Powers of the President during crises

by J. Malcolm Smith; Cornelius P. Cotter

POWERS
OF THE
PRESIDENT
DURING
CRISES

POWERS
OF THE
PRESIDENT
DURING
CRISES

J. Malcolm Smith
and
Cornelius P. Cotter

PUBLIC AFFAIRS PRESS

Washington, D. C.

Copyright, 1960, by Public Affairs Press
419 New Jersey Avenue, S.E., Washington, D. C.

Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 59-14964

FOREWORD

The use of emergency power in a democracy raises many questions relative to the constitutional basis for its authorization and the manner of its exercise. If used too little and too late a democratic state might be destroyed when the proper use of the emergency power possibly could have saved it. If used arbitrarily and capriciously, its use could degenerate into the worst form of dictatorship.

As a boy I was the chauffeur for a country doctor. One day while driving to see a patient who was gravely ill, the doctor opened his medicine chest and pointed to a glass vial containing morphine. “That drug,” he said, “is the most potent medicine in my chest but requires great skill in prescribing. Used properly it relieves pain and suffering. Used improperly it makes animals of men.” Emergency power bears to government the same general relationship of morphine to man. Used properly in a democratic state it never supplants the constitution and the statutes but is restorative in nature. Used improperly it becomes the very essence of tyranny.