CRS-6
Court declined to entertain the contention that presidential power should be implied from the aggregate of his powers under the Constitution.[1]
In its decision, the Court explained that the President's power to issue executive orders must stem from either an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself. The Court could not find any statute which either expressly or impliedly authorized the President to take possession of property as he did in this situation. In fact, the use of the seizure technique to solve labor disputes in order to prevent work stoppages was not only unauthorized by any congressional enactment, but had been rejected by Congress as a method of settling such disputes.[2] Instead, Congress enacted the Taft-Hartley Act which permitted the executive to settle disputes through mediation, conciliation, investigation by boards of inquiry, and public reports. In some instances temporary injunctions were authorized to provide cooling-off periods of 60 days. Congress' explicit refusal to include the seizure technique as one of the many mechanisms provided to the executive made it clear that the President did not have statutory authority), to issue the executive order in question. Moreover, the Court failed to find any constitutional basis for the President to issue such an order. In particular, the Court declined to find the "aggregate" of the President's powers was sufficient to authorize seizure of the nation's steel mills.
The Court went on to state that although other Presidents may have taken possession of private businesses in order to settle labor disputes, Congress has not lost its exclusive constitutional authority to make laws necessary and proper to carry out the powers vested by the Constitution. Thus, the only role the President had in this situation was to make sure that the laws be faithfully executed, not to make them.
Six members of the Court joined in affirming the lower court, holding that (1) the constitutional issue was ripe for decision; and (2) that the seizure order was not within the constitutional powers of the President. However, four justices (Frankfurter, Douglas, Jackson, and Burton) concurred in the result but wrote separate opinions, which, as stated by Frankfurter, J., show differences in attitude toward the basic constitutional principles involved. The lack of constitutional authority supporting the President's action was emphasized, not only in the Court's opinion but in Douglas' concurring opinion as well.
The emphasis of the concurring opinions of Frankfurter, Jackson, and Burton is on the fact that whatever the President's inherent power to seize private property to meet an emergency may be, he was precluded from exercising such power in the present case by specific legislation designed to meet the emergency confronting him.
- ↑ Id. The "aggregate of powers" theory of presidential power states that the President has and may exercise a reservoir of implied powers created by the accumulation of the total of express powers vested in him by the Constitution and the statutes. Thus, executive orders will often start with a recital of the so-called powers vested in the President as President, as Commander in Chief, etc.
- ↑ In its discussion of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, Congress rejected an amendment which would have authorized such governmental seizures in cases of emergency. 93 Cong. Rec. 3637-3645 (1947).
