ARTICLE II

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT

Section 1. The President: Page

Clause 1. Powers and term of the President 377

Nature and scope of Presidential power 377

Contemporary source of the Presidency 377

Presidency in the federal convention 378

Executive power; Hamilton's contribution 378

Myers case 379

Curtiss-Wright case 380

Theory of the Presidential office 380

Term of four years 382

Anti-third term tradition 382

Clauses 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Election, qualifications, succession, compensation, and oath of the President 383

Maintenance of the office of President 384

"Electoral college" 384

Constitutional status of electors 385

"Natural-born citizen" 386

Presidential succession 387

Act of 1792 387

Acts of 1886 and 1947 388

Compensation and emoluments 388

Oath of office 388

Effect of the oath 389

Section 2. Powers and duties of the President 389

Clause 1. Commander in chiefship; opinions from heads of departments; pardons 389

Commander in chiefship 389

Historical 389

Prize cases 390

Impact of the Prize cases on World Wars I and II 391

Presidential theory of the commander in chiefship in World War II 392

Presidential war agencies 393

Constitutional status of Presidential agencies 394

West Coast Japanese 394

Act of March 21, 1942 395

Presidential government of labor relations 395

"Sanctions" 397

Constitutional basis of sanctions 397

Martial law and constitutional limitations 398

Martial law in Hawaii 400

Case of the Nazi saboteurs 401

War crimes cases 402

President as commander of the forces 403

Commander in chief a civilian officer 404

Presidential advisers 405

The Cabinet 405

Pardons and reprieves 406

Legal nature of a pardon 406

Qualification of above theory 407

Scope of the power 408

"Offenses against the United States"; contempt of court 408

Effects of a pardon: Ex parte Garland 409

Limits to the efficacy of a pardon 410

Congress and Amnesty 411

Clauses 2 and 3. Treaties and appointment of officers 412

Treaty-making power 412

President and Senate 412

Negotiation a Presidential monopoly 412

Treaties as law of the land 413

Origin of the conception 414

Treaty rights versus State power 415

Recent cases 417

When is a treaty self-executing; when not 417

Constitutional freedom of Congress with respect to treaties 418

Treaty-making power and revenue laws 419

Congressional repeal of treaties 420

Treaties versus prior acts of Congress 421

Interpretation and termination of treaties as international compacts 423

Termination of treaties by notice 423

Determination whether a treaty has lapsed 425

Status of a treaty a political question 426

Treaties and the "necessary and proper" clause 426

Constitutional limits of the treaty-making power: Missouri v. Holland 428

Indian treaties 431

Present status of Indian treaties 432

International Agreements without Senate approval 433

Routine executive agreements 433

Law-making executive agreements 434

President McKinley's contribution 435

Executive agreements affecting Far Eastern Relations 436

International obligation of executive agreements 436

Litvinov agreement of 1933 437

United States v. Belmont 437

United States v. Pink; National supremacy 438

Hull-Lothian agreement, 1940 439

War-time agreements 440

Executive agreements by authorization of Congress 441

Reciprocal trade agreements 441

Constitutionality of trade agreements 442

Lend-Lease Act 443

President plus Congress versus Senate 443

Arbitration agreements 444

Agreements under the United Nations Charter 444

United Nations Participation Act 445

Executive establishment 445

"Office" 445

"Ambassadors and other public ministers" 445

Presidential diplomatic agents 447

Congressional regulation of offices 449

Conduct in office 450

The loyalty issue 451

Legislation increasing duties of an officer 452

"Inferior officers"; "employees" 452

Stages of appointment process 453

Nomination 453

Senate approval 453

When Senate consent is complete 453

Commissioning the officer 454

Recess appointments 455

Ad interim designations 455

Removal power; Myers case 455

"Nature of the office" concept 458

Humphrey case 458

Other phases of the removal power 459

Presidential aegis 460

Section 3. Legislative, diplomatic, and law enforcement duties of the President 462

Legislative role of the President 462

Right of Reception 463

Scope of the power 463

A Presidential monopoly 464

"The Logan Act" 464

A formal or a formative power 465

President's diplomatic role 465

Jefferson's real position 466

Power of recognition 467

The case of Cuba 468

Power of nonrecognition 469

President and Congress 470

Congressional implementation of Presidential policies 471

Doctrine of political questions 471

Recent statements of the doctrine 473

The President as law enforcer 475

Types of executive power 475

How the President's own powers are exercised 476

Power and duty of the President in relation to subordinate executive officers 478

Administrative Decentralization v. Jacksonian Centralism 478

Congressional Power v. Presidential Duty to the Law 479

Myers Case v. Humphrey Case 480

Power of the President to guide enforcement of the penal law 481

President as law interpreter 481

Military power in law enforcement: the posse comitatus 482

Suspension of Habeas Corpus by President 484

Preventive martial law 484

Debs case 484

Status of the Debs case, today 485

President's duty in cases of domestic violence 486

President as executive of the law of nations 486

Protection of American rights of person and property abroad 487

Presidential world policing 488

The Atlantic Pact 488

Presidential action in the domain of Congress: Steel Seizure Case 489

Presidential immunity from judicial direction 499

President's subordinates and the courts 500

Section 4. Impeachment 501

Impeachment 501

"Civil" officer 501

"High crimes and misdemeanors" 502

Chase impeachment 502

Johnson impeachment 503

Later impeachments 503

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT

Article II

Section 1: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:

The Nature and Scope of Presidential Power

CONTEMPORARY SOURCE OF THE PRESIDENCY

The immediate source of article II was the New York constitution of 1777,[1] of which the relevant provisions are the following: "Art. XVIII. * * * The governor * * * shall by virtue of his office, be general and commander in chief of all the militia, and admiral of the navy of this state; * * * he shall have power to convene the assembly and senate on extraordinary occasions; to prorogue them from time to time, provided such prorogations shall not exceed sixty days in the space of any one year; and, at his discretion, to grant reprieves and pardons to persons convicted of crimes, other than treason and murder, in which he may suspend the execution of the sentence, until it shall be reported to the legislature at their subsequent meeting; and they shall either pardon or direct the execution of the criminal, or grant a further reprieve.

"Art. XIX. * * * It shall be the duty of the governor to inform the legislature at every session of the condition of the State so far as may concern his department; to recommend such matters to their consideration as shall appear to him to concern its good government, welfare, and prosperity; to correspond with the Continental Congress and other States; to transact all necessary business with the officers of government, civil and military; to take care that the laws are executed to the best of his ability; and to expedite all such measures as may be resolved upon by the legislature.

"To these, of course, are to be added the important powers of qualified appointment and qualified veto. It is to be observed also that there is no question of the interposition of the law of the land to regulate these powers. They are the governor's, by direct grant of the people, and his alone. Another distinguishing characteristic, equally important, is the fact that the governor was to be chosen by a constitutionally defined electorate, not by the legislature. He was also to have a three-year term, and there were to be no limitations on his re-eligibility to office. In short, all the isolated principles of executive strength in other constitutions were here brought into a new whole. Alone they were of slight importance; gathered together they gain new meaning. And, in addition, we have new elements of strength utilized for the first time on the American continent."[2] The appellation "President" appears to have been suggested to the Federal Convention by Charles Pinckney,[3] to whom it may have been suggested by the title at that date of the chief magistrate of Delaware.

THE PRESIDENCY IN THE FEDERAL CONVENTION

The relevant clause in the Report from the Committee of Detail of August 6, 1787 to the Federal Convention read as follows: "The Executive Power of the United States shall be vested in a single person. His stile shall be 'The President of the United States of America'; and his title shall be 'His Excellency.'"[4] This language recorded the decision of the Convention, sitting in committee of the whole, that the national executive power should be vested in a single person, not a body. For the rest, it is a simple designation of office. The final form of the clause came from the Committee of Style,[5] and was never separately acted on by the Convention.

