Powers of the President during crisesSmith, J. Malcolm (John Malcolm)
History
Powers of the President during crises
Smith, J. Malcolm (John Malcolm)
Constitutional history -- United States; Executive power -- United States
Judicial oversight of government emergency action has suffered from
concentration upon the question of the existence of power. In the
context of emergency the Court can best preserve for itself and the
Federal judicial system a meaningful role in preserving constitutional
processes if it is invited to measure the consistency of executive
action both to executive standards and congressional grants of
power,[753] rather than to rhetorically assert a right to admonish
a government--Congress and President, armed, mobilized and engaged
in war, that the measures which it employs for protection of the
nation are unconstitutional. In testing the vires of administrative
action the courts are acting in an area vital to the preservation of
responsible government, and in which cooperative legislative-executive
validation of judicially disapproved action represents the essence of
constitutionalism rather than constitutional immorality.[754]
THE STEEL SEIZURE CASES[755]
When, on April 8, 1952, President Truman issued Executive Order 10340
directing seizure of the steel industry,[756] he set in motion a train
of events which were to culminate in an historic series of concurring
opinions which may herald a significant change in emphasis on the part
of the Court. The effect of the majority and concurring opinions in
this case is effectively to curb and subject to Congressional sanction
a kind of “homemade prerogative”[757] which the President had asserted,
and to reassert the primacy of the Court’s role as a balancing agent in
the constitutional system. Four days before issuance of the Executive
Order, the C.I.O. United Steelworkers of America had given notice
of a nation-wide strike to begin on April 9.[758] Alleging in his
Order that such a strike would undermine American attempts to fulfill
international responsibilities, to maintain a steady supply of war
materials to the fighting force in Korea, and to maintain the domestic
economy of the nation, the President invoked “the authority vested in
me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, and as President
of the United States and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the
United States,” as his legal justification for directing the Secretary
of Commerce “to take possession of” the steel plants.
On April 9th, Judge Alexander Holtzoff in the United States District
Court for the District of Columbia rejected the application of
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., _et al._, for an injunction and
declaratory judgment protecting the mills from seizure by the Secretary
of Commerce.[759] The District Court stated two grounds in support of
its ruling. (1) While it might technically run against Secretary of
Commerce Sawyer, an injunction “actually and in essence ... would be
an injunction against the President.” (2) The steel companies had not
shown irreparable harm.[760]
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