Opinion of

the court.

At the last term on the affidavits then read and filed with the clerk, a rule was granted in this case, requiring the secretary of state to shew cause why a mandamus *154should not issue, directing him to deliver to William Marbury his commission as a justice of the peace for the county of Washington in the district of Columbia.

No cause has been shewn, and the present motion is for a mandamus. The peculiar delicacy of this case, the novelty of some of its circumstances, and the real difficulty attending the points which occur in it, require a complete exposition of the principles, on which the opinion to be given by the court, is founded.

These principles have been, on the side of the applicant, very ably argued at the bar. In rendering the opinion of the court, there will be some departure in form, though not in substance, from the points stated in that argument.

In the order in which the court has viewed this subject, the following questions have been considered and decided.

1st. Has the applicant a right to the commission he demands ?

2dly. If he has a right, and that right has been violated, do the laws of his country afford him a remedy?

3dly. If they do afford him a remedy, is it a mandamus issuing from this court?

The first object of enquiry is,

1st. Has the applicant a right to the commission he demands?

His right originates in an act of congress passed in February 1801, concerning the district of Columbia.

After dividing the district into two counties, the 11th section of this law, enacts, “ that there shall be appointed in and for each of the said counties, such number of discreet persons to be justices of the peace as the president of the United States shall, from time to time, think expedient, to continue in office for five years.

*155It appears, from the affidavits, that in compliance with this law, a commission for William Marbury as justice of peace for the country of Washington, was signed by John Adams, then president of the United States; after which the seal of the United States was affixed to it; but the commission has never reached the person for whom it was made out.

In order to determine whether he is entitled to this commission, it becomes necessary to enquire whether he has been appointed to the office. For if he has been appointed, the law continues him in office for five years, and he is entitled to the possession of those evidences of office, which, being completed, became his property.

The 2d section of the 2d article of the constitution, declares, that, “ the president shall nominate, and, by “ and with the advice and consent of the senate, shall “ appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, “ and all other officers of the United States, whose ap- “ pointments are not otherwise provided for.”

The third section declares, that “ he shall commission “ all the officers of the United States.”

An act of congress directs the secretary of state to keep the seal of the United States, “ to make out and record, and affix the said seal to all civil commissions to officers of the United States, to be appointed by the President, by and with the consent of the senate, or by the President alone; provided that the said seal shall not be affixed to any commission before the same shall have been signed by the President of the United States.”

These are the clauses of the constitution and laws of the United States, which affect this part of the case. They seem to contemplate three distinct operations:

1st, The nomination. This is the sole act of the President, and is completely voluntary.

2d. The appointment. This is also the act of the President, and is also a voluntary act, though it can only be performed by and with the advice and consent of the senate.

*1563d. The commission. To grant a commission to a person appointed, might perhaps be deemed a duty enjoined by the constitution. " He shall," says that instrument, " commission all the officers of the United States."

The acts of appointing to office, and commissioning the person appointed, can scarcely be considered as one and the same; since the power to perform them is given in two separate and distinct sections of the constitution. The distinction between the appointment and the commission will be rendered more apparent, by adverting to that provision in the second section of the second article of the constitution, which authorizes congress " to vest, by law, the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments ;" thus contemplating cases where the law may direct the President to commission an officer appointed by the courts, or by the heads of departments. In such a case, to issue a commission would be apparently a duty distinct from the appointment, the performance of which, perhaps, could not legally be refused.

Although that clause of the constitution which requires the President to commission all the officers of the United States, may never have been applied to officers appointed otherwise than by himself, yet it would be difficult to deny the legislative power to apply it to such cases. Of consequence the constitutional distinction between the appointment to an office and the commission of an officer, who has been appointed, remains the same as if in practice the President had commissioned officers appointed by an authority other than his own.

It follows too, from the existence of this distinction, that, if an appointment was to be evidenced by any public act, other than the commission, the performance of such public act would create the officer; and if he was not removeable at the will of the President, would either give him a right to his commission, or enable him to perform the duties without it.

These observations are premised solely for the purpose of rendering more intelligible those which apply more directly to the particular case under consideration.

*157This is an appointment made by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the senate, and is evidenced by no act but the commission itself. In such a case therefore the commission and the appointment seem inseparable; it being almost impossible to shew an appointment otherwise than by proving the existence of a commission; still the commission is not necessarily the appointment ; though conclusive evidence of it.

But at what stage does it amount to this conclusive evidence ?

The answer to this question seems an obvious one. The appointment being the sole act of the President, must be completely evidenced, when it is shewn that he has done every thing to be performed by him.

Should the commission, instead of being evidence of an appointment, even be considered as constituting the appointment itself; still it would be made when the last act to be done by the President was performed, or, at furthest, when the commission was complete.

The last act to be done by the President, is the signature of the commission. He has then acted on the advice and consent of the senate to his own nomination. The time for deliberation has then passed. He has decided. His judgment, on the advice and consent of the senate concurring with his nomination, has been made, and the officer is appointed. This appointment is evidenced by an open, unequivocal act; and being the last act required from the person making it, necessarily excludes the idea of its being, so far as respects the appointment, an inchoate and incomplete transaction.

Some point of time must be taken when the power of the executive over an officer, not removeable at his will, must cease. That point of time must be when the constitutional power of appointment has been exercised. And this power has been exercised when the last act, required from the person possessing the power, has been performed. This last act is the signature of the commission. This idea seems to have prevailed with the legislature, when the act passed, converting the department *158of foreign affairs into the department of state. By that act it is enacted, that the secretary of state shall keep that seal of the United States, and shall make out and re- " cord, and shall affix the said seal to all civil commissions “ to officers of the United States, to be appointed by the “ President:" "Provided that the said seal shall not be af- “ fixed to any commission, before the same shall have been “ signed by the President of the United States; nor to “ any other instrument or act, without the special war- “ rant of the President therefor.”

The signature is a warrant for affixing the great seal to the commission; and the great seal is only to be affixed to an instrument which is complete. It attests, by an act supposed to be of public notoriety, the verity of the Presidential signature.

It is never to be affixed till the commission is signed, because the signature, which gives force and effect to the commission, is conclusive evidence that the appointment is made.

The commission being signed, the subsequent duty of the secretary of state is prescribed by law, and not to be guided by the will of the President. He is to affix the seal of the United States to the commission, and is to record it.

This is not a proceeding which may be varied, if the judgment of the executive shall suggest one more eligible; but is a precise course accurately marked out by law, and is to be strictly pursued. It is the duty of the secretary of state to conform to the law, and in this he is an officer of the United States, bound to obey the laws. He acts, in this respect, as has been very properly stated at the bar, under the authority of law, and not by the instructions of the President. It is a ministerial act which the law enjoins on 3 particular officer for a particular purpose.

If it should be supposed, that the solemnity of affixing the seal, is necessary not only to the validity of the commission, but even to the completion of an appointment, still when the seal is affixed the appointment is made, and *159the commission is valid. No other solemnity is required by law ; no other act is to be performed on the part of government. All that the executive can do to invest the person with his office, is done; and unless the appointment be then made, the executive cannot make one without the co-operation of others.

After searching anxiously for the principles on which a contrary opinion may be supported, none have been found which appear of sufficient force to maintain the opposite doctrine.

Such as the imagination of the court could suggest, have been very deliberately examined, and after allowing them all the weight which it appears possible to give them, they do not shake the opinion which has been formed.

In considering this question, it has been conjectured that the commission may have been assimilated to a deed, to the validity of which, delivery is essential.

This idea is founded on the supposition that the commission is not merely evidence of an appointment, but is itself the actual appointment; a supposition by no means unquestionable. But for the purpose of examining this objection fairly, let it be conceded, that the principle, claimed for its support, is established.

The appointment being, under the constitution, to be made by the President personally, the delivery of the deed of appointment, if necessary to its completion, must be made by the President also. It is not necessary that the livery should be made personally to the grantee of the office : It never is so made. The law would seem to contemplate that it should be made to the secretary of state, since it directs the secretary to affix the seal to the commission after it shall have been signed by the President. If then the act of livery be necessary to give validity to the commission, it has been delivered when executed and given to the secretary for the purpose of being sealed, recorded, and transmitted to the party.

But in all cases of letters patent, certain solemnities are required by law, which solemnities are the evidences *160of the validity of the instrument. A formal delivery to the person is not among them. In cases of commissions, the sign manual of the President, and the seal of the United States, are those solemnities. This objection therefore does not touch the case.

It has also occurred as possible, and barely possible, that the transmission of the commission, and the acceptance thereof, might be deemed necessary to complete the right of the plaintiff.

