President McKinley accepted this opinion and applied it to foreign war when on April 22, 1898, he recognized the Spanish rejection of the congressional ultimatum of April 20,16 as a declaration of war and authorized a blockade of Cuba. Three days later, on April

17

25, Congress passed a resolution declaring:

18

“That war be, and the same is hereby, declared to exist, and that war has existed since the twenty-first day of April, Anno Domini eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, including said day, between the United Sates of America and the Kingdom of Spain.”

In his war message of April 2, 1917, President Wilson asked Congress to declare the recent course of the German government to be in fact nothing less than war against the United States." Nevertheless, he admitted that it belonged to Congress to "formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it." Congress did so by a resolution signed by the President 1:18 p.m., April 6, 1917, which asserted "that the state of war between the United States and the Imperial German Government which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared." 19

210. The Power to Recognize War.

Practice and opinion indicate that the President concurrently with Congress has power to recognize the existence of civil or foreign war against the United States. It is believed, however, that such power could not properly be exercised unless the fact of war against the United States was so patent as to leave no doubt. Acts of war, such as those committed by Germany from 1915 to 1917, would not justify presidential recognition of war. In fact it is believed that with the general acceptance of the III Hague Convention of 1907, 16 30 Stat. 738; Moore, Digest, 6: 226.

17 Message April 25, 1898, Moore, Digest, 6: 229.

18 30 Stat. 364.

19 Comp. Stat., p. 17, Naval War College, Int. Law Doc., 1917, p. 225. A resolution of Dec. 7, 1917, stated: "Whereas the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Government has committed repeated acts of war against the Government and the people of the United States of America: Therefore be it Resolved. . . That a state of war is hereby declared to exist between, etc." Ibid., 1917, p. 230.