If such is the basic nature of constitutionalism, it does not wrap government in the steel bonds of a series of substantive limitations, or compartmentalize power in discrete units.[52] The true nature of the issue which emergency presents for constitutional governments may then be recognized: It is the two-pronged problem of determining the extent to which the objectives of human action shall be socially defined and achieved or self-determined by the individual or group;[53] and, correlatively, that of balancing, through adequate legislative, administrative and judicial checks, the increased discretionary powers of the executive which accompany expanded governmental functions. It is a matter of historical fact that modern constitutional democracies have not, upon the rise of emergency conditions, found it necessary to suspend constitutional processes, or to resort to the schemes for organization of power hypothesized by those who hitherto have written on the subject. What the British, particularly, have come to recognize in the course of the last five decades is that emergency governance is one form of an acute and continuing problem in modern constitutional democracies: that of allotting increasing areas of discretionary powers to the executive, while insuring that such powers will be exercised with a sense of political responsibility and under effective limitations and checks.[54] In time of emergency, governmental action may vary in breadth and intensity from more normal times, yet it need not be less constitutional. In time of war as in peace government according to the orderly procedure of the law, and government responsible to the governed, has proven its ability to meet the needs imposed by the accelerated tempo and the growing complexity of the twentieth century. CHAPTER III THE CONCEPT OF EMERGENCY IN AMERICAN LEGISLATION