The transmission of the commission, is a practice directed by convenience, but not by law. It cannot therefore be necessary to constitute the appointment which must precede it, and which is the mere act of the President. If the executive required that every person appointed to an office, should himself take means to procure his commission, the appointment would not be the less valid on that account. The appointment is the sole act of the President; the transmission of the commission is the sole act of the officer to whom that duty is assigned, and may be accelerated or retarded by circumstances which can have no influence on the appointment. A commission is transmitted to a person already appointed ; not to a person to be appointed or not, as the letter enclosing the commission should happen to get into the post-office and reach him in safety, or to miscarry.

It may have some tendency to elucidate this point, to enquire, whether the possession of the original commission be indispensably necessary to authorize a person, appointed to any office, to perform the duties of that office. If it was necessary, then a loss of the commission would lose the office. Not only negligence, but accident or fraud, fire or theft, might deprive an individual of his office. In such a case, I presume it could not be doubted, but that a copy from the record of the office of the secretary of state, would be, to every intent and purpose, equal to the original. The act of congress has expressly made it so. To give that copy validity, it would not be necessary to prove that the original had been transmitted and afterwards lost. The copy would be complete evidence that the original had existed, and that the appointment had been made, but, not that the original had been transmitted. If indeed it should appear that *161the original had been mislaid in the office of state, that circumstance would not affect the operation of the copy. When all the requisites have been performed which authorize a recording officer to record any instrument whatever, and the order for that purpose has been given, the instrument is, in law, considered as recorded, although the manual labour of inserting it in a book kept for that purpose may not have been performed.

In the case of commissions, the law orders the secretary of state to record them. When therefore they are signed and sealed, the order for their being recorded is given; and whether inserted in the book or not, they are in law recorded.

A copy of this record is declared equal to the original, and the fees, to be paid by a person requiring a copy, are ascertained by law. Can a keeper of a public record, erase therefrom a commission which has been recorded ? Or can he refuse a copy thereof to a person demanding it on the terms prescribed by law ?

Such a copy would, equally with the original, authorize the justice of peace to proceed in the performance of his duty, because it would, equally with the original, attest his appointment.

If the transmission of a commission be not considered as necessary to give validity to an appointment; still less is its acceptance. The appointment is the sole act of the President; the acceptance is the sole act of the officer, and is, in plain common sense, posterior to the appointment. As he may resign, so may he refuse to accept : but neither the one, nor the other, is capable of rendering the appointment a non-entity.

That this is the understanding of the government, is apparent from the whole tenor of its conduct.

A commission bears date, and the salary of the officer commences from his appointment; not from the transmission or acceptance of his commission. When a person, appointed to any office, refuses to accept that office, the successor is nominated in the place of the person who *162has declined to accept, and not in the place of the person who had been previously in office, and had created the original vacancy.

It is therefore decidedly the opinion of the court, that when a commission has been signed by the President, the appointment is made ; and that the commission is complete, when the seal of the United States has been affixed to it by the secretary of state.

Where an officer is removeable at the will of the executive, the circumstance which completes his appointment is of no concern; because the act is at any time revocable; and the commission may be arrested, if still in the office. But when the officer is not removeable at the will of the executive, the appointment is not revocable, and cannot be annulled. It has conferred legal rights which cannot be resumed.

The discretion of the executive is to be exercised until the appointment has been made. But having once made the appointment, his power over the office is terminated in all cases, where, by law, the officer is not removeable by him. The right to the office is then in the person appointed, and he has the absolute, unconditional, power of accepting or rejecting it.

Mr. Marbury, then, since his commission was signed by the President, and sealed by the secretary of state, was appointed; and as the law creating the office, gave the officer a right to hold for five years, independent of the executive, the appointment was not revocable; but vested in the officer legal rights, which are protected by the laws of his country.

To withhold his commission, therefore, is an act deemed by the court not warranted by law, but violative of a vested legal right.

This brings us to the second enquiry ; which is,

2dly. If he has a right, and that right has been violated, do the laws of his country afford him a remedy?

*163The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws, whenever he receives an injury. One of the first duties of government is to afford that protection. In Great Britain the king himself is sued in the respectful form of a petition, and he never fails to comply with the judgment of his court.

In the 3d vol. of his commentaries, p. 23, Blackstone states two cases in which a remedy is afforded by mere operation of law.

“In all other cases,” he says, “it is a general and indis-“putable rule, that where there is a legal right, there is “ also a legal remedy by suit or action at law, whenever “that right is invaded.”

And afterwards, p. 109, of the same vol. he says, “I "am next to consider such injuries as are cognizable by “the courts of the common law. And herein I shall for "the present only remark, that all possible injuries what-"soever, that did not fall within the exclusive cognizance “of either the ecclesiastical, military, or maritime tribu-"nals, are for that very reason, within the cognizance "of the common law courts of justice; for it is a settled "and invariable principle in the laws of England, that "every right, when withheld, must have a remedy, and “every injury its proper redress.”

The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.

If this obloquy is to be cast on the jurisprudence of our country, it must arise from the peculiar character of the case.

It behoves us then to enquire whether there be in its composition any ingredient which shall exempt it from legal investigation, or exclude the injured party from legal redress. In pursuing this enquiry the first question which presents itself, is, whether this can be arranged *164with that class of cases which come under the description of damnum absque injuria—a loss without an injury.

This description of cases never has been considered, and it is believed never can be considered, as comprehending offices of trust, of honor or of profit. The office of justice of peace in the district of Columbia is such an office; it is therefore worthy of the attention and guardianship of the laws. It has received that attention and guardianship. It has been created by special act of congress, and has been secured, so far as the laws can give security to the person appointed to fill it, for five years. It is not then on account of the worthlessness of the thing pursued, that the injured party can be alleged to be without remedy.

Is it in the nature of the transaction ? Is the act of delivering or withholding a commission to be considered as a mere political act, belonging to the executive department alone, for the performance of which, entire confidence is placed by our constitution in the supreme executive; and for any misconduct respecting which, the injured individual has no remedy.

That there may be such cases is not to be questioned; but that every act of duty, to be performed in any of the great departments of government, constitutes such a case, is not to be admitted.

By the act concerning invalids, passed in June, 1794, vol. 3. p. 112, the secretary at war is ordered to place on the pension list, all persons whose names are contained in a report previously made by him to congress. If he should refuse to do so, would the wounded veteran be without remedy ? Is it to be contended that where the law in precise terms, directs the performance of an act, in which an individual is interested, the law is incapable of securing obedience to its mandate ? Is it on account of the character of the person against whom the complaint is made ? Is it to be contended that the heads of departments are not amenable to the laws of their country ?

Whatever the practice on particular occasions may be, the theory of this principle will certainly never be main*165tained. No act of the legislature confers so extraordinary a privilege, nor can it derive countenance from the doctrines of the common law. After stating that personal injury from the king to a subject is presumed to be impossible, Blackstone, vol. 3. p. 255, says, “but injuries “to the rights of property can scarcely be committed by “the crown without the intervention of its officers; for "whom, the law, in matters of right, entertains no re-“spect or delicacy; but furnishes various methods of de-"tecting the errors and misconduct of those agents, by "whom the king has been deceived and induced to do a “temporary injustice.”

By the act passed in 1796, authorising the sale of the lands above the mouth of Kentucky river (vol. 3d. p. 2991 the purchaser, on paying his purchase money, becomes completely entitled to the property purchased; and on producing to the secretary of state, the receipt of the treasurer upon a certificate required by the law, the president of the United States is authorised to grant him a patent. It is further enacted that all patents shall be countersigned by the secretary of state, and recorded in his office. If the secretary of state should choose to withhold this patent; or the patent being lost, should refuse a copy of it; can it be imagined that the law furnishes to the injured person no remedy?

It is not believed that any person whatever would attempt to maintain such a proposition.

It follows then that the question, whether the legality of an act of the head of a department be examinable in a court of justice or not, must always depend on the nature of that act.

If some acts be examinable, and others not, there must be some rule of law to guide the court in the exercise of its jurisdiction.

In some instances there may be difficulty in applying the rule to particular cases; but there cannot, it is believed, be much difficulty in laying down the rule.

By the constitution of the United States, the President is invested with certain important political powers, in the *166exercise of which he is to use his own discretion, and is accountable only to his country in his political character, and to his own conscience. To aid him in the performance of these duties, he is authorized to appoint certain officers, who act by his authority and in conformity with his orders.

In such cases, their acts are his acts; and whatever opinion may be entertained of the manner in which executive discretion may be used, still there exists, and can exist, no power to control that discretion. The subjects are political. They respect the nation, not individual rights, and being entrusted to the executive, the decision of the executive is conclusive. The application of this remark will be perceived by adverting to the act of congress for establishing the department of foreign affairs. This officer, as his duties were prescribed by that act, is to conform precisely to the will of the President. He is the mere organ by whom that will is communicated. The acts of such an officer, as an officer, can never be examinable by the courts.

