Mr. Baldridge: “Well, Your Honor, we base the President’s power on Sections 1, 2 and 3 or Article II of the Constitution, and whatever inherent, implied or residual powers may flow therefrom....”
The Court: “So you contend the Executive has unlimited power in time of emergency.”
Mr. Baldridge: “He has the power to take such action as is necessary to meet the emergency.”
The Court: “If the emergency is great, it is unlimited, is it?”
Mr. Baldridge: “I suppose if you carry it to its logical conclusion, that is true.”
[765] 299 U.S. 304, 316-18 (1936).
[766] Most of the literature on the subject of emergency power presents an analysis of the range of actual power previously asserted by the President in time of emergency.
[767] Scores of examples of such action can be gleaned from the studies cited above, and the dissenting opinion of Chief Justice Vinson in the Steel Seizure cases, op. cit., at 667-710. E.g., Lincoln directed the payment of unappropriated funds from the treasury to private individuals, in clear violation of Article I, Sec. 9, Cl. 7 of the Constitution. In patent disregard of Article I, Sec. 8, Cl. 12, delegating to Congress the power “to raise and support armies,” he increased the strength of the Army and Navy by presidential proclamation. Binkley, op. cit., pp. 111-14. Corwin has pointed to many administrative agencies established by President Roosevelt without prior legislative sanction (Total War and the Constitution, op. cit., pp. 50-52) and has alleged that the transfer of destroyers to Britain directly violated “at least two statutes and represented an exercise by the President of a power which by the Constitution is specifically assigned to Congress.” (The President: Office and Powers, op. cit., p. 289; 4th ed., 1957, p. 238).
[768] 343 U.S. 579 at 611.
[769] Petitioners’ Brief, p. 66.