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In choosing a different and inconsistent way of his own, the President cannot claim that it is

necessitated or invited by failure of Congress to legislate upon the occasions, grounds and

methods for seizure of industrial properties.

This leaves the current seizure to be justified only by the severe tests under the third

grouping, where it can be supported only by any remainder of executive power after subtraction

of such powers as Congress may have over the subject. In short, we can sustain the President

only by holding that seizure of such strike-bound industries is within his domain and beyond

control by Congress. Thus, this Court's first review of such seizures occurs under circumstances

which leave presidential power most vulnerable to attack and in the least favorable of possible

constitutional postures.

I did not suppose, and I am not persuaded, that history leaves it open to question, at least

in the courts, that the executive branch, like the Federal Government as a whole, possesses only

delegated powers. The purpose of the Constitution was not only to grant power, but to keep it

from getting out of hand. However, because the President does not enjoy unmentioned powers

does not mean that the mentioned ones should be narrowed by a niggardly construction. Some

clauses could be made almost unworkable, as well as immutable, by refusal to indulge some

latitude of interpretation for changing times. I have heretofore, and do now, give to the

enumerated powers the scope and elasticity afforded by what seem to be reasonable, practical

implications instead of the rigidity dictated by a doctrinaire textualism.

The Solicitor General seeks the power of seizure in three clauses of the Executive

Article, the first reading, "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States

of America." Lest I be thought to exaggerate, I quote the interpretation which his brief puts upon