"EXECUTIVE POWER"; HAMILTON'S CONTRIBUTION

Is this term a summary description merely of the powers which are granted in more specific terms in succeeding provisions of article II, or is it also a grant of powers; and if the latter, what powers specifically does it comprise? In the debate on the location of the removal power in the House of Representatives in 1789[6] Madison and others urged that this was "in its nature" an "executive power";[7] and their view prevailed so far as executive officers appointed without stated term by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, were concerned. Four years later Hamilton, in defending President Washington's course in issuing a Proclamation of Impartiality upon the outbreak of war between France and Great Britain, developed the following argument: "The second article of the Constitution of the United States, section first, establishes this general proposition, that 'the Executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.' The same article, in a succeeding section, proceeds to delineate particular cases of executive power. It declares, among other things, that the president shall be commander in chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; that he shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the senate, to make treaties; that it shall be his duty to receive ambassadors and other public ministers, and to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. It would not consist with the rules of sound construction, to consider this enumeration of particular authorities as derogating from the more comprehensive grant in the general clause, further than as it may be coupled with express restrictions or limitations; as in regard to the co-operation of the senate in the appointment of officers, and the making of treaties; which are plainly qualifications of the general executive powers of appointing officers and making treaties. The difficulty of a complete enumeration of all the cases of executive authority, would naturally dictate the use of general terms, and would render it improbable that a specification of certain particulars was designed as a substitute for those terms, when antecedently used. The different mode of expression employed in the constitution, in regard to the two powers, the legislative and the executive, serves to confirm this inference. In the article which gives the legislative powers of the government, the expressions are, 'All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a congress of the United States.' In that which grants the executive power, the expressions are, 'The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States.' The enumeration ought therefore to be considered, as intended merely to specify the principal articles implied in the definition of executive power; leaving the rest to flow from the general grant of that power, interpreted in conformity with other parts of the Constitution, and with the principles of free government. The general doctrine of our Constitution then is, that the executive power of the nation is vested in the President; subject only to the exceptions and qualifications, which are expressed in the instrument."[8]

THE MYERS CASE

These enlarged conceptions of the executive power clause have been ratified by the Supreme Court within recent times. In the Myers case,[9] decided in 1926, not only was Madison's contention as to the location of the removal power adopted, and indeed extended, but Hamilton's general theory as to the proper mode of construing the clause was unqualifiedly endorsed. Said Chief Justice Taft, speaking for the Court: "The executive power was given in general terms, strengthened by specific terms where emphasis was regarded as appropriate, and was limited by direct expressions where limitation was needed, * * *"[10]

THE CURTISS-WRIGHT CASE

Ten years later Justice Sutherland, speaking for the Court in United States v. Curtiss-Wright Corporation,[11] joined Hamilton's conception of the President's role in the foreign relations field to the conception that in this field the National Government is not one of enumerated but of inherent powers;[12] and the practical conclusion he drew was that the constitutional objection to delegation of legislative power does not apply to a delegation by Congress to the President of its "cognate" powers in this field; that, in short, the merged powers of the two departments may be put at the President's disposal whenever Congress so desires.[13]

Nor is it alone in the field of foreign relations that the opening clause of article II has promoted latitudinarian conceptions of Presidential power. Especially has his role as "Commander in Chief in wartime" drawn nourishment from the same source, in recent years. The matter is treated in later pages.[14]

THEORY OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE

The looseness of the grants of power to the President has been more than once the subject of animadversion.[15] This and the unity of the office furnished a text for opponents of the Constitution while its ratification was pending. "Here," according to Hamilton, writing in The Federalist, "the writers against the Constitution, seem to have taken pains to signalize their talent of misrepresentation."[16] Once the Constitution was adopted, however, the tables were turned, and some members of the first Congress, including certain former members of the Federal Convention, sought to elaborate the monarchical aspects of the office. They would fain give him a title, His Excellency (already applied in several States to the governors thereof), Highness, Elective Majesty, being suggestions. Ellsworth of Connecticut wished to see his name or place inserted in the enacting clause of statutes. They contrived to make a ceremony of the President's appearances before Congress, his annual address to which, given in person, was answered by a reply equally formal.[17] They sought to enact that "all writs and processes, issuing out of the Supreme or circuit courts shall be in the name of the President of the United States." Although the attempt failed, owing to opposition in the House, the idea was adopted by the Supreme Court itself in its first term, that of February 1790, when it "ordered, That (unless, and until, it shall be otherwise provided by law) all process of this court shall be in the name of 'the President of the United States,'"[18] and it has never been otherwise provided by law. Meantime, on October 3, 1789, President Washington had, at the request of a joint committee of "both Houses of Congress," issued the first Thanksgiving Proclamation.[19]

The "revolution of 1800" was, in the opinion of its principal author, a revolution against monarchical tendencies, and making a virtue of the fact that he was a bad public speaker, Jefferson, in a symbolic gesture, substituted the written message for the presidential address. But the claims of the presidential office to power Jefferson in no wise abated,[20] although Marshall had predicted that he would;[21] to the contrary he in some respects enlarged upon them. After his day, however, the office passed into temporary eclipse behind its own creature, the Cabinet,[22] an ignominy from which Andrew Jackson rescued it. As "the People's Choice," as all by himself "one of the three equal departments of government,"[23] as the leader of his party, as the embodiment of the unity of the country,[24] Jackson stamped upon the Presidency the outstanding features of its final character, thereby reviving, in the opinion of Henry Jones Ford, "the oldest political institution of the race, the elective Kingship."[25] The modern theory of Presidential power was the contribution primarily of Alexander Hamilton; the modern conception of the Presidential office was the contribution primarily of Andrew Jackson and his times.

"THE TERM OF FOUR YEARS"

Formerly the term of four years during which the President "shall hold office" was reckoned from March 4 of the alternate odd years beginning with 1789. This came about from the circumstance that under the act of September 13, 1788, of "the Old Congress," the first Wednesday in March, which was March 4, 1789, was fixed as the time for commencing proceedings under the said Constitution. Although as a matter of fact Washington was not inaugurated until April 30 of that year, by an act approved March 1, 1792, it was provided that the presidential term should be reckoned from the fourth day of March next succeeding the date of election. And so things stood until the adoption of the Twentieth Amendment by which the terms of the President and Vice President end at noon on the 20th of January.[26]

THE ANTI-THIRD TERM TRADITION

The prevailing sentiment of the Philadelphia Convention favored the indefinite eligibility of the President. It was Jefferson who raised the objection that indefinite eligibility would in fact be for life and degenerate into an inheritance. Prior to 1940 the idea that no President should hold for more than two terms was generally thought to be a fixed tradition, although some quibbles had been raised as to the meaning of the word "term". President Franklin D. Roosevelt's violation of the tradition led to the proposal by Congress on March 24, 1947, of an amendment to the Constitution to rescue the tradition by embodying it in the Constitutional Document. The proposal became a part of the Constitution on February 27, 1951, in consequence of its adoption by the necessary thirty-sixth State, which was Minnesota. See pp. 54, 1236.[Transcriber's Note: Page 1236 is blank.][27]

Clause 2. Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress; but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

Clause 3. The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.

Clause 4. The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

Clause 5. No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Clause 6. In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.

Clause 7. The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be encreased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.

Clause 8. Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Maintenance of the Office of President

"THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE"

The word "appoint" is used in clause 2 "as conveying the broadest power of determination."[28] This power has been used. "Therefore, on reference to contemporaneous and subsequent action under the clause, we should expect to find, as we do, that various modes of choosing the electors were pursued, as, by the legislature itself on joint ballot; by the legislature through a concurrent vote of the two houses; by vote of the people for a general ticket; by vote of the people in districts; by choice partly by the people voting in districts and partly by legislature; by choice by the legislature from candidates voted for by the people in districts; and in other ways, as, notably, by North Carolina in 1792, and Tennessee in 1796 and 1800. No question was raised as to the power of the State to appoint, in any mode its legislature saw fit to adopt, and none that a single method, applicable without exception, must be pursued in the absence of an amendment to the Constitution. The district system was largely considered the most equitable, and Madison wrote that it was that system which was contemplated by the framers of the Constitution, although it was soon seen that its adoption by some States might place them at a disadvantage by a division of their strength, and that a uniform rule was preferable."[29] In the Federal Convention James Wilson had proposed that the Electors be "taken by lot from the national Legislature," but the suggestion failed to come to a vote.[30]

CONSTITUTIONAL STATUS OF ELECTORS

Dealing with the question of the constitutional status of the Electors, the Court said in 1890: "The sole function of the presidential electors is to cast, certify and transmit the vote of the State for President and Vice President of the nation. Although the electors are appointed and act under and pursuant to the Constitution of the United States, they are no more officers or agents of the United States than are the members of the State legislatures when acting as electors of federal senators, or the people of the States when acting as electors of representatives in Congress. * * * In accord with the provisions of the Constitution, Congress has determined the time as of which the number of electors shall be ascertained, and the days on which they shall be appointed and shall meet and vote in the States, and on which their votes shall be counted in Congress; has provided for the filling by each State, in such manner as its legislature may prescribe, of vacancies in its college of electors; and has regulated the manner of certifying and transmitting their votes to the seat of the national government, and the course of proceeding in their opening and counting them."[31] The truth of the matter is that the Electors are not "officers" at all, by the usual tests of office.[32] They have neither tenure nor salary, and having performed their single function they cease to exist as Electors. This function is, moreover, "a federal function,"[33] their capacity to perform which results from no power which was originally resident in the States, but springs directly from the Constitution of the United States.[34] In the face, therefore, of the proposition that Electors are State officers, the Court has upheld the power of Congress to protect the right of all citizens who are entitled to vote to lend aid and support in any legal manner to the election of any legally qualified person as a Presidential Elector;[35] and more recently its power to protect the choice of Electors from fraud or corruption.[36] "'If this government,' said the Court, 'is anything more than a mere aggregation of delegated agents of other States and governments, each of which is superior to the general government, it must have the power to protect the elections on which its existence depends from violence and corruption. If it has not this power it is left helpless before the two great natural and historical enemies of all republics, open violence and insidious corruption.'"[37] The conception of Electors as State officers is still, nevertheless, of some importance, as was shown in the recent case of Ray v. Blair,[38] which is dealt with in connection with Amendment XII.[39]

