paragraph_text: Congress has several powers related to war and the armed forces. Under the War Powers Clause, only Congress may declare war, but in several cases it has, without declaring war, granted the President the authority to engage in military conflicts. Five wars have been declared in United States' history: the War of 1812, the Mexican -- American War, the Spanish -- American War, World War I and World War II. Some historians argue that the legal doctrines and legislation passed during the operations against Pancho Villa constitute a sixth declaration of war. Congress may grant letters of marque and reprisal. Congress may establish and support the armed forces, but no appropriation made for the support of the army may be used for more than two years. This provision was inserted because the Framers feared the establishment of a standing army, beyond civilian control, during peacetime. Congress may regulate or call forth the state militias, but the states retain the authority to appoint officers and train personnel. Congress also has exclusive power to make rules and regulations governing the land and naval forces. Although the executive branch and the Pentagon have asserted an ever - increasing measure of involvement in this process, the U.S. Supreme Court has often reaffirmed Congress's exclusive hold on this power (e.g. Burns v. Wilson, 346 U.S. 137 (1953)). Congress used this power twice soon after World War II with the enactment of two statutes: the Uniform Code of Military Justice to improve the quality and fairness of courts martial and military justice, and the Federal Tort Claims Act which among other rights had allowed military service persons to sue for damages until the U.S. Supreme Court repealed that section of the statute in a divisive series of cases, known collectively as the Feres Doctrine.

paragraph_text: The President of the United States is, according to the Constitution, the Commander - in - Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces and Chief Executive of the Federal Government. The Secretary of Defense is the ``Principal Assistant to the President in all matters relating to the Department of Defense '', and is vested with statutory authority (10 U.S.C. § 113) to lead the Department and all of its component agencies, including military command authority second only to the President.

paragraph_text: The dissolution of the Soviet Union was formally enacted on December 26, 1991, as a result of the declaration no. 142-Н of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. The declaration acknowledged the independence of the former Soviet republics and created the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), although five of the signatories ratified it much later or not at all. On the previous day, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, resigned, declared his office extinct, and handed over its powers – including control of the Soviet nuclear missile launching codes – to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. That evening at 7:32 p.m., the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the pre-revolutionary Russian flag.

paragraph_text: Fourteen men served as president of Congress. The first was Peyton Randolph, who was elected on September 5, 1774. The last president, Cyrus Griffin, resigned in November 1788. President John Hancock is remembered for his large, bold signature on the Declaration of Independence, which was adopted and signed during his presidency.

paragraph_text: On June 12, 1990, the Congress of People's Deputies adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty. On June 12, 1991, Boris Yeltsin was elected the first President. On December 8, 1991, heads of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed the Belavezha Accords. The agreement declared dissolution of the USSR by its founder states (i.e. denunciation of 1922 Treaty on the Creation of the USSR) and established the CIS. On December 12, the agreement was ratified by the Russian Parliament, therefore Russian SFSR denounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and de facto declared Russia's independence from the USSR.

paragraph_text: George Mason (sometimes referred to as George Mason IV; December 11, 1725 (O.S. November 30, 1725) -- October 7, 1792) was a Virginia planter and politician, and a delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, one of three delegates, together with fellow Virginian Edmund Randolph and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, who refused to sign the constitution. His writings have exercised a significant influence on political thought and events, including substantial portions of the Fairfax Resolves of 1774, the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, and his Objections to this Constitution of Government (1787) in opposition to ratification of the constitution. The Virginia Declaration of Rights, which Mason principally authored, served as a basis for the United States Bill of Rights, of which he has been deemed the father.

paragraph_text: The Federal Reserve Act (ch. 6, 38 Stat. 251, enacted December 23, 1913, 12 U.S.C. § § 221 to 522) is an Act of Congress that created and established the Federal Reserve System (the central banking system of the United States), and which created the authority to issue Federal Reserve Notes (commonly known as the US Dollar) as legal tender. The Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson.

paragraph_text: The Manifesto of the 121 (, full title: "Déclaration sur le droit à l’insoumission dans la guerre d’Algérie" or "Declaration on the right of insubordination in the Algerian War") was an open letter signed by 121 intellectuals and published on 6 September 1960 in the magazine "Vérité-Liberté". It called on the French government, then headed by the Gaullist Michel Debré, and public opinion to recognise the Algerian War as a legitimate struggle for independence, denouncing the use of torture by the French army, and calling for French conscientious objectors to the conflict to be respected by the authorities.

paragraph_text: Houston was selected as Commander - in - Chief at the convention to declare Texan independence in March 1836, and he signed the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836, his 43rd birthday. Mexican soldiers killed all those at the Alamo Mission at the end of a 13 - day siege on March 6. On March 11, Houston joined what constituted his army at Gonzales: 374 poorly equipped, poorly trained, and poorly supplied recruits. Word of the defeat at the Alamo reached him and, while he waited for confirmation, he organized the recruits as the 1st Regiment Volunteer Army of Texas.

paragraph_text: The signing of the United States Declaration of Independence occurred (primarily) on August 2, 1776 at the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The 56 delegates to the Second Continental Congress represented the 13 former colonies which had declared themselves the ``United States of America, ''and they endorsed the Declaration of Independence which the Congress had approved on July 4, 1776. The Declaration proclaimed that the Thirteen Colonies then at war with Great Britain were now sovereign states and thus no longer a part of the British Empire. The signers' names are grouped by state, with the exception of President of the Continental Congress John Hancock; the states are arranged geographically from north to south.