But when the legislature proceeds to impose on that officer other duties; when he is directed peremptorily to perform certain acts; when the rights of individuals are dependent on the performance of those acts; he is so far the officer of the law; is amenable to the laws for his conduct; and cannot at his discretion sport away the vested rights of others.

The conclusion from this reasoning is, that where the heads of departments are the political or confidential agents of the executive, merely to execute the will of the President, or rather to act in cases in which the executive possesses a constitutional or legal discretion, nothing can be more perfectly clear than that their acts are only politically examinable. But where a specific duty is assigned by law, and individual rights depend upon the performance of that duty, it seems equally clear that the individual who considers himself injured, has a right to resort to the laws of his country for a remedy.

If this be the rule, let us enquire how it applies to the case under the consideration of the court.

*167The power of nominating to the senate, and the power of appointing the person nominated, are political powers, to be exercised by the President according to his own discretion. When he has made an appointment, he has exercised his whole power, and his discretion has been completely applied to the case. If, by law, the officer be removable at the will of the President, then a new appointment may be immediately made, and the rights of the officer are terminated. But as a fact which has existed cannot be made never to have existed, the appointment cannot be annihilated; and consequently if the officer is by law not removable at the will of the President; the rights he has acquired are protected by the law, and are not resumable by the President. They cannot be extinguished by executive authority, and he has the privilege of asserting them in like manner as if they had been derived from any other source.

The question whether a right has vested or not, is, in its nature, judicial, and must be tried by the judicial authority. It, for example, Mr. Marbury had taken the oaths of a magistrate, and proceeded to act as one; in consequence of which a suit had been instituted against him, in which his defence had depended on his being a magistrate; the validity of his appointment must have been determined by judicial authority.

So, if he conceives that, by virtue of his appointment, he has a legal right, either to the commission which has been made out for him, or to a copy of that commission, it is equally a question examinable in a court, and the decision of the court upon it must depend on the opinion entertained of his appointment.

That question has been discussed, and the opinion is, that the latest point of time which can be taken as that at which the appointment was complete, and evidenced, was when, after the signature of the president, the seal of the United States was affixed to the commission.

It is then the opinion of the court,

1st. That by signing the commission of Mr. Marbury, the president of the United States appointed him a justice *168of peace, for the county of Washington in the district of Columbia; and that the seal of the United States, affixed thereto by the secretary of state, is conclusive testimony of the verity of the signature, and of the completion of the appointment; and that the appointment conferred on him a legal right to the office for the space of five years.

2dly. That, having this legal title to the office, he has a consequent right to the commission; a refusal to deliver which, is a plain violation of that right, for which the laws of his country afford him a remedy.

It remains to be enquired whether,

3dly. He is entitled to the remedy for which he applies. This depends on,

1st. The nature of the writ applied for, and,

2dly. The power of this court.

1st. The nature of the writ.

Blackstone, in the 3d volume of his commentaries, page 110, defines a mandamus to be, “a command is-“suing in the king’s name from the court of king’s bench, "and directed to any person, corporation, or inferior "court of judicature within the king’s dominions, re-"quiring them to do some particular thing therein speci-"fied, which appertains to their office and duty, and “which the court of king’s bench has previously deter-“mined, or at least supposes, to be consonant to right “and justice.”

Lord Mansfield, in 3d Burrows 1266, in the case of the King v. Baker, et al. states with much precision and explicitness the cases in which this writ may be used.

“ Whenever,” says that very able judge, “there is a “right to execute an office, perform a service, or exercise “ a franchise (more especially if it be in a matter of pub-“lic concern, or attended with profit) and a person is “kept out of possession, or dispossessed of such right, and *169"has no other specific legal remedy, this court ought "to assist by mandamus, upon reasons of justice, as the “writ expresses, and upon reasons of public policy, to "preserve peace, order and good government.” In the same case he says, “this writ ought to be used upon all “occasions where the law has established no specific “remedy, and where in justice and good government “there ought to be one.”

In addition to the authorities now particularly cited, many others were relied on at the bar, which show how far the practice has conformed to the general doctrines that have been just quoted.

This writ, if awarded, would be directed to an officer of government, and its mandate to him would be, to use the words of Blackstone, “to do a particular thing “therein specified, which appertains to his office and “duty and which the court has previously determined, “or at least supposes, to be consonant to right and jus-“tice.” Or, in the words of Lord Mansfield, the applicant, in this case, has a right to execute an office of public concern, and is kept out of possession of that right.

These circumstances certainly concur in this case.

Still, to render the mandamus a proper remedy, the officer to whom it is to be directed, must be one to whom, on legal principles, such writ may be directed; and the person applying for it must be without any other specific and legal remedy.

1st. With respect to the officer to whom it would be directed. The intimate political relation, subsisting between the president of the United States and the heads of departments, necessarily renders any legal investigation of the acts of one of those high officers peculiarly irksome, as well as delicate; and excites some hesitation with respect to the propriety of entering into such investigation. Impressions are often received without much reflection or examination, and it is not wonderful that in such a case, as this, the assertion, by an individual, of his legal claims, in a court of justice; to which claims it is the duty of that court to attend; should at first view be considered *170by some, as an attempt to intrude into the cabinet, and to intermeddle with the prerogatives of the executive.

It is scarcely necessary for the court to disclaim all pretensions to such a jurisdiction. An extravagance, so absurd and excessive, could not have been entertained for a moment. The province of the court is, solely, to decide on the rights of individuals, not to enquire how the executive, or executive officers, perform duties in which they have a discretion. Questions, in their nature political, or which are, by the constitution and laws, submitted to the executive, can never be made in this court.

But, if this be not such a question; if so far from being an intrusion into the secrets of the cabinet, it respects a paper, which, according to law, is upon record, and to a copy of which the law gives a right, on the payment of ten cents; if it be no intermeddling with a subject, over which the executive can be considered as having exercised any control; what is there in the exalted station of the officer, which shall bar a citizen from asserting, in a court of justice, his legal rights, or shall forbid a court to listen to the claim; or to issue a mandamus, directing the performance of a duty, not depending on executive discretion, but on particular acts of congress and the general principles of law?

If one of the heads of departments commits any illegal act, under color of his office, by which an individual sustains an injury, it cannot be pretended that his office alone exempts him from being sued in the ordinary mode of proceeding, and being compelled to obey the judgment of the law. How then can his office exempt him from this particular mode of deciding on the legality of his conduct, if the case be such a case as would, were any other individual the party complained of, authorize the process?

It is not by the office of the person to whom the writ is directed, but the nature of the thing to be done that the propriety or impropriety of issuing a mandamus, is to be determined. Where the head of a department acts in a case, in which executive discretion is to be exercised; in which he is the mere organ of executive will; it is *171again repeated, that any application to a court to control, in any respect, his conduct, would be rejected without hesitation.

But where he is directed by law to do a certain act affecting the absolute rights of individuals, in the performance of which he is not placed under the particular direction of the President, and the performance of which, the President cannot lawfully forbid, and therefore is never presumed to have forbidden; as for example, to record a commission, or a patent for land, which has received all the legal solemnities; or to give a copy of such record; in such cases, it is not perceived on what ground the courts of the country are further excused from the duty of giving judgment, that right be done to an injured individual, than if the same services were to be performed by a person not the head of a department.

This opinion seems not now, for the first time, to be taken up in this country.

It must be well recollected that in 1792, an act passed, directing the secretary at war to place on the pension list such disabled officers and soldiers as should be reported to him, by the circuit courts, which act, so far as the duty was imposed on the courts, was deemed unconstitutional; but some of the judges, thinking that the law might be executed by them in the character of commissioners, proceeded to act and to report in that character.

This law being deemed unconstitutional at the circuits, was repealed, and a different system was established; but the question whether those persons, who had been reported by the judges, as commissioners, were entitled, in consequence of that report, to be placed on the pension list, was a legal question, properly determinable in the courts, although the act of placing such persons on the list was to be performed by the head of a department.

That this question might be properly settled, congress passed an act in February, 1793, making it the duty of the secretary of war, in conjunction with the attorney general, to take such measures, as might be necessary to obtain an adjudication of the supreme court of the United *172States on the validity of any such rights, claimed under the act aforesaid.

After the passage of this act, a mandamus was moved for, to be directed to the secretary at war, commanding him to place on the pension list, a person stating himself to be on the report of the judges.

There is, therefore, much reason to believe, that this mode of trying the legal right of the complainant, was deemed by the head of a department, and by the highest law officer of the United States, the most proper which could be selected for the purpose.

When the subject was brought before the court the decision was, not that a mandamus would not lie to the head of a department, directing him to perform an act, enjoined by law, in the performance of which an individual had a vested interest; but that a mandamus ought not to issue in that case—the decision necessarily to be made if the report of the commissioners did not confer on the applicant a legal right.

The judgment in that case, is understood to have decided the merits of all claims of that description; and the persons on the report of the commissioners found it necessary to pursue the mode prescribed by the law subsequent to that which had been deemed unconditional, in order to place themselves on the pension list.

