Cato Institute
Policy Analysis
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Page 11
been regimented by this seizure. [Ibid. at 631­34.]
Justice Jackson, concurrence:
That comprehensive and undefined presidential powers hold both practical advantages
and grave dangers for the country will impress anyone who has served as legal adviser to a
President in time of transition and public anxiety. While an interval of detached reflection may
temper teachings of that experience, they probably are a more realistic influence on my views
than the conventional materials of judicial decision which seem unduly to accentuate doctrine
and legal fiction. But as we approach the question of presidential power, we half overcome
mental hazards by recognizing them. The opinions of judges, no less than executives and
publicists, often suffer the infirmity of confusing the issue of a power's validity with the cause it
is invoked to promote, of confounding the permanent executive office with its temporary
occupant. The tendency is strong to emphasize transient results upon policies--such as wages or
stabilization--and lose sight of enduring consequences upon the balanced power structure of our
Republic. [Ibid. at 634.]
Presidential powers are not fixed but fluctuate, depending upon their disjunction or conjunction
with those of Congress. We may well begin by a somewhat over-simplified grouping of practical
situations in which a President may doubt, or others may challenge, his powers, and by
distinguishing roughly the legal consequences of this factor of relativity.
1. When the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of