paragraph_text: Ben Barnes as Samuel ``Sam ''Adams Marton Csokas as General Thomas Gage Ryan Eggold as Dr. Joseph Warren Michael Raymond - James as Paul Revere Rafe Spall as John Hancock Henry Thomas as John Adams Jason O'Mara as George Washington Dean Norris as Benjamin Franklin Emily Berrington as Margaret Kemble Gage Sean Gilder as Thomas Hutchinson Kevin J. Ryan as John Pitcairn Shane Taylor as Captain Thomas Preston Jimmy Akingbola as Peter Salem

paragraph_text: President Donald Trump is the current Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States. According to Article II, Section 2, Clause I of the Constitution, the President of the United States is ``Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States. ''Since the National Security Act of 1947, this has been understood to mean all United States Armed Forces. U.S. ranks have their roots in British military traditions, with the President possessing ultimate authority, but no rank, maintaining a civilian status. The exact degree of authority that the Constitution grants to the President as Commander in Chief has been the subject of much debate throughout history, with Congress at various times granting the President wide authority and at others attempting to restrict that authority.

paragraph_text: The Soviet Union was dissolved on December 26, 1991. It was a result of the declaration number 142 - Н of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. The declaration acknowledged the independence of the former Soviet republics and created the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), although five of the signatories ratified it much later or did not do so at all. On the previous day, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, resigned, declared his office extinct, and handed over its powers -- including control of the Soviet nuclear missile launching codes -- to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. That evening at 7: 32, the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the pre-revolutionary Russian flag.

paragraph_text: The National Assembly began the process of drafting a constitution. The Declaration of the Rights of Man, adopted on 27 August 1789 eventually became the preamble of the constitution adopted on 3 September 1791. The Declaration offered sweeping generalizations about rights, liberty, and sovereignty.

paragraph_text: Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States is a 1940 oil-on-canvas painting by Howard Chandler Christy, depicting the Constitutional Convention signing the U.S. Constitution at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787. Along with "Washington Crossing the Delaware" by Emanuel Leutze, the painting is one of the most famous depictions of the early days of the United States. Christy created the painting in April 1940; it is so large (20 × 30') that he painted it in a sail loft. It currently is displayed along the east stairway in the House of Representatives wing in the Capitol building.

paragraph_text: The preamble to the Constitution serves as an introductory statement of the document's fundamental purposes and guiding principles. It neither assigns powers to the federal government, nor does it place specific limitations on government action. Rather, it sets out the origin, scope and purpose of the Constitution. Its origin and authority is in ``We, the people of the United States ''. This echoes the Declaration of Independence.`` One people'' dissolved their connection with another, and assumed among the powers of the earth, a sovereign nation - state. The scope of the Constitution is twofold. First, ``to form a more perfect Union ''than had previously existed in the`` perpetual Union'' of the Articles of Confederation. Second, to ``secure the blessings of liberty '', which were to be enjoyed by not only the first generation, but for all who came after,`` our posterity''.

paragraph_text: The framers of the US Constitution were influenced by the Constitution of the Republic of the United Provinces, as Federalist No. 20, by James Madison, shows. Such influence appears, however, to have been of a negative nature, as Madison describes the Dutch confederacy as exhibiting "Imbecility in the government; discord among the provinces; foreign influence and indignities; a precarious existence in peace, and peculiar calamities from war." Apart from this, the American Declaration of Independence is similar to the Act of Abjuration, essentially the declaration of independence of the United Provinces, but concrete evidence that the former directly influenced the latter is absent.

paragraph_text: The Texas Declaration of Independence was the formal declaration of independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico in the Texas Revolution. It was adopted at the Convention of 1836 at Washington - on - the - Brazos on March 2, 1836, and formally signed the following day after mistakes were noted in the text.

paragraph_text: Tunisia achieved independence from France on March 20, 1956 with Habib Bourguiba as Prime Minister.  March 20 is celebrated annually as Tunisian Independence Day.  A year later, Tunisia was declared a republic, with Bourguiba as the first President.  From independence in 1956 until the 2011 revolution, the government and the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD), formerly Neo Destour and the Socialist Destourian Party, were effectively one.  Following a report by Amnesty International, The Guardian called Tunisia "one of the most modern but repressive countries in the Arab world".In November 1987, doctors declared Bourguiba unfit to rule and, in a bloodless coup d'état, Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali assumed the presidency in accordance with Article 57 of the Tunisian constitution. The anniversary of Ben Ali's succession, 7 November, was celebrated as a national holiday. He was consistently re-elected with enormous majorities every five years (well over 80 percent of the vote), the last being 25 October 2009, until he fled the country amid popular unrest in January 2011.

paragraph_text: For the United States, Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution says ``Congress shall have power to... declare War. ''However, that passage provides no specific format for what form legislation must have in order to be considered a`` declaration of war'' nor does the Constitution itself use this term. In the courts, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, in Doe v. Bush, said: ``(T) he text of the October Resolution itself spells out justifications for a war and frames itself as an 'authorization' of such a war. ''in effect saying an authorization suffices for declaration and what some may view as a formal Congressional`` Declaration of War'' was not required by the Constitution.

Question: Who plays the US president presiding over the legislature authorized to create an army under the US constitution at the signing of the declaration of independence in sons of liberty?
Answer: Rafe Spall