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The Spectacle Blog
Do the Indian Wars waged on the American frontier in the 19th century have anything to teach us about presidential war making authority? Jim Antle and John Tabin raise that issue in their thoughtful debate about the constitutionality of Obama’s military intervention in Libya.
Antle discounts these military actions and says they really aren’t analogous to military interventions overseas, arguing,
Even though the presidents fighting Indian tribes were technically engaged in hostilities with foreign powers, they were protecting settlers who were U.S. citizens and land that was frequently being asserted as U.S. territory. That’s a constitutional gray area in a way that attacking Libya is not.
Suffice it to say that if the Libyans were an indigenous people living on U.S. soil occasionally raiding Omaha, I’d view the president as being on much firmer constitutional ground. Custer’s last stand doesn’t need to be the Constitution’s.
I can understand why Antle and other “non-interventionist” cons are eager to discount the Indian wars: these conflicts were waged incessantly throughout the 19th century and account for most presidential war making then. The Indian wars thus make it difficult to argue that only Congress can initiate or authorize war.
But in fact, the Indian wars are a very fitting historical precedent, because in significant ways the American Indians of the 19th Century are the precursors to 21st Century Islamist terrorists.
Indeed, just as modern-day Islamists terrorize the international frontier; so, too, did warring Indian tribes terrorize the American frontier. Historian William Osborn estimates, in fact, that more than 9,000 Americans were massacred by the Indians from the 16th to through the 19th centuries.
Now, obviously the analogy is inexact. Whatever their faults, the Native Americans were not jihadists bent on dominating and exterminating infidels. They were a largely primitive peoples who mostly lacked the Americans’ appreciation for, and understanding of, private property rights.
The Indians, moreover, were the victim of reciprocal cruelty at the hands of the European settlers. (Osborn estimates that some 7,200 Native Americans were massacred by the white men.) Nonetheless, savage Indian terrorism on the urban frontier was very real and a legitimate source of angst and fear by our forbearers.
So how did American commanders in chief respond to Indian terrorism? Not by running to Congress each and every time for an “authorization” of war! Instead, successive presidents of the United States, from James Monroe to Grover Cleveland, dispatched the U.S. Army on peace-making and peace-keeping missions that resulted in hostile fire death and injury - i.e., wars.
“The U.S. government would expend incredible resources — $1 million and 25 U.S. soldiers — for each one of these fierce, courageous people [Indians] killed…” write historians Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen in A Patriot’s History of the United States.
Today, of course, America is not just a continental power, but a world power. International trade and commerce, jet travel and instantaneous communications have all conspired to collapse national boundaries and make our world much smaller and more intimate.
And so, presidential military actions and U.S. military interventions have followed accordingly. The Western frontier has given way to the international frontier, and the genius of the American founding fathers has been confirmed. Because they bequeathed to us a founding document, the Constitution, designed to accommodate these changes.
View all comments (7) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by John R. Guardiano
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/04/06/the-19th-century-indian-wars-p
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Wayne | 4.6.11 @ 12:08PM
Well does anyone think Andrew Jackson followed the constitution? He signed treaties knowing full well he had no intention of living up to them. He sent all Indians East of the Mississippi packing to Comanche country on the Trail of Tears. He himself stole thousands of acres of Indian Land then bought slaves to farm it.
The group who went full bore after Comanche's were the Texas Rangers, not the US troops, who were told to do nothing (post Jackson). Eventually the principal of Manifest Destiny took over to justify turning Indians into wards of the state and start living dreary lives like communist subjects.
Righty| 4.6.11 @ 2:49PM
The Indians were physically located WITHIN the territory of the United States. The frontier was a vaguely defined boundary around territories where the government was not yet able to fully exercise the jurisdiction it claimed.
That makes the Indian Wars entirely different from the foreign military adventures of the 21st century. Or are you seriously claiming that because "the Western frontier has given way to an international frontier" that the US government is the lawful government of the entire world, and that the President is therefore entitled to do what is necessary to assert our rightful jurisdiction.
Neocons can be downright scary.
Eric Damon| 4.6.11 @ 4:03PM
This has to be the dumbest thing I have ever read in trying to give the Executive unlimited war-making powers! The so-called "Indian Wars" that were essentially started by the US government allowing settlers to encroach on land held by the native people and escalated by government refusal to obey the very treaties they signed with them? That is an apt analogy to the President order US planes to fly combat missions taking one side in a foreign civil war without even pretending to care what the Congress had to say about it? Really? Really?
Besides the underlying attitude that the natives were hopless barbarians (the accomplishments of the Cherokee and the 5 Civilized Tribes notwithstanding), it is foolish to say that waging war to extend US territory on this continent is the same as waging war on a foreign nation...on their soil!
You gotta come with better than this to make anyone even entertain the idea that Obama had a right to involve us in a foreign war all on his own say-so!
FastJohnny| 4.6.11 @ 4:15PM
Eric,
Many of the conflicts in colonial North America were in fact irregular and mirrored many of today's terror tactics. As a practicing military historian, I can say that your 'run of the mill' opinion about the western view of Native Americans is certainly very superficial. Conflicts with, against and among the Native Americans practiced a warfare that was very close to tactics and overall strategy that can be seen in the world of the present. Most important to this thesis are the early conflicts that took place before the American Revolution. The French and Indain War manifested these attacks on centers of gravity that were not intended to be military victorys, but moral victories. To coin a crummy phrase, you have to think out of the box of the party line of the broken treaties and 'barbarians' view. Many of those westerners who fought in these early conflicts studied this irregular way of war that the Native Americans practiced very closely and used those same tactics. You may want to bone up on your history or at least read something written other than Howard Zinn. One place to start might be Robert Rogers,...do a search on the internet and expand your mind.
Sean| 4.6.11 @ 5:44PM
Where did Eric say that the conflict with the Indians was conventional? Anyone with some knowledge of history knows about the tactics of the Indians and frontiersmen. Associating those conflicts with what is happening in Libya or the Middle East is not sound thinking.
Adam Bruneau| 4.10.11 @ 11:35AM
You are an idiot. How many millions of Native Americans were killed by invaders from overseas? How many entire nations were wiped out due to the religious/racial/political warfare of Manifest Destiny?
Adam Bruneau| 4.10.11 @ 11:44AM
Also i was not aware there were Americans in the 16th & 17th century.