The doctrine, therefore, now advanced, is by no means a novel one.

It is true that the mandamus, now moved for, is not for the performance of an act expressly enjoined by statute.

It is to deliver a commission; on which subject the acts of Congress are silent. This difference is not considered as affecting the case. It has already been stated that the applicant has, to that commission, a vested legal right, of which the executive cannot deprive him. He has been appointed to an office, from which he is not removable at the will of the executive; and being so *173appointed, he has a right to the commission which the secretary has received from the president for his use. The act of congress does not indeed order the secretary of state to send it to him, but it is placed in his hands for the person entitled to it; and cannot be more lawfully withheld by him, than by any other person.

It was at first doubted whether the action of detinue was not a specific legal remedy for the commission which has been withheld from Mr. Marbury; in which case a mandamus would be improper. But this doubt has yielded to the consideration that the judgment in detinue is for the thing itself, or its value. The value of a public office not to be sold, is incapable of being ascertained; and the applicant has a right to the office itself, or to nothing. He will obtain the office by obtaining the commission, or a copy of it from the record.

This, then, is a plain case for a mandamus, either to deliver the commission, or a copy of it from the record ; and it only remains to be enquired,

Whether it can issue from this court.

The act to establish the judicial courts of the United States authorizes the supreme court “to issue writs of “mandamus, in cases warranted by the principles and “usages of law, to any courts appointed, or persons hold-"ing office, under the authority of the United States.”

The secretary of state, being a person holding an office under the authority of the United States, is precisely within the letter of the description; and if this court is not authorized to issue a writ of mandamus to such an officer, it must be because the law is unconstitutional, and therefore absolutely incapable of conferring the authority, and assigning the duties which its words purport to confer and assign.

The constitution vests the whole judicial power of the United States in one supreme court, and such inferior courts as congress shall, from time to time, ordain and establish. This power is expressly extended to all cases arising under the laws of the United States; and consequently, in some form, may be exercised over the present *174case; because the right claimed is given by a law of the United States.

In the distribution of this power it is declared that “the “supreme court shall have original jurisdiction in all “cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and “consuls, and those in which a state shall be a party. “In all other cases, the supreme court shall have appellate “jurisdiction.”

It has been insisted, at the bar, that as the original grant of jurisdiction, to the supreme and inferior courts, is general, and the clause, assigning original jurisdiction, to the supreme court, contains no negative or restrictive words; the power remains to the legislature, to assign original jurisdiction to that court in other cases than those specified in the article which has been recited; provided those cases belong to the judicial power of the United States.

If it had been intended to leave it in the discretion of the legislature to apportion the judicial power between the supreme and inferior courts according to the will of that body, it would certainly have been useless to have proceeded further than to have defined the judicial power, and the tribunals in which it should be vested. The subsequent part of the section is mere surplussage, is entirely without meaning, if such is to be the construction. If congress remains at liberty to give this court appellate jurisdiction, where the constitution has declared their jurisdiction shall be original; and original jurisdiction where the constitution has declared it shall be appellate; the distribution of jurisdiction, made in the constitution, is form without substance.

Affirmative words are often, in their operation, negative of other objects than those affirmed; and in this case, a negative or exclusive sense must be given to them or they have no operation at all.

It cannot be presumed that any clause in the constitution is intended to be without effect; and therefore such a construction is inadmissible, unless the words require it.

*175If the solicitude of the convention, respecting our peace with foreign powers, induced a provision that the supreme court should take original jurisdiction in cases which might be supposed to affect them; yet the clause would have proceeded no further than to provide for such cases, if no further restriction on the powers of congress had been intended. That they should have appellate jurisdiction in all other cases, with such exceptions as congress might make, is no restriction; unless the words be deemed exclusive of original jurisdiction.

When an instrument organizing fundamentally a judicial system, divides it into one supreme, and so many inferior courts as the legislature may ordain and establish; then enumerates its powers, and proceeds so far to distribute them, as to define the jurisdiction of the supreme court by declaring the cases in which it shall take original jurisdiction, and that in others it shall take appellate jurisdiction; the plain import of the words seems to be, that in one class of cases its jurisdiction is original, and not appellate; in the other it is appellate, and not original. If any other construction would render the clause inoperative, that is an additional reason for rejecting such other construction, and for adhering to their obvious meaning.

To enable this court then to issue a mandamus, it must be shewn to be an exercise of appellate jurisdiction, or to be necessary to enable them to exercise appellate jurisdiction.

It has been stated at the bar that the appellate jurisdiction may be exercised in a variety of forms, and that if it be the will of the legislature that a mandamus should be used for that purpose, that will must be obeyed. This is true, yet the jurisdiction must be appellate, not original.

It is the essential criterion of appellate jurisdiction, that it revises and corrects the proceedings in a cause already instituted, and does not create that cause. Although, therefore, a mandamus may be directed to courts, yet to issue such a writ to an officer for the delivery of a paper, is in effect the same as to sustain an original action for that paper, and therefore seems not to belong to *176appellate, but to original jurisdiction. Neither is it necessary in such a case as this, to enable the court to exercise its appellate jurisdiction.

The authority, therefore, given to the supreme court, by the act establishing the judicial courts of the United States, to issue writs of mandamus to public officers, appears not to be warranted by the constitution; and it becomes necessary to enquire whether a jurisdiction, so conferred, can be exercised.

The question, whether an act, repugnant to the constitution, can become the law of the land, is a question deeply interesting to the United States; but, happily, not of an intricacy proportioned to its interest. It seems only necessary to recognise certain principles, supposed to have been long and well established, to decide it.

That the people have an original right to establish, for their future government, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness, is the basis, on which the whole American fabric has been erected. The exercise of this original right is a very great exertion; nor can it, nor ought it to be, frequently repeated. The principles, therefore, so established, are deemed fundamental. And as the authority, from which they proceed, is supreme, and can seldom act, they are designed to be permanent.

This original and supreme will organizes the government, and assigns,to different departments, their respective powers. It may either stop here; or establish certain limits not to be transcended by those departments.

The government of the United States is of the latter description. The powers of the legislature are defined, and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction, between a government with limited and unlimited powers, is abolished, if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts pro*177hibited and acts allowed, are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain to be contested, that the constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it; or, that the legislature may alter the constitution by an ordinary act.

Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.

If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the constitution is not law: if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts, on the part of the people, to limit a power, in its own nature illimitable.

Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void.

This theory is essentially attached to a written constitution, and is consequently to be considered, by this court, as one of the fundamental principles of our society. It is not therefore to be lost fight of in the further consideration of this subject.

If an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void, does it, notwithstanding its invalidity, bind the courts, and oblige them to give it effect? Or, in other words, though it be not law, does it constitute a rule as operative as if it was a law ? This would be to overthrow in fact what was established in theory; and would seem, at first view, an absurdity too gross to be insisted on. It shall, however, receive a more attentive consideration.

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the use to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each.

*178So if a law be in opposition to the constitution; if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law; the court must determime which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty.

If then the courts are to regard the constitution; and the constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature; the constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply.

Those then who controvert the principle that the constitution is to be considered, in court, as a paramount law, are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the constitution, and see only the law.

This doctrine would subvert the very foundation of all written constitutions. It would declare that an act, which, according to the principles and theory of our government, is entirely void; is yet, in practice, completely obligatory, It would declare, that if the legislature shall do what is expressly forbiden, such act, notwithstanding the express prohibition, is in reality effectual. It would be giving to the legislature a practical and real omnipotence, with the same breath which professes to restrict their powers within narrow limits. It is prescribing limits, and declaring that those limits may be passed at pleasure.

That it thus reduces to nothing what we have deemed the greatest improvement on political institutions—a written constitution—would of itself be sufficient, in America, where written constitutions have been viewed with so much reverence, for rejecting the construction. But the peculiar expressions of the constitution of the United States furnish additional arguments in favour of its rejection.

The judicial power of the United States is extended to all cases arising under the constitution.

*179Could it be the intention of those who gave this power, to say that, in using it, the constitution should not be looked into? That a case arising under the constitution should be decided without examining the instrument under which it arises?

This is too extravagant to be maintained.

In some cases then, the constitution must be looked into by the judges. And if they can open it at all, what part of it are they forbidden to read, or to obey?

There are many other parts of the constitution which serve to illustrate this subject.

It is declared that “ no tax or duty shall be laid on arti-“cles exported from any state.” Suppose a duty on the export of cotton, of tobacco, or of flour; and a suit instituted to recover it. Ought judgment to be rendered in such a case? ought the judges to close their eyes on the constitution, and only see the law.

The constitution declares that “no bill of attainder or "ex post facto law shall be passed.”

