Overview

Necessity and crisis produce the laws most significant to society. The greatest socially designed crisis is war. But, as productive as it is of laws and yet recognized by society as lawful, it violates the very fundamentals of organized society. War is the legalization of strife and tyranny. The purpose of the study is to seek out the war powers exercised by our Presidents upon domestic soil. The study looks back through the pages of our war history to the early exercises of Presidential war powers to note their beginnings and to show their developments. The study reflects the extent to which the President's office has had sufficient powers to meet the war emergencies and whether Congress has performed its constitutional obligation to enact legislation conferring capable war powers upon the President. It will be seen that the present powers bear the marks of evolution. The most significant development will be found in the economic controls and the present stage of plans to impose further economic controls. Plans have been made and additional wartime economic controls may be just around the corner. The study notes that the President and the Congress are both functioning on the misunderstanding of the dynamic role public opinion has played in times of crisis. There is an inextricable interwoven relationship between public sentiment and all decision making in this country. One could not expect otherwise where freedom of speech is paramount. Up to the point where emergency action is an absolute necessity, public sentiment has played an abiding overriding role in our war power decision making. The President and Congress have failed to capitalize on this abiding overriding power that has been such a guiding force behind Presidential wartime powers. They have more fear of the public than is justified and vastly more support from it than they recognize. They have focused all too much on the limiting effect of public sentiment and failed to take advantage of its power. While it is frequently said that ours is a government of checks and balances between the three branches-Legislative, Executive and Judicial-the true depth of power and the weighty check upon the abuse of that power has been that of public sentiment. Ours is a government of balance and we must not tilt or ignore any aspect of the balance-the President, the Congress, the courts and the public sentiment.

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