DECLARATION OF WAR. An act of the national legislature, in which a state of war is declared to exist between the United States and some other nation.
Not just the gradual escalation, but the lack of a formal declaration of war makes it hard to determine its precise beginning. Conventionally, it is dated to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, issued by Congress at the behest of President Lyndon B.
"... the common enemy of all and the law of nations gives to everyone the right to pursue and exterminate them without any previous declaration of war but it is not allowed to kill them without trial except in battle."1 ...
to remain and continue their business, notwithstanding a rupture between the governments, so long as they conducted themselves innocently and when there was no such treaty, such a liberal permission has been announced in the very declaration of war.
If war was decided upon, the deputation again repaired to the frontier, pronounced a solemn formula, and hurled a charred and blood-stained javelin across the frontier, in the presence of three witnesses, which was tantamount to a declaration of war ...
 See also: Nation, State, Declaration, Public, Law
  
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