Cato Institute
Policy Analysis
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property as he did here. Nor is there any act of Congress to which our attention has been directed
from which such a power can fairly be implied. Indeed, we do not understand the Government to
rely on statutory authorization for this seizure. There are two statutes which do authorize the
President to take both personal and real property under certain conditions. However, the
Government admits that these conditions were not met and that the President's order was not
rooted in either of the statutes. The Government refers to the seizure provisions of one of these
statutes (' 201 [b] of the Defense Production Act) as "much too cumbersome, involved, and time-
consuming for the crisis which was at hand."
Moreover, the use of the seizure technique to solve labor disputes in order to prevent
work stoppages was not only unauthorized by any congressional enactment; prior to this
controversy, Congress had refused to adopt that method of settling labor disputes. When the
Taft-Hartley Act was under consideration in 1947, Congress rejected an amendment which
would have authorized such governmental seizures in cases of emergency. Apparently it was
thought that the technique of seizure, like that of compulsory arbitration, would interfere with the
process of collective bargaining. Consequently, the plan Congress adopted in that Act did not
provide for seizure under any circumstances. [Ibid. at 585­86.]
It is clear that if the President had authority to issue the order he did, it must be found in
some provision of the Constitution. And it is not claimed that express constitutional language
grants this power to the President. The contention is that presidential power should be implied
from the aggregate of his powers under the Constitution. Particular reliance is placed on
provisions in Article II which say that "The executive Power shall be vested in a President . . .";