Congress is about to entirely relinquish what little checks and balances they have to prevent the office of the presidency from waging unlimited and unchecked war around the planet

The Congress shall have Power To . . . provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States."
—U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 8, clause 1

Like many powers articulated in the U.S. Constitution, Congress' authority to declare war was revolutionary in its design, as the founders saw the atrocities carried out by centralized heads of states like kings and queens and set out to prevent them. The Constitution was a clear break from the past when a handful of European monarchs controlled the continent's ability to tax, make law, and wage war.

The framers of the Constitution—reluctant to repeat history and delegate massive influence in the hands of too few—denied the office of the President the authority to go to war unilaterally. If America was going to survive as a republic, the founders declared, acts of war required careful debate in open forums among the public's representatives—the exact opposite of what we have today.