If, however, such a bill should be passed and a person should be prosecuted under it; must the court condemn to death those victims whom the constitution endeavours to preserve?

“No person,” says the constitution, “shall be convicted “of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.”

Here the language of the constitution is addressed especially to the courts. It prescribes, directly for them, a rule of evidence not to be departed from. If the legislature should change that rule, and declare one witness, or a confession out of court, sufficient for conviction, must the constitutional principles yield to the legislative act?

From these, and many other selections which might be made, it is apparent, that the framers of the consti*180tution contemplated that instrument, as a rule for the government of courts, as well as of the legislature.

Why otherwise does it direct the judges to take an oath to support it ? This oath certainly applies, in an especial manner, to their conduct in their official character. How immoral to impose it on them, if they were to be used as the instruments, and the knowing instruments, for violating what they swear to support!

The oath of office, too, imposed by the legislature, is completely demonstrative of the legislative opinion on this subject. It is in these words, “I do solemnly “swear that I will administer justice without respect “to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the “rich; and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge “all the duties incumbent on me as accord-“ing to the best of my abilities and understanding, agree-“ably to the constitution, and laws of the United States.”

Why does a judge swear to discharge his duties agreably to the constitution of the United States, if that constitution forms no rule for his government? if it is closed upon him, and cannot be inspected by him?

If such be the real state of things, this is worse than solemn mockery. To prescribe, or to take this oath, becomes equally a crime.

It is also not entirely unworthy of observation, that in declaring what shall be the supreme law of the land, the constitution itself is first mentioned; and not the laws of the United States generally, but those only which shall be made in pursuance of the constitution, have that rank.

Thus, the particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the constitution is void; and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.

The rule must be discharged.

Mr. Justice Black

delivered the opinion of the Court.

We are asked to decide whether the President was acting within his constitutional power when he issued an order directing the Secretary of Commerce to take possession of and operate most of the Nation’s steel mills. The mill owners argue that the President’s order amounts to lawmaking, a legislative function which the Constitution has expressly confided to the Congress and not to the President. The Government’s position is that the order was made on findings of the President that his action was necessary to avert a national catastrophe which would inevitably result from a stoppage of steel production, and that in meeting this grave emergency the President was acting within the aggregate of his constitutional powers as the Nation’s Chief Executive and the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States. The issue emerges here from the following series of events:

In the latter part of 1951, a dispute arose between the steel companies and their employees over terms and conditions that should be included in new collective bargaining agreements. Long-continued conferences failed to resolve the dispute. On December 18,1951, the employees’ representative, United Steelworkers of America, C. I. O., gave notice of an intention to strike when the existing bargaining agreements expired on December 31. The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service then intervened in an effort to get labor and management to agree. This failing, the President on December 22, 1951, referred the dispute to the Federal Wage Stabilization *583Board1 to investigate and make recommendations for fair and equitable terms of settlement. This Board’s report resulted in no settlement. On April 4, 1952, the Union gave notice of a nation-wide strike called to begin at 12:01 a. m. April 9. The indispensability of steel as a component of substantially all weapons and other war materials led the President to believe that the proposed work stoppage would immediately jeopardize our national defense and that governmental seizure of'the steel mills was necessary in order to assure the continued availability of steel. Reciting these considerations for his action, the President, a few hours before the strike was to begin, issued Executive Order 10340, a copy of which is attached as an appendix, post, p. 589. The order directed the Secretary of Commerce to take possession of most of the steel mills and keep them running. The Secretary immediately issued his own possessory orders, calling upon the presidents of the various seized companies to serve as operating managers for the United States. They were directed to carry on their activities in accordance with regulations and directions of the Secretary. The next morning the President sent a message to Congress reporting his action. Cong. Rec., April 9, 1952, p. 3962. Twelve days later he sent a second message. Cong. Rec., April 21, 1952, p. 4192. Congress has taken no action.

Obeying the Secretary’s orders under protest, the companies brought proceedings against him in the District Court. Their complaints charged that the seizure was not authorized by an act of Congress or by any constitutional provisions. The District Court was asked to declare the orders of the President and the Secretary invalid and to issue preliminary and permanent injunctions r¿straining their enforcement. Opposing the motion for pre*584liminary injunction, the United States asserted that a strike disrupting steel production for even a brief period would so endanger the well-being and safety of the Nation that the President had “inherent power” to do what he had done — power “supported by the Constitution, by historical precedent, and by court decisions.” The Government also contended that in any event no preliminary injunction should be issued because the companies had made no showing that their available legal remedies were inadequate or that their injuries from seizure would be irreparable. Holding against the Government on all points, the District Court on April 30 issued a preliminary injunction restraining the Secretary from “continuing the seizure and possession of the plants . . . and from acting under the purported authority of Executive Order No. 10340.” 103 F. Supp. 569. On the same day the Court of Appeals stayed the District Court’s injunction. 90 U. S. App. D. C. -, 197 F. 2d 582. Deeming it best that the issues raised be promptly decided by this Court, we granted certiorari on May 3 and set the cause for argument on May 12. 343 U. S. 937.

Two crucial issues have developed: First. Should final determination of the constitutional validity of the President’s order be made in this case which has proceeded no further than the preliminary injunction stage? Second. If so, is the seizure order within the constitutional power of the President?

I.

It is urged that there were non-constitutional grounds upon which the District Court could have denied the preliminary injunction and thus have followed the customary judicial practice of declining to reach and decide constitutional questions until compelled to do so. On this basis it is argued that equity’s extraordinary injunc-tive relief should have been denied because (a) seizure of the companies’ properties did not inflict irreparable dam*585ages, and (b) there were available legal remedies adequate to afford compensation for any possible damages which they might suffer. While separately argued by the Government, these two contentions are here closely related, if not identical. Arguments as to both rest in large part on the Government’s claim that should the seizure ultimately be held unlawful, the companies could recover full compensation in the Court of Claims for the unlawful taking. Prior cases in this Court have cast doubt on the right to recover in the Court of Claims on account of properties unlawfully taken by government officials for public use as these properties were alleged to have been. See e. g., Hooe v. United States, 218 U. S. 322, 335-336; United States v. North American Co., 253 U. S. 330, 333. But see Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Corp., 337 U. S. 682, 701-702. Moreover, seizure and governmental operation of these going businesses were bound to result in many present and future damages of such nature as to be difficult, if not incapable, of measurement. Viewing the case this way, and in the light of the facts presented, the District Court saw no reason for delaying decision of the constitutional validity of the orders. We agree with the District Court and can see no reason why that question was not ripe for determination on the record presented. We shall therefore consider and determine that question now.

II.

The President’s power, if any, to issue the order 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 as he did here. Nor is there any act of Congress to which our attention. has been directed from which such a power can fairly be implied. Indeed, we do not understand the Government to rely on statutory authorization for this seizure. There are two statutes which do authorize the President *586to take both personal and real property under certain conditions.2 However, the Government admits that these conditions were not met and that the President’s order was not rooted in either of the statutes. The Government refers to the seizure provisions of one of these statutes (§ 201 (b) of the Defense Production Act) as “much too cumbersome, involved, and time-consuming for the crisis which was at hand.”

Moreover, the use of the seizure technique to solve labor disputes in order to prevent work stoppages was not only unauthorized by any congressional enactment; prior to this controversy, Congress had refused to adopt that method of settling labor disputes. When the Taft-Hartley Act was under consideration in 1947, Congress rejected an amendment which would have authorized such governmental seizures in cases of emergency.3 Apparently it was thought that the technique of seizure, like that of compulsory arbitration, would interfere with the process of collective bargaining.4 Consequently, the plan Congress adopted in that Act did not provide for seizure under any circumstances. Instead, the plan sought to bring about settlements by use of the customary devices of mediation, conciliation, investigation by boards of inquiry, and public reports. In some instances temporary injunctions were authorized to provide cooling-off periods. All this failing, unions were left free to strike after a secret vote by employees as to whether they wished to accept their employers’ final settlement offer.5

*587It is clear that if the President had authority to issue the order he did, it must be found in some provision of the Constitution. And it is not claimed that express constitutional language grants this power to the President. The contention is that presidential power should be implied from the aggregate of his powers under the Constitution. Particular reliance is placed on provisions in Article II which say that “The executive Power shall be vested in a President . . .”; that “he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”; and that he “shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.”

The order cannot properly be sustained as an exercise of the President’s military power as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. The Government attempts to do so by citing a number of cases upholding broad powers in military commanders engaged in day-to-day fighting in a theater of war. Such cases need not concern us here. Even though “theater of war” be an expanding concept, we cannot with faithfulness to our constitutional system hold that the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces has the ultimate power as such to take possession of private property in order to keep labor disputes from stopping production. This is a job for the Nation’s lawmakers, not for its military authorities.

