Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/72

 64 be found, until satisfaction is made for the injury. This power of reprisal seems indeed to be a dictate almost of nature itself, and is nearly related to, and plainly derived from that of making war. It is only an incomplete state of hostilities, and often ultimately leads to a formal denunciation of war, if the injury is unredressed, or extensive in its operations.

§ 1172. The power to declare war is exclusive in congress; and (as will be hereafter seen,) the states are prohibited from engaging in it, unless in cases of actual invasion or imminent danger thereof. It includes the exercise of all the ordinary rights of belligerents; and congress may therefore pass suitable laws to enforce them. They may authorize the seizure and condemnation of the property of the enemy within, or without the territory of the United States; and the confiscation of debts due to the enemy. But, until laws have been passed upon these subjects, no private citizens can enforce any such rights; and the judiciary is incapable of giving them any legitimate operation.

§ 1173. The next power of congress is "to raise and support armies; but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years."

§ 1174. The power to raise armies is an indispensable incident to the power to declare war; and the latter—would be literally brutum fulmen without the former, a means of mischief without a power of defence. Under the confederation congress possessed no power whatsoever to raise armies; but only "to