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Appendix 2

Excerpts from Youngstown and Reich

Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952)

Justice Black's decision joined by Justices Burton, Clark, Douglas, Frankfurter and Jackson

Chief Justice Vinson's dissent joined by Justices Reed and Minton

Justice Black, decision of the court:

We are asked to decide whether the President was acting within his constitutional power

when he issued an order directing the Secretary of Commerce to take possession of and operate

most of the Nation's steel mills. The mill owners argue that the President's order amounts to

lawmaking, a legislative function which the Constitution has expressly confided to the Congress

and not to the President. The Government's position is that the order was made on findings of the

President that his action was necessary to avert a national catastrophe which would inevitably

result from a stoppage of steel production, and that in meeting this grave emergency the President

was acting within the aggregate of his constitutional powers as the Nation's Chief Executive and

the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States. [Ibid. at 582.]

The President's power, if any, to issue the order must stem either from an act of

Congress or from the Constitution itself. [The authors have added boldface to certain passages

for emphasis.] There is no statute that expressly authorizes the President to take possession of