"NATURAL-BORN" CITIZEN

Clause 3 of this section, while requiring that the Electors each vote for two persons, did not require them to distinguish their choices for President and Vice President, the assumption being that the Vice President would be the runner-up of the successful candidate for President. As a result of this arrangement the election of 1800 produced a dangerous tie between Jefferson and Burr, the candidates of the Republican-Democrat Party for President and Vice President respectively. Amendment XII, which was adopted in 1803 and replaces clause 3, makes a recurrence of the 1800 contretemps impossible. See pp. 941-942. Clause 4 testifies still further to the national character of Presidential Electors. Clause 5 is today chiefly of historical interest, all Presidents since, and including Martin Van Buren, except his immediate successor, William Henry Harrison, having been born in the United States subsequently to the Declaration of Independence. The question, however, has been frequently mooted, whether a child born abroad of American parents is "a natural-born citizen" in the sense of this clause. The answer depends upon whether the definition of "citizens of the United States" in section I of Amendment XIV is to be given an exclusive or inclusive interpretation. See pp. 963-964.

PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION

Was it the thought of the Constitution that a Vice President, in succeeding to "the powers and duties" of the office of President, should succeed also to the title? In answering this question in the affirmative in 1841, John Tyler established a precedent which has been followed ever since; but inasmuch as all successions have taken place in consequence of the death in office of a President, the precedent would not necessarily hold in the case of a succession on account of the temporary inability of the incumbent President. Nor has any procedure been established for determining the question of inability, with the result that in the two instances of disability which have occurred, those of Presidents Garfield and Wilson, the former continued in office until his death and the other, after his partial recovery, till the end of his term.

The Act of 1792

In pursuance of its power to provide for the disappearance, whether permanently or temporarily, from the scene of both President and Vice President, Congress has passed three Presidential Succession Acts. A law enacted March 1, 1792[40] provided for the succession first of the President pro tempore of the Senate and then of the Speaker; but in the event that both of these offices were vacant, then the Secretary of State was to inform the executive of each State of the fact and at the same time give public notice that Electors will be appointed in each State to elect a President and Vice President, unless the regular time of such election was so near at hand as to render the step unnecessary. It is unlikely that Congress ever passed a more ill-considered law. As Madison pointed out at the time, it violated the principle of the Separation of Powers and flouted the probability that neither the President pro tempore nor the Speaker is an "officer" in the sense of this paragraph of the Constitution. It thus contemplated the possibility of there being nobody to exercise the powers of the President for an indefinite period, and at the same time set at naught, by the provision made for an interim presidential election, the synchrony evidently contemplated by the Constitution in the choice of a President with a new House of Representatives and a new one-third of the Senate. Yet this inadequate enactment remained on the statute book for nearly one hundred years, becoming all the time more and more unworkable from obsolescence. One provision of it, moreover, still survives, that which ordains that the only evidence of refusal to accept, or of resignation from the office of President or Vice President, shall be an instrument in writing declaring the same and subscribed by the person refusing to accept, or resigning, as the case may be, and delivered into the office of the Secretary of State.[41]

The Acts of 1886 and 1947

By the Presidential Succession Act of January 19, 1886,[42] recently repealed, Congress provided that, in case of the disqualification of both President and Vice President, the Secretary of State should act as President provided he possessed the qualifications laid down in clause 5, above; if not, then the Secretary of the Treasury, etc. The act apparently assumed that while a member of the Cabinet acted as President he would retain his Cabinet post. The Succession Act now in force was urged by President Truman, who argued that it was "undemocratic" for a Vice President who had succeeded to the Presidency to be able to appoint his own successor. By the act of July 18, 1947[43] the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate are put ahead of the members of the Cabinet in the order of succession, but when either succeeds he must resign both his post and his seat in Congress; and a member of the Cabinet must in the like situation resign his Cabinet post. The new act also implements Amendment XX by providing for vacancies due to failure to qualify of both a newly elected President and Vice President.

COMPENSATION AND EMOLUMENTS

Clause 7 may be advantageously considered in the light of what has been determined as to the application of the parallel provision regarding judicial salaries. See pp. 530-531.[44]

OATH OF OFFICE

What is the time relationship between a President's assumption of office and his taking the oath? Apparently the former comes first. This answer seems to be required by the language of the clause itself, and is further supported by the fact that, while the act of March 1, 1792 assumes that Washington became President March 4, 1789, he did not take the oath till April 30th. Also, in the parallel case of the coronation oath of the British Monarch, its taking has been at times postponed for years after the heir's succession.

Effect of the Oath

Does the oath add anything to the President's powers? Again to judge from its English-British antecedent, its informing purpose is to restrain rather than to aggrandize power. Jackson, it is true, appealed to the oath in his Bank Veto Message of July 10, 1832; and Lincoln did so in his Message of July 4, 1861; as did Johnson's counsel in his impeachment trial; but in each of these instances the Presidential exercise of power involved rested primarily on other grounds.

Section 2. Clause 1. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

The Commander in Chiefship

HISTORICAL

The purely military aspects of the Commander in Chiefship were those which were originally stressed. Hamilton said the office "would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the Military and naval forces, as first general and admiral of the confederacy."[45] Story wrote in his Commentaries: "The propriety of admitting the president to be commander in chief, so far as to give orders, and have a general superintendency, was admitted. But it was urged, that it would be dangerous to let him command in person, without any restraint, as he might make a bad use of it. The consent of both houses of Congress ought, therefore, to be required, before he should take the actual command. The answer then given was, that though the president might, there was no necessity that he should, take the command in person; and there was no probability that he would do so, except in extraordinary emergencies, and when he was possessed of superior military talents."[46] In 1850 Chief Justice Taney, for the Court, said: "His [the President's] duty and his power are purely military. As commander in chief, he is authorized to direct the movements of the naval and military forces placed by law at his command, and to employ them in the manner he may deem most effectual to harass and conquer and subdue the enemy. He may invade the hostile country, and subject it to the sovereignty and authority of the United States. But his conquests do not enlarge the boundaries of this Union, nor extend the operation of our institutions and laws beyond the limits before assigned to them by the legislative power. * * * But in the distribution of political power between the great departments of government, there is such a wide difference between the power conferred on the President of the United States, and the authority and sovereignty which belong to the English crown, that it would be altogether unsafe to reason from any supposed resemblance between them, either as regards conquest in war, or any other subject where the rights and powers of the executive arm of the government are brought into question."[47] Even after the Civil War a powerful minority of the Court described the role of President as Commander in Chief simply as "the command of the forces and the conduct of campaigns."[48]

THE PRIZE CASES

The basis for a broader conception was laid in certain early acts of Congress authorizing the President to employ military force in the execution of the laws.[49] In his famous message to Congress of July 4, 1861,[50] Lincoln advanced the claim that the "war power" was his for the purpose of suppressing rebellion; and in the Prize Cases[51] of 1863, a sharply divided Court sustained this theory. The immediate issue of the case was the validity of the blockade which the President, following the attack on Fort Sumter, had proclaimed of the Southern ports.[52] The argument was advanced that a blockade to be valid must be an incident of a "public war" validly declared, and that only Congress could, by virtue of its power "to declare war," constitutionally impart to a military situation this character and scope. Speaking for the majority of the Court, Justice Grier answered: "If a war be made by invasion of a foreign nation, the President is not only authorized but bound to resist force by force. He does not initiate the war, but is bound to accept the challenge without waiting for any special legislative authority. And whether the hostile party be a foreign invader, or States organized in rebellion, it is none the less a war, although the declaration of it be 'unilateral.' Lord Stowell (1 Dodson, 247) observes, 'It is not the less a war on that account, for war may exist without a declaration on either side. It is so laid down by the best writers on the law of nations. A declaration of war by one country only is not a mere challenge to be accepted or refused at pleasure by the other.' The battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma had been fought before the passage of the act of Congress of May 13, 1846, which recognized 'a state of war as existing by the act of the Republic of Mexico.' This act not only provided for the future prosecution of the war, but was itself a vindication and ratification of the Act of the President in accepting the challenge without a previous formal declaration of war by Congress. This greatest of civil wars was not gradually developed by popular commotion, tumultuous assemblies, or local unorganized insurrections. However long may have been its previous conception, it nevertheless sprung forth suddenly from the parent brain, a Minerva in the full panoply of war. The President was bound to meet it in the shape it presented itself, without waiting for Congress to baptize it with a name; and no name given to it by him or them could change the fact. * * * Whether the President in fulfilling his duties, as Commander in Chief, in suppressing an insurrection, has met with such armed hostile resistance, and a civil war of such alarming proportions as will compel him to accord to them the character of belligerents, is a question to be decided by him, and this Court must be governed by the decisions and acts of the political department of the Government to which this power was entrusted. 'He must determine what degree of force the crisis demands.' The proclamation of blockade is itself official and conclusive evidence to the Court that a state of war existed which demanded and authorized a recourse to such a measure, under the circumstances peculiar to the case."[53]

