A Senator Exhorts: De-fund the War
The Hatfield-McGovern amendment to mandate withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam within 15 months was introduced for the first time in 1970. Senator George McGovern gave the following speech on the floor of the Senate in support of the Amendment on September 1, 1970. It fails to recognize the millions of people killed and wounded by the US government in its war against the people of Southeast Asia, and also ignores the women who served and died as part of the US military force in Vietnam. But is worth revisiting for its clear view of Congress' responsibility to stop Presidents from waging war.
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Every Senator in this chamber is partly responsible for sending 50,000 young Americans to an early grave. This chamber reeks of blood.
Every Senator here is partly responsible for that human wreckage at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval and all across our land - young men without legs, or arms, or genitals, or faces or hopes.
There are not very many of these blasted and broken boys who think this war is a glorious adventure. Do not talk to them about bugging out, or national honor or courage. It does not take any courage at all for a congressman (sic), or a senator, or a president to wrap himself in the flag and say we are staying in Vietnam, because it is not our blood that is being shed.
But we are responsible for those young men and their lives and their hopes.
And if we do not end this damnable war those young men will some day curse us for our pitiful willingness to let the Executive carry the burden that the Constitution places on us.
So before we vote, let us ponder the admonition of Edmund Burke, the great parliamentarian of an earlier day: "A contentious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood."
The Amendment's Impact
The Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson served as legislative assistant to McGovern's co-sponsor on this legislation, Senator Hatfield (R) Oregon, and was Hatfield's chief legislative strategist on Vietnam. Today, he is the general secretary of the Reformed Church in America. Reflecting in May of 2007 on the impact of the Hatfield-McGovern amendment, he commented on the God's Politics blog:
The McGovern-Hatfield amendment never passed the Senate. It first received 39 votes, then 42, and then, under the less politically volatile name of Sen. Lawton Chiles, 49 votes. Had McGovern-Hatfield passed and been adopted by the House, President Nixon would have vetoed it.
But all these congressional actions created a political environment that limited Nixon's options. He began withdrawing troops and finally negotiated an end to the war….
In retrospect, we see now that successful congressional action could have ended the Vietnam War sooner, saving thousands of lives and achieving the same outcome.
US troops will be withdrawn, at some date, from Iraq.
The question is when, and how. Congress can and should use its constitutional power to influence that outcome.