Nor can the seizure order be sustained because of the several constitutional provisions that grant executive power to the President. In the framework of our Constitution, the President’s power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker. The Constitution limits his functions in the lawmaking process to the recommending of laws he thinks wise and the vetoing of laws he thinks bad. And the Constitution is neither silent nor equivocal about who shall make laws which the President is to execute. The *588first section of the first article says that “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States . . . After granting many powers to the Congress, Article I goes on to provide that Congress may “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”

The President’s order does not direct that a congressional policy be executed in a manner prescribed by Congress- — it directs that a presidential policy be executed in a manner prescribed by the President. The preamble of the order itself, like that of many statutes, sets out reasons why the President believes certain policies should be adopted, proclaims these policies as rules of conduct to be followed, and again, like a statute, authorizes a government official to promulgate additional rules and regulations consistent with the policy proclaimed and needed to carry that policy into execution. The power of Congress to adopt such public policies as those proclaimed by the order is beyond question. It can authorize the taking of private property for public use. It can make laws regulating the relationships between employers and employees, prescribing rules designed to settle labor disputes, and fixing wages and working conditions in certain fields of our economy. The Constitution does not subject this lawmaking power of Congress to presidential or military supervision or control.

It is said that other Presidents without congressional authority have taken possession of private business enterprises in order' to settle labor disputes. But even if this be true, Congress has not thereby lost its exclusive constitutional authority to make laws necessary and proper to carry out the powers vested by the Constitu*589tion “in the Government of the United States, or any Department or Officer thereof.”

The Founders of this Nation entrusted the lawmaking power to the Congress alone in both good and bad times. It would do no good to recall the historical events, the fears of power and the hopes for freedom that lay behind their choice. Such a review would but confirm our holding that this seizure order cannot stand.

The judgment of the District Court is

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice Frankfurter.

Although the considerations relevant to the legal enforcement of the principle of separation of powers seem to me more complicated and flexible than may appear from what Mr. Justice Black has written, I join his opinion because I thoroughly agree with the application of the principle to the circumstances of this case. Even though such differences in attitude toward this principle may be merely differences in emphasis and nuance, they can hardly be reflected by a single opinion for the Court. Individual expression of views in reaching a common result is therefore important.

APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT.

Executive Order

Directing the Secretary of Commerce to Take Possession of and Operate the Plants and Facilities of Certain Steel Companies

WHEREAS on December 16, 1950, I proclaimed the existence of a national emergency which requires that the military, naval, air, and civilian defenses of this country be strengthened as speedily as possible to the end that we may be able to repel any and all threats against our na*590tional security and to fulfill our responsibilities in the efforts being made throughout the United Nations and otherwise to bring about a lasting peace; and

WHEREAS American fighting men and fighting men of other nations of the United Nations are now engaged in deadly combat with the forces of aggression in Korea, and forces of the United States are stationed elsewhere overseas for the purpose of participating in the defense of the Atlantic Community against aggression; and

WHEREAS the weapons and other materials needed by our armed forces and by those joined with us in the defense of the free world are produced to a great extent in this country, and steel is an indispensable component of substantially all of such weapons and materials; and

WHEREAS steel is likewise indispensable to the carrying out of programs of the Atomic Energy Commission of vital importance to our defense efforts; and

WHEREAS a continuing and uninterrupted supply of steel is also indispensable to the maintenance of the economy of the United States, upon which our military strength depends; and

WHEREAS a controversy has arisen between certain companies in the United States producing and fabricating steel and the elements thereof and certain of their workers represented by the United Steel Workers of America, CIO, regarding terms and conditions of employment; and

WHEREAS the controversy has not been settled through the processes of collective bargaining or through the efforts of the Government, including those of the Wage Stabilization Board, to which the controversy was referred on December 22, 1951, pursuant to Executive Order No. 10233, and a strike has been called for 12:01 A. M., April 9, 1952; and

WHEREAS a work stoppage would immediately jeopardize and imperil our national defense and the defense *591of those joined with us in resisting aggression, and would add to the continuing danger of our soldiers, sailors, and airmen engaged in combat in the field; and

WHEREAS in order to assure the continued availability of steel and steel products during the existing emergency, it is necessary that the United States take possession of and operate the plants, facilities, and other property of the said companies as hereinafter provided:

NOW, THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, and as President of the United States and Commander in Chief of the armed forces of the United States, it is hereby ordered as follows:

1. The Secretary of Commerce is hereby authorized and directed to take possession of all or such of the plants, facilities, and other property of the companies named in the list attached hereto, or any part thereof, as he may deem necessary in the interests of national defense; and to operate or to arrange for the operation thereof and to do all things necessary for, or incidental to, such operation.

2. In carrying out this order the Secretary of Commerce may act through or with the aid of such public or private instrumentalities or persons as he may designate; and all Federal agencies shall cooperate with the Secretary of Commerce to the fullest extent possible in carrying out the purposes of this order.

3. The Secretary of Commerce shall determine and prescribe terms and conditions of employment under which the plants, facilities, and other properties possession of which is taken pursuant to this order shall be operated. The Secretary of Commerce shall recognize the rights of workers to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing and to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining, adjustment of grievances, or other mutual aid or protection, provided *592that such activities do not interfere with the operation of such plants, facilities, and other properties.

4. Except so far as the Secretary of Commerce shall otherwise provide from time tó time, the managements of the plants, facilities, and other properties possession of which is taken pursuant to this order shall continue their functions, including the collection and disbursement of funds in the usual and ordinary course of business in the names of their respective companies and by means of any instrumentalities used by such companies.

5. Except so far as the Secretary of Commerce may otherwise direct, existing rights and obligations of such companies shall remain in full force and effect, and there may be made, in due course, payments of dividends on stock, and of principal, interest, sinking funds, and all other distributions upon bonds, debentures, and other obligations, and expenditures may be made for other ordinary corporate or business purposes.

6. Whenever in the judgment of the Secretary of Commerce further possession and operation by him of any plant, facility, or other property is no longer necessary or expedient in the interest of national defense, and the Secretary has reason to believe that effective future operation is assured, he shall return the possession and operation of such plant, facility, or other property to the company in possession and control thereof at the time possession was taken under this order.

7. The Secretary of Commerce is authorized to prescribe and issue such regulations and orders not inconsistent herewith as he may deem necessary or desirable for carrying out the purposes of this order; and he may delegate and authorize subdelegation of such of his functions under this order as he may deem desirable.

Harry S. Truman.

The White House, April 8, 1952.

*593Mr. Justice Frankfurter,

concurring.

Before the cares of the White House were his own, President Harding is reported to have said that government after all is a very simple thing. He must have said that, if he said it, as a fleeting inhabitant of fairyland. The opposite is the truth. A constitutional democracy like ours is perhaps the most difficult of man’s social arrangements to manage successfully. Our scheme of society is more dependent than any other form of government on knowledge and wisdom and self-discipline for the achievement of its aims. For our democracy implies the reign of reason on the most extensive scale. The Founders of this Nation were not imbued with the modern cynicism that the only thing that history teaches is that it teaches nothing. They acted on the conviction that the experience of man sheds a good deal of light on his nature. It sheds a good deal of light not merely on the need for effective power, if a society is to be at once cohesive and civilized, but also on the need for limitations on the power of governors over the governed.

To that end they rested the structure of our central government on the system of checks and balances. For them the doctrine of separation of powers was not mere theory; it was a felt necessity. Not so long ago it was fashionable to find our system of checks and balances obstructive to effective government. It was easy to ridicule that system as outmoded — too easy. The experience through which the world has passed in our own day has made vivid the realization that the Framers of our Constitution were not inexperienced doctrinaires. These long-headed statesmen had no illusion that our people enjoyed biological or psychological or sociological immunities from the hazards of concentrated power. It is absurd to see a dictator in a representative product of the sturdy democratic traditions of the Mississippi Val*594ley. The accretion of dangerous power does not come in a day. It does come, however slowly, from the generative force of unchecked disregard of the restrictions that fence in even the most disinterested assertion of authority.

The Framers, however, did not make the judiciary the overseer of our government. They were familiar with the revisory functions entrusted to judges in a few of the States and refused to lodge such powers in this Court. Judicial power can be exercised only as to matters that were the traditional concern of the courts at Westminster, and only if they arise in ways that to the expert feel of lawyers constitute “Cases” or “Controversies.” Even as to questions that were the staple of judicial business, it is not for the courts to pass upon them unless they are indispensably involved in a conventional litigation — and then, only to the extent that they are so involved.) Rigorous adherence to the narrow scope of the” judicial function is especially demanded in controversies that arouse appeals to the Constitution. The attitude with which this Court must approach its duty when confronted with such issues is precisely the opposite of that normally manifested by the general public. So-called constitutional questions seem to exercise a mesmeric influence over the popular mind. This eagerness to settle — preferably forever — a specific problem on the basis of the broadest possible constitutional pronouncements may not unfairly be called one of our minor national traits. An English observer of our scene has acutely described it: “At the first sound of a new argument over the United States Constitution and its interpretation the hearts of Americans leap with a fearful joy. The blood stirs powerfully in their veins and a new lustre brightens their eyes. Like King Harry’s men before Harfleur, they stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start.” The Economist, May 10, 1952, p. 370.