IMPACT OF THE PRIZE CASES ON WORLD WARS I AND II

In brief, the powers claimable for the President under the Commander in Chief clause at a time of wide-spread insurrection were equated with his powers under the clause at a time when the United States is engaged in a formally declared foreign war; and—impliedly—vice versa. And since Lincoln performed various acts especially in the early months of the Civil War which, like increasing the Army and Navy, admittedly fell within the constitutional province of Congress, it seems to have been assumed during World War I and World War II that the Commander in Chiefship carries with it the power to exercise like powers practically at discretion; and not merely in wartime but even at a time when war becomes a strong possibility. Nor was any attention given the fact that Lincoln had asked Congress to ratify and confirm his acts, which Congress promptly did,[54] with the exception of his suspension of the habeas corpus privilege which was regarded by many as attributable to the President in the situation then existing, by virtue of his duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.[55] Nor is this the only respect in which war or the approach of war operates to enlarge the scope of power which is claimable by the President as Commander in Chief in wartime.[56] For at such time the maxim that Congress may not delegate its powers is, by the doctrine of the Curtiss-Wright case,[57] in a state of suspended animation.[58]

PRESIDENTIAL THEORY OF THE COMMANDER IN CHIEFSHIP IN WORLD WAR II

In his message of September 7, 1942 to Congress, in which he demanded that Congress forthwith repeal certain provisions of the Emergency Price Control Act of the previous January 30th,[59] the late President Roosevelt formulated his conception of his powers as "Commander in Chief in wartime" as follows:

"I ask the Congress to take this action by the first of October. Inaction on your part by that date will leave me with an inescapable responsibility to the people of this country to see to it that the war effort is no longer imperiled by threat of economic chaos.

"In the event that the Congress should fail to act, and act adequately, I shall accept the responsibility, and I will act.

"At the same time that farm prices are stabilized, wages can and will be stabilized also. This I will do.

"The President has the powers, under the Constitution and under Congressional acts, to take measures necessary to avert a disaster which would interfere with the winning of the war.

"I have given the most thoughtful consideration to meeting this issue without further reference to the Congress. I have determined, however, on this vital matter to consult with the Congress. * * *

"The American people can be sure that I will use my powers with a full sense of my responsibility to the Constitution and to my country. The American people can also be sure that I shall not hesitate to use every power vested in me to accomplish the defeat of our enemies in any part of the world where our own safety demands such defeat.

"When the war is won, the powers under which I act automatically revert to the people—to whom they belong."[60]

PRESIDENTIAL WAR AGENCIES

While congressional compliance with the President's demand rendered unnecessary an effort on his part to amend the Price Control Act, there were other matters as to which he repeatedly took action within the normal field of congressional powers, not only during the war, but in some instances prior to it. Thus in exercising both the powers which he claimed as Commander in Chief and those which Congress conferred upon him to meet the emergency, Mr. Roosevelt employed new emergency agencies, created by himself and responsible directly to him, rather than the established departments or existing independent regulatory agencies. Oldest of all these Presidential agencies was the Office for Emergency Management (OEM), which was created by an executive order dated May 25, 1940. Others were the Board of Economic Warfare (BEW), the National Housing Agency (NHA), the National War Labor Board (NWLB), or more shortly (WLB), the Office of Censorship (OC), the Office of Civilian Defense (OCD), the Office of Defense Transportation (ODT), the Office of Facts and Figures (OFF), presently absorbed into the Office of War Information (OWI), the War Production Board (WPB), which superseded the earlier Office of Production Management (OPM), the War Manpower Commission (WMC), etc. Earlier there had been the Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply (OPACS), but was replaced under the Emergency Price Control Act of January 30, 1942, by OPA. Later OWI was created by executive order, as was also the Office of Economic Stabilization (OES). The Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion (OWMR), one of the last of the war agencies to appear, was established by the War Mobilization and Reconversion Act of October 3, 1944.[61]

CONSTITUTIONAL STATUS OF PRESIDENTIAL AGENCIES

The question of the legal status of the presidential agencies was dealt with judicially but once. This was in the decision, in June 1944, of the United States Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia in a case styled Employers Group of Motor Freight Carriers v. National War Labor Board,[62] which was a suit to annul and enjoin a "directive order" of the War Labor Board. The Court refused the injunction on the ground that at the time when the directive was issued any action of the Board was "informatory," "at most advisory." In support of this view the Court quoted approvingly a statement by the chairman of the Board itself: "These orders are in reality mere declarations of the equities of each industrial dispute, as determined by a tripartite body in which industry, labor, and the public share equal responsibility; and the appeal of the Board is to the moral obligation of employers and workers to abide by the nonstrike, no-lock-out agreement and * * * to carry out the directives of the tribunal created under that agreement by the Commander in Chief." Nor, the Court continued, had the later War Labor Disputes Act vested War Labor Board's orders with any greater authority, with the result that they were still judicially unenforceable and unreviewable. Following this theory, War Labor Board was not an office wielding power, but a purely advisory body, such as Presidents have frequently created in the past without the aid or consent of Congress. Congress itself, nevertheless, both in its appropriation acts and in other legislation, treated the Presidential agencies as in all respects offices.[63]

THE WEST COAST JAPANESE

On February 19, 1942 the President issued an executive order the essential paragraphs of which read as follows:

"Whereas the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities * * *

"Now, THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion. The Secretary of War is hereby authorized to provide for residents of any such area who are excluded therefrom, such transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations as may be necessary, in the judgment of the Secretary of War or the said Military Commander, and until other arrangements are made, to accomplish the purpose of this order. * * *

"I hereby further authorize and direct all Executive Departments, independent establishments and other Federal Agencies, to assist the Secretary of War or the said Military Commanders in carrying out this Executive Order, including the furnishing of medical aid, hospitalization, food, clothing, transportation, use of land, shelter, and other supplies, equipment, utilities, facilities and services."[64] In pursuance of this order more than 112,000 Japanese residents of Western States, of whom nearly two out of every three were natural-born citizens of the United States, were eventually removed from their farms and homes and herded, first in temporary camps, later in ten so-called "relocation centers," situated in the desert country of California, Arizona, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming and in the delta areas of Arkansas.

The Act of March 21, 1942

It was apparently the original intention of the Administration to rest its measures concerning this matter on the general principle of military necessity and the power of the Commander in Chief in wartime. But before any action of importance was taken under Executive Order 9066, Congress ratified and adopted it by the act of March 21, 1942,[65] by which it was made a misdemeanor to knowingly enter, remain in, or leave prescribed military areas contrary to the orders of the Secretary of War or of the commanding officer of the area. The cases which subsequently arose in consequence of the order were decided under the order plus the act. The question at issue, said Chief Justice Stone for the Court, "is not one of Congressional power to delegate to the President the promulgation of the Executive Order, but whether, acting in cooperation, Congress and the Executive have constitutional * * * [power] to impose the curfew restriction here complained of."[66] This question was answered in the affirmative, as was the similar question later raised by an exclusion order.[67]

PRESIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT OF LABOR RELATIONS

The most important segment of the home front regulated by what were in effect Presidential edicts was the field of labor relations. Exactly six months before Pearl Harbor, on June 7, 1941, Mr. Roosevelt, citing his proclamation thirteen days earlier of an unlimited national emergency, issued an Executive Order seizing the North American Aviation Plant at Inglewood, California, where, on account of a strike, production was at a standstill. Attorney General Jackson justified the seizure as growing out of the "'duty constitutionally and inherently rested upon the President to exert his civil and military as well as his moral authority to keep the defense efforts of the United States a going concern,'" as well as "to obtain supplies for which Congress has appropriated the money, and which it has directed the President to obtain."[68] Other seizures followed, and on January 12, 1942, Mr. Roosevelt, by Executive Order 9017, created the National War Labor Board. "Whereas," the order read in part, "by reason of the state of war declared to exist by joint resolutions of Congress, * * *, the national interest demands that there shall be no interruption of any work which contributes to the effective prosecution of the war; and Whereas as a result of a conference of representatives of labor and industry which met at the call of the President on December 17, 1941, it has been agreed that for the duration of the war there shall be no strikes or lockouts, and that all labor disputes shall be settled by peaceful means, and that a National War Labor Board be established for a peaceful adjustment of such disputes. Now, therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the statutes of the United States, it is hereby ordered: 1. There is hereby created in the Office for Emergency Management a National War Labor Board, * * *"[69] In this field, too, Congress intervened by means of the War Labor Disputes Act of June 25, 1943,[70] which however still left ample basis for Presidential activity of a legislative character.[71]

