The supreme court, of the corporate United states, decides Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer a.k.a. The Steel Seizure Case: “The President’s power, if any, to issue the order [to seize property] must stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself.  There is no statute that expressly authorizes the President to take possession of property. …”

       In a concurring opinion, Robert H. Jackson, associate justice, writes,

       [N]o doctrine that the [c]ourt could promulgate would seem to me more sinister and alarming than that a President whose conduct of foreign affairs is so largely uncontrolled, and often even is unknown, can vastly enlarge his mastery over the internal affairs of the country by his own commitment of the [n]ation’s armed forces to some foreign venture.

     [updated 5/24/2025]