*595The path of duty for this Court, it bears repetition, lies in the opposite direction. Due regard for the implications of the distribution of powers in our Constitution and for the nature of the judicial process as the ultimate authority in interpreting the Constitution, has not only confined the Court within the narrow domain of appropriate adjudication. It has also led to “a series of rules under which it has avoided passing upon a large part of all the constitutional questions pressed upon it for decision.” Brandeis, J., in Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U. S. 288, 341, 346. A basic rule is the duty of the Court not to pass on a constitutional issue at all, however narrowly it may be confined, if the case may, as a matter of intellectual honesty, be decided without even considering delicate problems of power under the Constitution. It ought to be, but apparently is not, a matter of common understanding that clashes between different branches of the government should be avoided if a legal ground of less explosive potentialities is properly available. Constitutional adjudications are apt by exposing differences to exacerbate them.

So here our first inquiry must be not into the powers of the President, but into the powers of a District Judge to issue a temporary injunction in the circumstances of this case. Familiar as that remedy is, it remains an extraordinary remedy. To start with a consideration of the relation between the President’s powers and those of Congress — a most delicate matter that has occupied the thoughts of statesmen and judges since the Nation was founded and will continue to occupy their thoughts as long as our democracy lasts — is to start at the wrong end. A plaintiff is not entitled to an injunction if money damages would fairly compensate him for any wrong he may have suffered. The same considerations by which the Steelworkers, in their brief amicus, demonstrate, from the seizure here in controversy, con*596sequences that cannot be translated into dollars and cents, preclude a holding that only compensable damage for the plaintiffs is involved. Again, a court of equity ought not to issue an injunction, even though a plaintiff otherwise makes out a case for it, if the plaintiff’s right to an injunction is overborne by a commanding public interest against it. One need not resort to a large epigrammatic generalization that the evils of industrial dislocation are to be preferred to allowing illegality to go unchecked. To deny inquiry into the President’s power in a case like this, because of the damage to the public interest to be feared from upsetting its exercise by him, would in effect always preclude inquiry into challenged power, which presumably only avowed great public interest brings into action. And so, with the utmost unwillingness, with every desire to avoid judicial inquiry into the powers and duties of the other two branches of the government, I cannot escape consideration of the legality of Executive Order No. 10340.

The pole-star for constitutional adjudications is John Marshall’s greatest judicial utterance that “it is a constitution we are expounding.” McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 407. That requires both a spacious view in applying an instrument of government “made for an undefined and expanding future,” Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 530, and as narrow a delimitation of the constitutional issues as the circumstances permit. Not the least characteristic of great statesmanship which the Framers manifested was the extent to which they did not attempt to bind the future. It is no less incumbent upon this Court to avoid putting fetters upon the future by needless pronouncements today.

Marshall’s admonition that “it is a constitution we are expounding” is especially relevant when the Court is required to give legal sanctions to an underlying principle of the Constitution — that of separation of pow*597ers. “The great ordinances of the Constitution do not establish and divide fields of black and white.” Holmes, J., dissenting in Springer v. Philippine Islands, 277 U. S. 189, 209.

The issue before us can be met, and therefore should be, without attempting to define the President’s powers comprehensively. I shall not attempt to delineate what belongs to him by virtue of his office beyond the power even of Congress to contract; what authority belongs to him until Congress acts; what kind of problems may be dealt with either by the Congress or by the President or by both, cf. La Abra Silver Mng. Co. v. United States, 175 U. S. 423; what power must be exercised by the Congress and cannot be delegated to the President. It is as unprofitable to lump together in an undiscriminating hotch-potch past presidential actions claimed to be derived from occupancy of the office, as it is to conjure up hypothetical future cases. The judiciary may, as this case proves, have to intervene in determining where authority lies as between the democratic forces in our scheme of government. But in doing so we should be wary and humble. Such is the teaching of this Court’s role in the history of the country.

It is in this mood and with this perspective that the issue before the Court must be approached. We must therefore put to one side consideration of what powers the President would have had if there had been no legislation whatever bearing on the authority asserted by the seizure, or if the seizure had been only for a short, explicitly temporary period, to be terminated automatically unless Congressional approval were given. These and other questions, like or unlike, are not now here. I would exceed my authority were I to say anything about them.

The question before the Court comes in this setting. Congress has frequently — at least 16 times since 1916— *598specifically provided for executive seizure of production, transportation, communications, or storage facilities. In every case it has qualified this grant of power with limitations and safeguards. This body of enactments— summarized in tabular form in Appendix I, post, p. 615— demonstrates that Congress deemed seizure so drastic a power as to require that it be carefully circumscribed whenever the President was vested with this extraordinary authority. The power to seize has uniformly been given only for a limited period or for a defined emergency, or has been repealed after a short period. Its exercise has been restricted to particular circumstances such as “time of war or when war is imminent,” the needs of “public safety” or of “national security or defense,” or “urgent and impending need.” The period of governmental operation has been limited, as, for instance, to “sixty days after the restoration of productive efficiency.” Seizure statutes usually make executive action dependent on detailed conditions: for example, (a) failure or refusal of the owner of a plant to meet governmental supply needs or (b) failure of voluntary negotiations with the owner for the use of a plant necessary for great public ends. Congress often has specified the particular executive agency which should seize or operate the plants or whose judgment would appropriately test the need for seizure. Congress also has not left to implication that just compensation be paid; it has usually legislated in detail regarding enforcement of this litigation-breeding general requirement. (See Appendix I, post, p. 615.)

Congress in 1947 was again called upon to consider whether governmental seizure should be used to avoid serious industrial shutdowns. Congress decided against conferring such power generally and in advance, without special Congressional enactment to meet each particular need. Under the urgency of telephone and coal strikes in *599the winter of 1946, Congress addressed itself to the problems raised by “national emergency” strikes and lockouts.1 The termination of wartime seizure powers on December 31, 1946, brought these matters to the attention of Congress with vivid impact. A proposal that the President be given powers to seize plants to avert a shutdown where the “health or safety” of the Nation was endangered, was thoroughly canvassed by Congress and rejected. No room for doubt remains that the proponents as well as the opponents of the bill which became the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 clearly understood that as a result of that legislation the only recourse for preventing a shutdown in any basic industry, after failure of mediation, was Congress.2 Authorization for seizure as *600an available remedy for potential dangers was unequivocally put aside. The Senate Labor Committee, through its Chairman, explicitly reported to the Senate that a general grant of seizure powers had been considered and rejected in favor of reliance on ad hoc legislation, as a particular emergency might call for it.3 An amendment presented in the House providing that, where necessary “to preserve and protect the public health and security,” the President might seize any industry in which there is *601an impending curtailment of production, was voted down after debate, by a vote of more than three to one.4

In adopting the provisions which it did, by the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, for dealing with a “national emergency” arising out of a breakdown in peaceful industrial relations, Congress was very familiar with Governmental seizure as a protective measure. On a balance of considerations, Congress chose not to lodge this power in the President. It chose not to make available in advance a remedy to which both industry and labor were fiercely hostile.5 In deciding that authority to seize should be given to the President only after full consideration of the particular situation should show such legislation to be necessary,- Congress presumably acted on experience with similar industrial conflicts in the past. It evidently assumed that industrial shutdowns in basic industries are not instances of spontaneous generation, *602and that danger warnings are sufficiently plain before the event to give ample opportunity to start the legislative process into action.

In any event, nothing can be plainer than that Congress made a conscious choice of policy in a field full of perplexity and peculiarly within legislative responsibility for choice. In formulating legislation for dealing with industrial conflicts, Congress could not more clearly and emphatically have withheld authority than it did in 1947. Perhaps as much so as is true of any piece of modern legislation, Congress acted with full consciousness of what it was doing and in the light of much recent history. Previous seizure legislation had subjected the powers granted to the President to restrictions of varying degrees of stringency. Instead of giving him even limited powers, Congress in 1947 deemed it wise to require the President, upon failure of attempts to reach a voluntary settlement, to report to Congress if he deemed the power of seizure a needed shot for his locker. The President could not ignore the specific limitations of prior seizure statutes. ’ No more could he act in disregard of the limitation put upon seizure by the 1947 Act.