"SANCTIONS"

To implement his directives as Commander in Chief in wartime, and especially those which he issued in governing labor relations, Mr. Roosevelt often resorted to "sanctions," which may be described as penalties lacking statutory authorization. Ultimately, the President sought, by Executive Order 9370 of August 16, 1943, to put sanctions in this field on a systematic basis. This order read:

"(a) To other departments or agencies of the Government directing the taking of appropriate action relating to withholding or withdrawing from a noncomplying employer any priorities, benefits or privileges extended, or contracts entered into, by executive action of the Government, until the National War Labor Board has reported that compliance has been effectuated;

"(b) To any Government agency operating a plant, mine or facility, possession of which has been taken by the President under section 3 of the War Labor Disputes Act, directing such agency to apply to the National War Labor Board, under section 5 of said act, for an order withholding or withdrawing from a noncomplying labor union any benefits, privileges or rights accruing to it under the terms of conditions of employment in effect (whether by agreement between the parties or by order of the National War Labor Board, or both) when possession was taken, until such time as the noncomplying labor union has demonstrated to the satisfaction of the National War Labor Board its willingness and capacity to comply; but, when the check-off is denied, dues received from the check-off shall be held in escrow for the benefit of the union to be delivered to it upon compliance by it.

"(c) To the War Manpower Commission, in the case of noncomplying individuals, directing the entry of appropriate orders relating to the modification or cancellation of draft deferments or employment privileges, or both.

"Franklin D. Roosevelt.

"The White House, Aug. 16, 1943."[72]

CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS OF SANCTIONS

Sanctions were also occasionally employed by statutory agencies, as by OPA, to supplement the penal provisions of the Emergency Price Control Act of January 30, 1942;[73] and in the case of Steuart and Bro., Inc. v. Bowles,[74] the Supreme Court had the opportunity to attempt to regularize this type of executive emergency legislation. Here a retail dealer in fuel oil in the District of Columbia was charged with having violated a rationing order of OPA by obtaining large quantities of oil from its supplier without surrendering ration coupons, by delivering many thousands of gallons of fuel oil without requiring ration coupons, and so on, and was prohibited by the agency from receiving oil for resale or transfer for the ensuing year. The offender conceded the validity of the rationing order in support of which the suspension order was issued, but challenged the validity of the latter as imposing a penalty that Congress has not enacted, and asked the district court to enjoin it. The Court refused to do so and was sustained by the Supreme Court in its position. Said Justice Douglas, speaking for the Court: "Without rationing, the fuel tanks of a few would be full; the fuel tanks of many would be empty. Some localities would have plenty; communities less favorably situated would suffer. Allocation or rationing is designed to eliminate such inequalities and to treat all alike who are similarly situated. * * * But middlemen—wholesalers and retailers—bent on defying the rationing system could raise havoc with it. * * * These middlemen are the chief if not the only conduits between the source of limited supplies and the consumers. From the viewpoint of a rationing system a middleman who distributes the product in violation and disregard of the prescribed quotas is an inefficient and wasteful conduct. * * * Certainly we could not say that the President would lack the power under this Act to take away from a wasteful factory and route to an efficient one a previous supply of material needed for the manufacture of articles of war. * * * From the point of view of the factory owner from whom the materials were diverted the action would be harsh. * * * But in times of war the national interest cannot wait on individual claims to preference. * * * Yet if the President has the power to channel raw materials into the most efficient industrial units and thus save scarce materials from wastage it is difficult to see why the same principle is not applicable to the distribution of fuel oil."[75] Sanctions were, therefore, constitutional when the deprivations they wrought were a reasonably implied amplification of the substantive power which they supported and were directly conservative of the interests which this power was created to protect and advance. It is certain, however, that sanctions not uncommonly exceeded this pattern.[76]

MARTIAL LAW AND CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS

Two theories of martial law are reflected in decisions of the Supreme Court. By one, which stems from the Petition of Right, 1628, the common law knows no such thing as martial law;[77] at any rate martial law is not established by official authority of any sort, but arises from the nature of things, being the law of paramount necessity, of which necessity the civil courts are the final judges.[78] By the other theory, martial law can be validly and constitutionally established by supreme political authority in wartime. The latter theory is recognized by the Court in Luther v. Borden,[79] where it was held that the Rhode Island legislature had been within its rights in 1842 in resorting to the rights and usages of war in combating insurrection in that State. The decision in the Prize Cases,[80] while not dealing directly with the subject of martial law, gave national scope to the same general principle in 1863. The Civil War being safely over, however, a sharply divided Court, in the elaborately argued Milligan case,[81] reverting to the older doctrine, pronounced void President Lincoln's action, following his suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in September, 1863, in ordering the trial by military commission of persons held in custody as "spies" and "abettors of the enemy." The salient passage of the Court's opinion bearing on this point is the following: "If, in foreign invasion or civil war, the courts are actually closed, and it is impossible to administer criminal justice according to law, then, on the theatre of active military operations, where war really prevails, there is a necessity to furnish a substitute for the civil authority, thus overthrown, to preserve the safety of the army and society; and as no power is left but the military, it is allowed to govern by martial rule until the laws can have their free course. As necessity creates the rule, so it limits its duration; for, if this government is continued after the courts are reinstated, it is a gross usurpation of power. Martial rule can never exist where the courts are open, and in proper and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction. It is also confined to the locality of actual war."[82] Four Justices, speaking by Chief Justice Chase, while holding Milligan's trial to have been void because violative of the act of March 3, 1863 governing the custody and trial of persons who had been deprived of the habeas corpus privilege, declared their belief that Congress could have authorized Milligan's trial. Said the Chief Justice: "Congress has the power not only to raise and support and govern armies but to declare war. It has, therefore, the power to provide by law for carrying on war. This power necessarily extends to all legislation essential to the prosecution of war with vigor and success, except such as interferes with the command of the forces and the conduct of campaigns. That power and duty belong to the President as Commander in Chief. Both these powers are derived from the Constitution, but neither is defined by that instrument. Their extent must be determined by their nature, and by the principles of our institutions. * * * We by no means assert that Congress can establish and apply the laws of war where no war has been declared or exists. Where peace exists the laws of peace must prevail. What we do maintain is, that when the nation is involved in war, and some portions of the country are invaded, and all are exposed to invasion, it is within the power of Congress to determine in what States or districts such great and imminent public danger exists as justifies the authorization of military tribunals for the trial of crimes and offences against the discipline or security of the army or against the public safety."[83] In short, only Congress can authorize the substitution of military tribunals for civil tribunals for the trial of offenses; and Congress can do so only in wartime.

MARTIAL LAW IN HAWAII

The question of the constitutional status of martial law was raised in World War II by the proclamation of Governor Poindexter of Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, suspending the writ of habeas corpus and conferring on the local commanding General of the Army all his own powers as governor and also "all of the powers normally exercised by the judicial officers * * * of this territory * * * during the present emergency and until the danger of invasion is removed." Two days later the Governor's action was approved by President Roosevelt. The regime which the proclamation set up continued with certain abatements until October 24, 1944.

