The War Referendum Amendment

The War Referendum Amendment

Americans briefly considered the radical notion that people should be consulted before being sent off to die in a war.

This ‘crazy’ idea took the form of the War Referendum Amendment, proposed in 1916, at a time when some people still thought democracy was more than a matter of choosing which corporate ghoul would ram the next war through Congress. The amendment proposed that the United States would be unable to declare war without a national referendum first being held.

Not a closed-door Senate deal, or a presidential “emergency action,” not some intelligence “briefing” cobbled together from corporate lies, an actual referendum of the people.

It was the political equivalent of childproofing the country against imperialism, so naturally, it never stood a chance.