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effective power, if a society is to be at once cohesive and civilized, but also on the need for
limitations on the power of governors over the governed.
To that end they rested the structure of our central government on the system of checks
and balances. For them the doctrine of separation of powers was not mere theory; it was a
felt necessity. Not so long ago it was fashionable to find our system of checks and balances
obstructive to effective government. It was easy to ridicule that system as outmoded--too easy.
The experience through which the world has passed in our own day has made vivid the
realization that the Framers of our Constitution were not inexperienced doctrinaires. These long-
headed statesmen had no illusion that our people enjoyed biological or psychological or
sociological immunities from the hazards of concentrated power. It is absurd to see a dictator in a
representative product of the sturdy democratic traditions of the Mississippi Valley. The
accretion of dangerous power does not come in a day. It does come, however slowly, from the
generative force of unchecked disregard of the restrictions that fence in even the most
disinterested assertion of authority. [Ibid. at 59394.]
When Congress itself has struck the balance, has defined the weight to be given the competing
interests, a court of equity is not justified in ignoring that pronouncement under the guise of
exercising equitable discretion.
Apart from his vast share of responsibility for the conduct of our foreign relations, the
embracing function of the President is that "he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully
executed . . . ." Art. II, ' 3. The nature of that authority has for me been comprehensively
indicated by Mr. Justice Holmes. "The duty of the President to see that the laws be executed
is a duty that does not go beyond the laws or require him to achieve more than Congress