By section 67 of the Organic Act of April 30, 1900,[84] the Territorial Governor is authorized "in case of rebellion or invasion, or imminent danger thereof, when the public safety requires it, [to] suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or place the Territory, or any part thereof, under martial law until communication can be had with the President and his decision thereon made known." By section 5 of the Organic Act, "the Constitution, * * *, shall have the same force and effect within the said Territory as elsewhere in the United States." In a brace of cases which reached it in February 1945 but which it contrived to postpone deciding till February 1946,[85] the Court, speaking by Justice Black, held that the term "martial law" as employed in the Organic Act, "while intended to authorize the military to act vigorously for the maintenance of an orderly civil government and for the defense of the Islands against actual or threatened rebellion or invasion, was not intended to authorize the supplanting of courts by military tribunals."[86] The Court relied on the majority opinion in Ex parte Milligan. Chief Justice Stone concurred in the result. "I assume also," said he, "that there could be circumstances in which the public safety requires, and the Constitution permits, substitution of trials by military tribunals for trials in the civil courts";[87] but added that the military authorities themselves had failed to show justifying facts in this instance. Justice Burton, speaking for himself and Justice Frankfurter, dissented. He stressed the importance of Hawaii as a military outpost and its constant exposure to the danger of fresh invasion. He warned that "courts must guard themselves with special care against judging past military action too closely by the inapplicable standards of judicial, or even military, hindsight."[88]

THE CASE OF THE NAZI SABOTEURS[89]

The saboteurs were eight youths, seven Germans and one an American, who, following a course of training in sabotage in Berlin, were brought to this country in June 1942 aboard two German submarines and put ashore, one group on the Florida coast, the other on Long Island, with the idea that they would proceed forthwith to practice their art on American factories, military equipment, and installations. Making their way inland, the saboteurs were soon picked up by the FBI, some in New York, others in Chicago, and turned over to the Provost Marshal of the District of Columbia. On July 2, the President appointed a military commission to try them for violation of the laws of war, to wit: for not wearing fixed emblems to indicate their combatant status. In the midst of the trial, the accused petitioned the Supreme Court and the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for leave to bring habeas corpus proceedings. Their argument embraced the contentions: (1) that the offense charged against them was not known to the laws of the United States; (2) that it was not one arising in the land and naval forces; and (3) that the tribunal trying them had not been constituted in accordance with the requirements of the Articles of War.

The first argument the Court met as follows: The act of Congress in providing for the trial before military tribunals of offenses against the law of war is sufficiently definite, although Congress has not undertaken to codify or mark the precise boundaries of the law of war, or to enumerate or define by statute all the acts which that law condemns. "* * * those who during time of war pass surreptitiously from enemy territory into * * * [that of the United States], discarding their uniforms upon entry, for the commission of hostile acts involving destruction of life or property, have the status of unlawful combatants punishable as such by military commission."[90] The second argument it disposed of by showing that petitioners' case was of a kind that was never deemed to be within the terms of Amendments V and VI, citing in confirmation of this position the trial of Major Andre.[91] The third contention the Court overruled by declining to draw the line between the powers of Congress and the President in the premises,[92] thereby, in effect, attributing to the latter the right to amend the Articles of War in a case of the kind before the Court ad libitum.

The decision might well have rested on the ground that the Constitution is without restrictive force in wartime in a situation of this sort. The saboteurs were invaders; their penetration of the boundary of the country, projected from units of a hostile fleet, was essentially a military operation, their capture was a continuation of that operation. Punishment of the saboteurs was therefore within the President's purely martial powers as Commander in Chief. Moreover, seven of the petitioners were enemy aliens, and so, strictly speaking, without constitutional status. Even had they been civilians properly domiciled in the United States at the outbreak of the war they would have been subject under the statutes to restraint and other disciplinary action by the President without appeal to the courts.[93]

THE WAR CRIMES CASES

As a matter of fact, in General Yamashita's case,[94] which was brought after the termination of hostilities for alleged "war crimes," the Court abandoned its restrictive conception altogether. In the words of Justice Rutledge's dissenting opinion in this case: "The difference between the Court's view of this proceeding and my own comes down in the end to the view, on the one hand, that there is no law restrictive upon these proceedings other than whatever rules and regulations may be prescribed for their government by the executive authority or the military and, on the other hand, that the provisions of the Articles of War, of the Geneva Convention and the Fifth Amendment apply."[95] And the adherence of the United States to the Charter of London in August 1945, under which the Nazi leaders were brought to trial, is explicable by the same theory. These individuals were charged with the crime of instigating aggressive war, which at the time of its commission was not a crime either under International Law or under the laws of the prosecuting governments. It must be presumed that the President is not in his capacity as Supreme Commander bound by the prohibition in the Constitution of ex post facto laws; nor does International Law forbid ex post facto laws.[96]

THE PRESIDENT AS COMMANDER OF THE FORCES

While the President customarily delegates supreme command of the forces in active service, there is no constitutional reason why he should do so; and he has been known to resolve personally important questions of military policy. Lincoln early in 1862 issued orders for a general advance in the hope of stimulating McClellan to action; Wilson in 1918 settled the question of an independent American command on the Western Front; Truman in 1945 ordered that the bomb be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As against an enemy in the field the President possesses all the powers which are accorded by International Law to any supreme commander. "He may invade the hostile country, and subject it to the sovereignty and authority of the United States."[97] In the absence of attempts by Congress to limit his power, he may establish and prescribe the jurisdiction and procedure of military commissions, and of tribunals in the nature of such commissions, in territory occupied by Armed Forces of the United States, and his authority to do this sometimes survives cessation of hostilities.[98] He may employ secret agents to enter the enemy's lines and obtain information as to its strength, resources, and movements.[99] He may, at least with the assent of Congress, authorize intercourse with the enemy.[100] He may also requisition property and compel services from American citizens and friendly aliens who are situated within the theatre of military operations when necessity requires, thereby incurring for the United States the obligation to render "just compensation."[101] By the same warrant he may bring hostilities to a conclusion by arranging an armistice, stipulating conditions which may determine to a great extent the ensuing peace.[102] He may not, however, effect a permanent acquisition of territory;[103] though he may govern recently acquired territory until Congress sets up a more permanent regime.[104] He is the ultimate tribunal for the enforcement of the rules and regulations which Congress adopts for the government of the forces, and which are enforced through courts-martial.[105] Indeed, until 1830, courts-martial were convened solely on his authority as Commander in Chief.[106] Such rules and regulations are, moreover, it would seem, subject in wartime to his amendment at discretion.[107] Similarly, the power of Congress to "make rules for the government and regulation of the law and naval forces" (Art. I, § 8, cl. 14) did not prevent President Lincoln from promulgating in April, 1863 a code of rules to govern the conduct in the field of the armies of the United States which was prepared at his instance by a commission headed by Francis Lieber and which later became the basis of all similar codifications both here and abroad.[108] One important power he lacks, that of choosing his subordinates, whose grades and qualifications are determined by Congress and whose appointment is ordinarily made by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, though undoubtedly Congress could if it wished vest their appointment in "the President alone."[109] Also, the President's power to dismiss an officer from the service, once unlimited, is today confined by statute in time of peace to dismissal "in pursuance of the sentence of a general court-martial or in mitigation thereof."[110] But the provision is not regarded by the Court as preventing the President from displacing an officer of the Army or Navy by appointing with the advice and consent of the Senate another person in his place.[111] The President's power of dismissal in time of war Congress has never attempted to limit.

THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF A CIVILIAN OFFICER

Is the Commander in Chiefship a military or civilian office in the contemplation of the Constitution? Unquestionably the latter. A recent opinion by a New York surrogate deals adequately, though not authoritatively, with the subject: "The President receives his compensation for his services, rendered as Chief Executive of the Nation, not for the individual parts of his duties. No part of his compensation is paid from sums appropriated for the military or naval forces; and it is equally clear under the Constitution that the President's duties as Commander in Chief represents only a part of duties ex officio as Chief Executive [Article II, sections 2 and 3 of the Constitution] and that the latter's office is a civil office. [Article II, section 1 of the Constitution; vol. 91, Cong. Rec. 4910-4916; Beard, The Republic (1943) pp. 100-103.] The President does not enlist in, and he is not inducted or drafted into the armed forces. Nor, is he subject to court-martial or other military discipline. On the contrary, article II, section 4 of the Constitution provides that 'The President, [Vice President] and All Civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of Treason, Bribery or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.' * * * The last two War Presidents, President Wilson and President Roosevelt, both clearly recognized the civilian nature of the President's position as Commander in Chief. President Roosevelt, in his Navy Day Campaign speech at Shibe Park, Philadelphia, on October 27, 1944, pronounced this principle as follows:—'It was due to no accident and no oversight that the framers of our Constitution put the command of our armed forces under civilian authority. It is the duty of the Commander in Chief to appoint the Secretaries of War and Navy and the Chiefs of Staff.' It is also to be noted that the Secretary of War, who is the regularly constituted organ of the President for the administration of the military establishment of the Nation, has been held by the Supreme Court of the United States to be merely a civilian officer, not in military service. (United States v. Burns, 79 U.S. 246 (1871)). On the general principle of civilian supremacy over the military, by virtue of the Constitution, it has recently been said: 'The supremacy of the civil over the military is one of our great heritages.' Duncan v. Kahanamoku, 324 U.S. 833 (1945), 14 L.W. 4205 at page 4210."[112]

