Marque and Reprisal” Constrain Presidential War Powers, 28 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 465 (2005).
Explaining that “letters of marque” were authorizations for privateers to “use force to harass or prey upon a nation’s enemy” and that “reprisal” was the “legally authorized act of securing redress for a debt incurred by a foreign government by forcibly taking the private property of its subjects,” and arguing that the Clause “concerned the distinction between the public and private waging of war and the right of a sovereign nation to make decisions regarding that distinction.”
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C. Kevin Marshall, Putting Privateers in Their Place: The Applicability of the Marque and Reprisal Clause to Undeclared Wars, 64 U. Chi. L. Rev. 953 (1997).
Explaining that “[l]etters of marque and reprisal were government authorizations to private shipowners to seize property of foreign parties, usually ships or property from ships,” and arguing that “[a]n essential feature of letters of marque and reprisal was the financial independence of those holding them.”
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David Gary Adler, The Constitution and Presidential Warmaking, in The Constitution and the Conduct of American Foreign Policy 183 (D.G. Adler & Larry N. George eds. 1996).
Arguing that “the Framers considered the power to issue letters of marque and reprisal sufficient to authorize a broad spectrum of armed hostilities short of declared war.”
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John C. Yoo, The Continuation of Politics by Other Means: The Original Understanding of War Powers, 84 Cal. L. Rev. 167 (1996).
Describing the international legal effect of a letter of marque or reprisal and rejecting as overbroad the argument that the clause gave “Congress control over all forms of hostilities short of a declared war.”
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Jules Lobel, “Little Wars” and the Constitution, 50 U. Miami L. Rev. 61 (1995).
Arguing that “the Marque and Reprisal Clause was inserted in Article I to ensure that lesser forms of hostilities came within congressional power.”
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Jules Lobel, Covert War and Congressional Authority: Hidden War and Forgotten Power, 134 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1035 (1986).
Arguing that the Marque and Reprisal Clause “grants Congress sole authority to authorize private individuals to use force against another country or its citizens.”