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JUSTICE BLACK and MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER point out, the power to execute the

laws starts and ends with the laws Congress has enacted.

The great office of President is not a weak and powerless one. The President represents

the people and is their spokesman in domestic and foreign affairs. The office is respected more

than any other in the land. It gives a position of leadership that is unique. The power to formulate

policies and mold opinion inheres in the Presidency and conditions our national life. The impact

of the man and the philosophy he represents may at times be thwarted by the Congress.

Stalemates may occur when emergencies mount and the Nation suffers for lack of harmonious,

reciprocal action between the White House and Capitol Hill. That is a risk inherent in our system

of separation of powers. The tragedy of such stalemates might be avoided by allowing the

President the use of some legislative authority. The Framers with memories of the tyrannies

produced by a blending of executive and legislative power rejected that political

arrangement. Some future generation may, however, deem it so urgent that the President have

legislative authority that the Constitution will be amended. We could not sanction the seizures

and condemnations of the steel plants in this case without reading Article II as giving the

President not only the power to execute the laws but to make some. Such a step would most

assuredly alter the pattern of the Constitution.

We pay a price for our system of checks and balances, for the distribution of power

among the three branches of government. It is a price that today may seem exorbitant to many.

Today a kindly President uses the seizure power to effect a wage increase and to keep the steel

furnaces in production. Yet tomorrow another President might use the same power to prevent a

wage increase, to curb trade-unionists, to regiment labor as oppressively as industry thinks it has