Presidential Advisers

THE CABINET

The above provisions are the meager residue from a persistent effort in the Federal Convention to impose a council on the President.[113] The idea ultimately failed, partly because of the diversity of ideas concerning the Council's make-up. One member wished it to consist of "members of the two houses," another wished it to comprise two representatives from each of three sections, "with a rotation and duration of office similar to those of the Senate." The proposal which had the strongest backing was that it should consist of the heads of departments and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who should preside when the President was absent. Of this proposal the only part to survive was the above cited provision. The consultative relation here contemplated is an entirely one-sided affair, is to be conducted with each principal officer separately and in writing, and to relate only to the duties of their respective offices.[114] The Cabinet, as we know it today, that is to say, the Cabinet meeting, was brought about solely on the initiative of the first President, and may be dispensed with on Presidential initiative at any time, being totally unknown to the Constitution. Several Presidents have in fact reduced the Cabinet meeting to little more than a ceremony with social trimmings.[115]

Pardons and Reprieves

THE LEGAL NATURE OF A PARDON

In the first case to be decided concerning the pardoning power, Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for the Court, said: "As this power had been exercised from time immemorial by the executive of that nation whose language is our language, and to whose judicial institutions ours bear a close resemblance; we adopt their principles respecting the operation and effect of a pardon, and look into their books for the rules prescribing the manner in which it is to be used by the person who would avail himself of it. A pardon is an act of grace, proceeding from the power entrusted with the execution of the laws, which exempts the individual, on whom it is bestowed, from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed. It is the private, though official act of the executive magistrate, delivered to the individual for whose benefit it is intended, and not communicated officially to the Court. * * * A pardon is a deed, to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance. It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered; and if it be rejected, we have discovered no power in a court to force it on him." Marshall thereupon proceeded to lay down the doctrine, that "a pardon is a deed to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance"; and that to be noticed judicially this deed must be pleaded, like any private instrument.[116]

Qualification of the Above Theory

In the case of Burdick v. United States,[117] decided in 1915, Marshall's doctrine was put to a test that seems to have overtaxed it, perhaps fatally. Burdick, having declined to testify before a federal grand jury on the ground that his testimony would tend to incriminate him, was proffered by President Wilson "a full and unconditional pardon for all offenses against the United States" which he might have committed or participated in in connection with the matter he had been questioned about. Burdick, nevertheless, refused to accept the pardon and persisted in his contumacy with the unanimous support of the Supreme Court. "The grace of a pardon," remarked Justice McKenna sententiously, "may be only a pretense * * * involving consequences of even greater disgrace than those from which it purports to relieve. Circumstances may be made to bring innocence under the penalties of the law. If so brought, escape by confession of guilt implied in the acceptance of a pardon may be rejected, * * *"[118] Nor did the Court give any attention to the fact that the President had accompanied his proffer to Burdick with a proclamation, although a similar procedure had been held to bring President Johnson's amnesties to the Court's notice.[119] In 1927, however, in sustaining the right of the President to commute a sentence of death to one of life imprisonment, against the will of the prisoner, the Court abandoned this view. "A pardon in our days," it said, "is not a private act of grace from an individual happening to possess power. It is a part of the Constitutional scheme. When granted it is the determination of the ultimate authority that the public welfare will be better served by inflicting less than what the judgment fixed."[120] Whether these words sound the death knell of the acceptance doctrine is perhaps doubtful.[121] They seem clearly to indicate that by substantiating a commutation order for a deed of pardon, a President can always have his way in such matters, provided the substituted penalty is authorized by law and does not in common understanding exceed the original penalty.[122]

SCOPE OF THE POWER

The power embraces all "offences against the United States," except cases of impeachment, and includes the power to remit fines, penalties, and forfeitures, except as to money covered into the Treasury or paid an informer;[123] also the power to pardon absolutely or conditionally; and includes the power to commute sentences, which, as seen above, is effective without the convict's consent.[124] It has been held, moreover, in face of earlier English practice, that indefinite suspension of sentence by a court of the United States is an invasion of the Presidential prerogative, amounting as it does to a condonation of the offense.[125] It was early assumed that the power included the power to pardon specified classes or communities wholesale, in short, the power to amnesty, which is usually exercised by proclamation. General amnesties were issued by Washington in 1795, by Adams in 1800, by Madison in 1815, by Lincoln in 1863, by Johnson in 1865, 1867, and 1868, and by the first Roosevelt—to Aguinaldo's followers—in 1902.[126] Not, however, till after the Civil War was the point adjudicated, when it was decided in favor of Presidential prerogative.[127]

"OFFENSES AGAINST THE UNITED STATES"; CONTEMPT OF COURT

In the first place, such offenses are not offenses against the States. In the second place, they are completed offenses;[128] the President cannot pardon by anticipation, otherwise he would be invested with the power to dispense with the laws, his claim to which was the principal cause of James II's forced abdication.[129] Lastly, the term has been held to include criminal contempts of court. Such was the holding in Ex parte Grossman,[130] where Chief Justice Taft, speaking for the Court, resorted once more to English conceptions as being authoritative in construing this clause of the Constitution. Said he: "The King of England before our Revolution, in the exercise of his prerogative, had always exercised the power to pardon contempts of court, just as he did ordinary crimes and misdemeanors and as he has done to the present day. In the mind of a common law lawyer of the eighteenth century the word pardon included within its scope the ending by the King's grace of the punishment of such derelictions, whether it was imposed by the court without a jury or upon indictment, for both forms of trial for contempts were had. [Citing cases.] These cases also show that, long before our Constitution, a distinction had been recognized at common law between the effect of the King's pardon to wipe out the effect of a sentence for contempt in so far as it had been imposed to punish the contemnor for violating the dignity of the court and the King, in the public interest, and its inefficacy to halt or interfere with the remedial part of the court's order necessary to secure the rights of the injured suitor. Blackstone IV, 285, 397, 398; Hawkins Pleas of the Crown, 6th Ed. (1787), Vol. 2, 553. The same distinction, nowadays referred to as the difference between civil and criminal contempts, is still maintained in English law[131]." Nor was any new or special danger to be apprehended from this view of the pardoning power. "If," says the Chief Justice, "we could conjure up in our minds a President willing to paralyze courts by pardoning all criminal contempts, why not a President ordering a general jail delivery?" Indeed, he queries further, in view of the peculiarities of procedure in contempt cases, "may it not be fairly said that in order to avoid possible mistake, undue prejudice or needless severity, the chance of pardon should exist at least as much in favor of a person convicted by a judge without a jury as in favor of one convicted in a jury trial[132]?"

EFFECTS OF A PARDON; EX PARTE GARLAND

The great leading case is Ex parte Garland[133] which was decided shortly after the Civil War. By an act passed in 1865 Congress had prescribed that before any person should be permitted to practice in a federal court he must take oath asserting that he had never voluntarily borne arms against the United States, had never given aid or comfort to enemies of the United States, and so on. Garland, who had been a Confederate sympathizer and so was unable to take the oath, had however received from President Johnson the same year "a full pardon 'for all offences by him committed, arising from participation, direct or implied, in the Rebellion,' * * *" The question before the Court was whether, armed with this pardon, Garland was entitled to practice in the federal courts despite the act of Congress just mentioned. Said Justice Field for a sharply divided Court: "The inquiry arises as to the effect and operation of a pardon, and on this point all the authorities concur. A pardon reaches both the punishment prescribed for the offence and the guilt of the offender; and when the pardon is full, it releases the punishment and blots out of existence the guilt, so that in the eye of the law the offender is as innocent as if he had never committed the offense. If granted before conviction, it prevents any of the penalties and disabilities consequent upon conviction from attaching; [thereto], if granted after conviction, it removes the penalties and disabilities, and restores him to all his civil rights; it makes him, as it were, a new man, and gives him a new credit and capacity."[134] Justice Miller speaking for the minority protested that the act of Congress involved was not penal in character, but merely laid down an appropriate test of fitness to practice the law. "The man who, by counterfeiting, by theft, by murder, or by treason, is rendered unfit to exercise the functions of an attorney or counsellor at law, may be saved by the executive pardon from the penitentiary or the gallows, but he is not thereby restored to the qualifications which are essential to admission to the bar."[135] Justice Field's language must today be regarded as much too sweeping in light of a decision rendered in 1914 in the case of Carlesi v. New York.[136] Carlesi had some years before been convicted of committing a federal offense. In the instant case the prisoner was being tried for a subsequent offense committed in New York. He was convicted as a second offender, although the President had pardoned him for the earlier federal offense. In other words, the fact of prior conviction by a federal court was considered in determining the punishment for a subsequent State offense. This conviction and sentence were upheld by the Supreme Court. While this case involved offenses against different sovereignties, the Court declared by way of dictum that its decision "must not be understood as in the slightest degree intimating that a pardon would operate to limit the power of the United States in punishing crimes against its authority to provide for taking into consideration past offenses committed by the accused as a circumstance of aggravation even although for such past offenses there had been a pardon granted."[137]

