On April 8, 1952, President Harry S. Truman issued an executive order directing his secretary of commerce to take possession of most of the nation’s steel mills. The United States was at war. The United Steelworkers of America threatened a strike. Truman wanted to secure steel production to support the war. Fifty-five days later, in Youngstown Steel v. Sawyer, the Supreme Court declared the president’s order illegal and blocked the secretary from acting upon it. The power to seize property to stop a labor strike was Congress’ to give, not the president’s to take. “The Founders of this Nation,” as the court wrote, “entrusted the lawmaking power to the Congress alone.” The president is to execute Congress’ law, not craft his own law instead.
Fifty-five days.
Most think that the hard question in constitutional law is to determine what the Constitution means. In fact, the hardest question is whether and when the courts must stand up to governmental actors who are resisting the Constitution. Judges have long understood that courts can’t right every wrong. The challenge is always to defend the Constitution while preserving the role of an independent court.
In 1993, the president of the Russian Constitutional Court, Valery Zorkin, discovered what happens when a court tries to do too much: After a series of rulings essaying to restrict the…
