Page 4
conduct to be followed, and again, like a statute, authorizes a government official to promulgate
additional rules and regulations consistent with the policy proclaimed and needed to carry that
policy into execution. The power of Congress to adopt such public policies as those proclaimed
by the order is beyond question. It can authorize the taking of private property for public use. It
can make laws regulating the relationships between employers and employees, prescribing rules
designed to settle labor disputes, and fixing wages and working conditions in certain fields of our
economy. The Constitution does not subject this lawmaking power of Congress to presidential or
military supervision or control.
It is said that other Presidents without congressional authority have taken possession of
private business enterprises in order to settle labor disputes. But even if this be true, Congress has
not thereby lost its exclusive constitutional authority to make laws necessary and proper to carry
out the powers vested by the Constitution "in the Government of the United States, or any
Department or Officer thereof."
The Founders of this Nation entrusted the lawmaking power to the Congress alone
in both good and bad times. It would do no good to recall the historical events, the fears of
power and the hopes for freedom that lay behind their choice. Such a review would but confirm
our holding that this seizure order cannot stand. [Ibid. at 58789.]
Justice Frankfurter, concurrence:
The Founders of this Nation were not imbued with the modern cynicism that the only thing that
history teaches is that it teaches nothing. They acted on the conviction that the experience of man
sheds a good deal of light on his nature. It sheds a good deal of light not merely on the need for