[Discussion] 1200 historians

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 <<...OLE_Obj...>>  Tuesday, September 10, 2002  	

 <<...OLE_Obj...>> 	More Than 1,200 Historians Sign Petition Urging
Congress to Debate Possible War With Iraq By SCOTT McLEMEE
<mailto:scott.mclemee@chronicle.com>  More than 1,200 historians have signed
a petition <http://hnn.us/articles/905.html> to Congress calling on it "to
assume [its] Constitutional responsibility to debate and vote on whether or
not to declare war on Iraq." A delegation of at least half a dozen scholars
will present the petition to members of Congress next Tuesday.  In a
statement, the organizers argue that "the long-neglected war-powers
authority set down in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution" grants
Congress, not the executive branch, the right to declare war. "Nor can
Congress evade its grave responsibility to vote on declaring war by holding
hearings and passing resolutions," the statement adds.  The petition drive
began a month ago, with an exchange of e-mail messages between Joyce
Appleby, a professor emerita of history at the University of California at
Los Angeles, and Ellen Carol DuBois, a professor of history at UCLA. (Both
have published scholarly works on the history of constitutional law.) They
sent the petition to about 150 colleagues, who in turn forwarded it to
others. By mid-August, says Ms. DuBois, they began receiving up to 300
signatures a day, from scholars at some 200 American colleges and
universities, as well as public historians and librarians specializing in
American history. Ms. DuBois indicates that signatories include
conservatives as well as liberals.  The National Association of Scholars,
which describes itself as "the only academic organization dedicated to the
restoration of intellectual substance, individual merit, and academic
freedom in the university," has often expressed concern about what it calls
"the politicization of scholarship and teaching, and the substitution of
social reform for the pursuit of knowledge." Steve Balch, president of the
association, declined via e-mail to discuss the petition, saying, "This is a
free country and professors have the right to make their views known
individually, or collectively through petition. No purely academic issues
appear to have been raised in this case." He added that "details of foreign
policy and constitutional law questions are generally beyond the NAS's
purview."  Ms. Appleby will head a delegation that has invited leaders and
members of Congress to accept the petition on September 17, a date the
petition organizers call "America's least-celebrated holiday," Constitution
Day. Ms. DuBois indicated that the petition has been well received by at
least some members of Congress and their staffs.  The other historians in
the delegation to Capitol Hill are Ira Berlin of the University of Maryland
at College Park; Alan Brinkley of Columbia University; Michael Johnson of
the Johns Hopkins University; Melani McAlister of George Washington
University; Jack Rakove of Stanford University; Roy Rosenzweig of George
Mason University; and Susan Strasser of the University of Delaware.