LIMITS TO THE EFFICACY OF A PARDON

But Justice Field's latitudinarian view of the effect of a pardon undoubtedly still applies ordinarily where the pardon is issued before conviction. He is also correct in saying that a full pardon restores a convict to his "civil rights," and this is so even though simple completion of the convict's sentence would not have had that effect. One such right is the right to testify in court, and in Boyd v. United States the Court held that the disability to testify being a consequence, according to principles of the common law, of the judgment of conviction, the pardon obliterated that effect.[138] But a pardon cannot "make amends for the past. It affords no relief for what has been suffered by the offender in his person by imprisonment, forced labor, or otherwise; it does not give compensation for what has been done or suffered, nor does it impose upon the government any obligation to give it. The offence being established by judicial proceedings, that which has been done or suffered while they were in force is presumed to have been rightfully done and justly suffered, and no satisfaction for it can be required. Neither does the pardon affect any rights which have vested in others directly by the execution of the judgment for the offence, or which have been acquired by others whilst that judgment was in force. If, for example, by the judgment a sale of the offender's property has been had, the purchaser will hold the property notwithstanding the subsequent pardon. And if the proceeds of the sale have been paid to a party to whom the law has assigned them, they cannot be subsequently reached and recovered by the offender. The rights of the parties have become vested, and are as complete as if they were acquired in any other legal way. So, also, if the proceeds have been paid into the treasury, the right to them has so far become vested in the United States that they can only be secured to the former owner of the property through an act of Congress. Moneys once in the treasury can only be withdrawn by an appropriation by law."[139]

CONGRESS AND AMNESTY

Congress cannot limit the effects of a Presidential amnesty. Thus the act of July 12, 1870, making proof of loyalty necessary to recover property abandoned and sold by the government during the Civil War, notwithstanding any Executive proclamation, pardon, amnesty, or other act of condonation or oblivion, was pronounced void. Said Chief Justice Chase for the majority: "* * * the legislature cannot change the effect of such a pardon any more than the executive can change a law. Yet this is attempted by the provision under consideration. The Court is required to receive special pardons as evidence of guilt and to treat them as null and void. It is required to disregard pardons granted by proclamation on condition, though the condition has been fulfilled, and to deny them their legal effect. This certainly impairs the executive authority and directs the Court to be instrumental to that end."[140] On the other hand, Congress may itself, under the necessary and proper clause, enact amnesty laws remitting penalties incurred under the national statutes,[141] and may stipulate that witnesses before courts or other bodies qualified to take testimony shall not be prosecuted by the National Government for any offenses disclosed by their testimony.[142]

Clause 2. He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The Treaty-Making Power

PRESIDENT AND SENATE

The plan which the Committee of Detail reported to the Federal Convention on August 6, 1787 provided that "the Senate of the United States shall have power to make treaties, and to appoint Ambassadors, and Judges of the Supreme Court."[143] Not until September 7, ten days before the Convention's final adjournment, was the President made a participant in these powers.[144] The constitutional clause evidently assumes that the President and Senate will be associated throughout the entire process of making a treaty, although Jay, writing in The Federalist, foresaw that the initiative must often be seized by the President without benefit of Senatorial counsel.[145] Yet so late as 1818 Rufus King, Senator from New York, who had been a member of the Convention, declared on the floor of the Senate: "In these concerns the Senate are the Constitutional and the only responsible counsellors of the President. And in this capacity the Senate may, and ought to, look into and watch over every branch of the foreign affairs of the nation; they may, therefore, at any time call for full and exact information respecting the foreign affairs, and express their opinion and advice to the President respecting the same, when, and under whatever other circumstances, they may think such advice expedient."[146]

NEGOTIATION A PRESIDENTIAL MONOPOLY

Actually, the negotiation of treaties had long since been taken over by the President; the Senate's role in relation to treaties is today essentially legislative in character.[147] "He alone negotiates. Into the field of negotiation, the Senate cannot intrude; and Congress itself is powerless to invade it," declared Justice Sutherland for the Court in 1936.[148] The Senate must, moreover, content itself with such information as the President chooses to furnish it.[149] In performing the function that remains to it, however, it has several options. It may consent unconditionally to a proposed treaty, or it may refuse its consent, or it may stipulate conditions in the form of amendments to the treaty or of reservations to the act of ratification, the difference between the two being that, whereas amendments, if accepted by the President and the other party or parties to the Treaty,[150] change it for all parties, reservations limit only the obligations of the United States thereunder. The act of ratification for the United States is the President's act, but may not be forthcoming unless the Senate has consented to it by the required two-thirds of the Senators present, which signifies two-thirds of a quorum, otherwise the consent rendered would not be that of the Senate as organized under the Constitution to do business.[151] Conversely, the President may, if dissatisfied with amendments which have been affixed by the Senate to a proposed treaty or with the conditions stipulated by it to ratification, decide to abandon the negotiation, which he is entirely free to do.[152]

TREATIES AS LAW OF THE LAND

Treaty commitments of the United States are of two kinds. In the language of Chief Justice Marshall in 1829; "A treaty is, in its nature, a contract between two nations, not a legislative act. It does not generally effect, of itself, the object to be accomplished; especially, so far as its operation is infraterritorial; but is carried into execution by the sovereign power of the respective parties to the instrument. In the United States, a different principle is established. Our constitution declares a treaty to be the law of the land. It is, consequently, to be regarded in courts of justice as equivalent to an act of the legislature, whenever it operates of itself, without the aid of any legislative provision. But when the terms of the stipulation import a contract—when either of the parties engages to perform a particular act, the treaty addresses itself to the political, not the judicial department; and the legislature must execute the contract, before it can become a rule for the Court."[153] To the same effect, but more accurate, is Justice Miller's language for the Court a half century later, in Head Money Cases: "A treaty is primarily a compact between independent nations. It depends for the enforcement of its provisions on the interest and the honor of the governments which are parties to it. * * * But a treaty may also contain provisions which confer certain rights upon the citizens or subjects of one of the nations residing in the territorial limits of the other, which partake of the nature of municipal law, and which are capable of enforcement as between private parties in the courts of the country."[154]

Origin of the Conception

How did this distinctive feature of the Constitution come about, by virtue of which the treaty-making authority is enabled to stamp upon its promises the quality of municipal law, thereby rendering them "self-executory," as it is said; in other words, enforceable by the courts? The answer is that article VI, paragraph 2 was, at its inception, an outgrowth of a major weakness of the Articles of Confederation. Although the Articles entrusted the treaty-making power to Congress, fulfillment of Congress' promises was dependent on the State legislatures. The result was that two highly important Articles of the Treaty of Peace of 1783 not only went unenforced, but were in some instances directly flouted by the local legislatures. These were articles IV and VI, which contained stipulations in favor, respectively, of British creditors of American citizens and of the former Loyalists; in short of private persons. Confronted with the reiterated protests of the British government, John Jay, Secretary of the United States for Foreign Affairs, suggested to Congress late in 1786 that it request the State legislatures to repeal all legislation repugnant to the Treaty of Peace, and at the same time authorize their courts in all cases arising from the said treaty to decide and adjudge according to the true intent and meaning of the same, "anything in the said acts * * * to the contrary notwithstanding." On April 13, 1787 Congress unanimously voted Jay's proposal, which on the eve of the assembling of the Federal Convention was transmitted to the State legislatures, by seven of which it was promptly adopted.[155]

TREATY RIGHTS VERSUS STATE POWER

The first case to arise under article VI, clause 2, was Ware v. Hylton.[156] The facts and bearing of the decision are indicated in the syllabus: "A debt, due before the war from an American to a British subject, was during the war, paid into the loan office of Virginia, in pursuance of a law of that State of the 20th of December, 1777, sequestering British property and providing that such payment, and a receipt therefor, should discharge the debt. Held: That the legislature of Virginia which from the 4th of July, 1776, and before the Confederation of the United States, * * * possessed and exercised all the rights of independent governments, had authority to make such law and that the same was obligatory, since every nation at war with another may confiscate all property of, including private debts due, the enemy. Such payment and discharge would therefore be a bar to a subsequent action, unless the creditor's right was revived by the treaty of peace, by which alone the restitution of, or compensation for, British property confiscated during the war by any of the United States could only be provided for. Held, that the fourth article of the treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States, of September 3, 1783, nullifies said law of Virginia, destroys the payment made under it, and revives the debt, and gives a right of recovery against the principal debtor, notwithstanding such payment thereof, under the authority of State law." In Hopkirk v. Bell[157] the Court further held that this same treaty provision prevented the operation of a Virginia statute of limitation to bar collection of antecedent debts. In numerous subsequent cases the Court invariably ruled that treaty provisions supersede inconsistent State laws governing the right of aliens to inherit real estate.[158] Such a case was Hauenstein v. Lynham,[159] in which the Court upheld the right of a citizen of the Swiss Republic, under the treaty of 1850 with that country, to recover the estate of a relative dying intestate in Virginia, to sell the same and to export the proceeds from the sale.[160]