Author: J. Malcolm Smith

Publisher: Library of Alexandria

Published:

Total Pages: 137

ISBN-13: 1465506969

The general welfare, and military effectiveness of a modern industrial nation depend upon the harmonious interaction of a complex, interdependent network of production and transportation facilities. The interruption of this process at any of a myriad of critical points can disrupt the supply of essential civilian and military materials, possibly undermining the economic health or military security of the nation. The urban concentration of population and the refinement of communication devices and techniques for manipulating public opinion make it increasingly possible to instill in the civilian population an hysteria and terror which could effectively thwart national mobilization. Realization of the magnitude of the problem, and a pervasive fear of military assault, vitally influence the process of continuous redefinition of the balance between collective authority and individual liberty which is the essential task of democratic government in war as in peace. Emergency government has become the norm for twentieth century constitutional states. An assessment of the adequacy with which democratic government has, in the recurrent economic and military emergencies since 1933, combined mobilization of “the ... power of every individual and of every material resource at its command” toward the objective of national survival and well-being, with the protection of basic individual freedoms and the principle of responsible government which are the heart of democracy, must in substantial part rest upon an analysis of the contents of the statute books. That is the purpose of this study. Its classification of legislative delegations of emergency powers to the executive since 1933 should provide not only indication of the extent to which coercive powers over persons and property have been granted the executive in the name of emergency, but also a framework for the organization of a series of studies into the use of such powers by the executive branch, and the success of congressional and other efforts to maintain responsible administration in time of emergency. There exists no dearth of recorded efforts to define the ultimate scope of the constitutional emergency power of the American executive. Various justices of the Supreme Court have hypothesized, at one end of a continuum, inflexible constitutional restraints upon executive response to perceived emergency, and at the other end an emergency power which is either unrestrained or unrestrainable. In this manner the Supreme Court has sought to resolve the conundrum, “How can a virtually unlimited emergency power and a systematic body of constitutional limitations upon government action logically coexist? How can constitutionalism be ought but an anachronism in the twentieth century unless constitutional governments are equipped with adequate legal authority to carry the body politic through economic and military emergencies of staggering dimensions?” The considerable body of scholarly literature in this field is principally devoted to speculation on the breadth of the “inherent,” “residual,” “executive,” or “war” power of the President, and description of occasions on which the nation’s chief executives have considered it necessary to exercise a prerogative “power to act according to discretion for the public good, without the prescription of the law and sometimes even against it.” But despite such incidents as President Roosevelt’s 1942 Labor Day speech admonishing the Congress that unless it repealed certain provisions of the Emergency Price Control Act by October 1st, he would consider them repealed, emergency administration is overwhelmingly characterized by joint participation and cooperation of the varying branches of the federal government. American government in time of war does not degenerate to anything resembling dictatorship, and to focus attention upon the exceptions to executive-legislative cooperation in war administration is to study the pathology of emergency administration.