(See Ron Paul on letters of marque, via Politico).
A privateer carried a letter of marque from a government, authorizing the privately operated vessel to attack and capture vessels belonging to the government's enemies.
Michael Bradley, the managing partner of Marque Lawyers, which represents the rights holders, told reporters the case would set a precedent.
These privateers carried "letters of marque" that granted them authority to seize enemy cargo, which they were supposed to bring to a court for proper disposition.
Had the Constitution's framers viewed executive power generously, they would have allowed the president, not Congress, to grant letters of marque and reprisal.
They brandished an envelope with a Montgomery, Ala., postmark, which they claimed was a letter of marque from Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
As president of the Confederacy, the West Point-educated Davis had little use for a navy; his interests ended with privateers and letters of marque.
Operating under letters of marque and reprisal, privateers had license to profit by seizing enemy ships and taking them before admiralty courts for condemnation and sale.
Yet letters of marque and reprisal are the closest 18th-century analogue to the methods of retaliation that might be used in the low intensity conflicts that the War Powers Act sought to regulate.