It cannot be contended that the President would have had power to issue this order had Congress explicitly negated such authority in formal legislation. Congress has expressed its will to withhold this power from the President as though it had said so in so many words. The authoritatively expressed purpose of Congress to disallow such power to the President and to require him, when in his mind the occasion arose for such a seizure, to put the matter to Congress and ask for specific authority from it, could not be more decisive if it had been written into §§ 206-210 of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947. Only the other day, we treated the Congressional gloss upon those sections as part of the Act. Bus Employees v. Wisconsin Board, 340 U. S. 383, 395-*603396. Grafting upon the words a purpose of Congress thus unequivocally expressed is the regular legislative mode for defining the scope of an Act of Congress. It would be not merely infelicitous draftsmanship but almost offensive gaucherie to write such a restriction upon the President’s power in terms into a statute rather than to have it authoritatively expounded, as it was, by controlling legislative history.

By the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, Congress said to the President, “You may not seize. Please report to us and ask for seizure power if you think it is needed in a specific situation.” This of course calls for a report on the unsuccessful efforts to reach a voluntary settlement, as a basis for discharge by Congress of its responsibility — which it has unequivocally reserved — to fashion further remedies than it provided.6 But it is now claimed that the President has seizure power by virtue of the Defense Production Act of 1950 and its Amendments.7 And the claim is based on the occurrence of new events — Korea and the need for stabilization, etc. — although it was well known that seizure power was withheld by the Act of 1947, and although the President, whose specific requests for other authority were in the main granted by Congress, never suggested that in view of the new events he needed the power of seizure which Congress in its judgment had decided to withhold from him. The utmost that the Korean conflict may imply is that it may have been desirable to have given the President further authority, a freer hand in these matters. Absence of authority in the President to deal with a crisis does not *604imply want of power in the Government. Conversely the fact that power exists in the Government does not vest it in the President. The need for new legislation does not enact it. Nor does it repeal or amend existing law.

No authority that has since been given to the President can by any fair process of statutory construction be deemed to withdraw the restriction or change the will of Congress as expressed by a body of enactments, culminating in the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947. Title V of the Defense Production Act, entitled “Settlement of Labor Disputes,” pronounced the will of Congress “that there be effective procedures for the settlement of labor disputes affecting national defense,” and that “primary reliance” be placed “upon the parties to any labor dispute to make every effort through negotiation and collective bargaining and the full use of mediation and conciliation facilities to effect a settlement in the national interest.”8 Section 502 authorized the President to hold voluntary conferences of labor, industry, and public and government representatives and to “take such action as may be agreed upon in any such conference and appropriate to carry out the provisions of this title,” provided that no action was taken inconsistent with the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947.9 This provision10 was said by the Senate Commit*605tee on Banking and Currency to contemplate a board similar to the War Labor Board of World War II and “a national labor-management conference such as was held during World War II, when a no-strike, no-lock-out pledge was obtained.”11 Section 502 was believed nec*606essary in addition to existing means for settling disputes voluntarily because the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service could not enter a labor dispute unless requested by one party.12 Similar explanations of Title Y were given in the Conference Report and by Senator Ives, a member of the Senate Committee to whom Chairman Maybank during the debates on the Senate floor referred questions relating to Title V.13 Senator Ives said:

“It should be remembered in this connection that during the period of the present emergency it is. expected that the Congress will not adjourn, but, at most, will recess only for very limited periods of time. If, therefore, any serious work stoppage should arise or even be theatened, in spite of the terms of the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947, the Congress would be readily available to pass such legislation as might be needed to meet the difficulty.”14

*607The Defense Production Act affords no ground for the suggestion that the 1947 denial to the President of seizure powers has been impliedly repealed, and its legislative history contradicts such a suggestion. Although the proponents of that Act recognized that the President would have a choice of alternative methods of seeking a mediated settlement, they also recognized that Congress alone retained the ultimate coercive power to meet the threat of “any serious work stoppage.”

That conclusion is not changed by what occurred after the passage of the 1950 Act. Seven and a half months later, on April 21, 1951, the President by Executive Order 10233 gave the reconstituted Wage Stabilization Board authority to investigate labor disputes either (1) submitted voluntarily by the parties, or (2) referred to it by the President.15 The Board can only make “recommendations to the parties as to fair and equitable terms of settlement,” unless the parties agree to be bound by the Board’s recommendations. About a month thereafter Subcommittees of both the House and Senate Labor Committees began hearings on the newly assigned disputes functions of the Board.16 Amendments to deny the *608Board these functions were voted down in the House,17 and Congress extended the Defense Production Act without changing Title V in relevant part.18 The legislative history of the Defense Production Act and its Amendments in 1951 cannot possibly be vouched for more than Congressional awareness and tacit approval that the President had charged the Wage Stabilization Board with authority to seek voluntary settlement of labor disputes. The most favorable interpretation of the statements in the committee reports can make them mean no more than “We are glad to have all the machinery possible for the voluntary settlement of labor disputes.” In considering the Defense Production Act Amendments, Congress was never asked to approve- — and there is not the slightest indication that the responsible committees ever had in mind — seizure of plants to coerce settlement of disputes. *609We are not even confronted by an inconsistency between the authority conferred on the Wage Board, as formulated by the Executive Order, and the denial of Presidential seizure powers under the 1947 legislation. The Board has been given merely mediatory powers similar to those of agencies created by the Taft-Hartley Act and elsewhere, with no other sanctions for acceptance of its recommendations than are offered by its own moral authority and the pressure of public opinion. The Defense Production Act and the disputes-mediating agencies created subsequent to it still leave for solution elsewhere the question what action can be taken when attempts at voluntary settlement fail. To draw implied approval of seizure power from this history is to make something out of nothing.

It is one thing to draw an intention of Congress from general language and to say that Congress would have explicitly written what is inferred, where Congress has not addressed itself to a specific situation. It is quite impossible, however, when Congress did specifically address itself to a problem, as Congress did to that of seizure, to find secreted in the interstices of legislation the very grant of power which Congress consciously withheld. To find authority so explicitly withheld is not merely to disregard in a particular instance the clear will of Congress. It is to disrespect the whole legislative process and the constitutional division of authority between President and Congress.

The legislative history here canvassed is relevant to yet another of the issues before us, namely, the Government’s argument that overriding public interest prevents the issuance of the injunction despite the illegality of the seizure. I cannot accept that contention. “Balancing the equities” when considering whether an injunction should issue, is lawyers’ jargon for choosing between conflicting public interests. When Congress itself has struck *610the balance, has defined the weight to be given the competing interests, a court of equity is not justified in ignoring that pronouncement under the guise of exercising equitable discretion.

Apart from his vast share of responsibility for the conduct of our foreign relations, the embracing function of the President is that "he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed . . . Art. II, § 3. The nature of that authority has for me been comprehensively indicated by Mr. Justice Holmes. “The duty of the President to see that the laws be executed is a duty that does not go beyond the laws or require him to achieve more than Congress sees fit to leave within his power.” Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52, 177. The powers of the President are not as particularized as are those of Congress. But unenumerated powers do not mean undefined powers. The separation of powers built into our Constitution gives essential content to undefined provisions in the frame of our government.

To be sure, the content of the three authorities of government is not to be derived from an abstract analysis. The areas are partly interacting, not wholly disjointed. The Constitution is a framework for government. Therefore the way the framework has consistently operated fairly establishes that it has operated according to its true nature. Deeply embedded traditional ways of conducting government cannot supplant the Constitution or legislation, but they give meaning to the words of a text or supply them. It is an inadmissibly narrow conception of American constitutional law to confine it to the words of the Constitution and to disregard the gloss which life has written upon them. In short, a systematic, unbroken, executive practice, long pursued to the knowledge of the Congress and never before questioned, engaged in by Presidents who have also sworn to uphold the Constitution, making as it were such exercise of power part *611of the structure of our government, may be treated as a gloss on “executive Power” vested in the President by § 1 of Art. II.

Such was the case of United States v. Midwest Oil Co., 236 U. S. 459. The contrast between the circumstances of that case and this one helps to draw a clear line between authority not explicitly conferred yet authorized to be exercised by the President and the denial of such authority. In both instances it was the concern of Congress under express constitutional grant to make rules and regulations for the problems with which the President dealt. In the one case he was dealing with the protection of property belonging to the United States; in the other with the enforcement of the Commerce Clause and with raising and supporting armies and maintaining the Navy. In the Midwest Oil case, lands which Congress had opened for entry were, over a period of 80 years and in 252 instances, and by Presidents learned and unlearned in the law, temporarily withdrawn from entry so as to enable Congress to deal with such withdrawals. No remotely comparable practice can be vouched for executive seizure of property at a time when this country was not at war, in the only constitutional way in which it can be at war. It would pursue the irrelevant to reopen the controversy over the constitutionality of some acts of Lincoln during the Civil War. See J. G. Randall, Constitutional Problems under Lincoln (Revised ed. 1951). Suffice it to say that he seized railroads in territory where armed hostilities had already interrupted the movement of troops to the beleaguered Capital, and his order was ratified by the Congress.

The only other instances of seizures are those during the periods of the first and second World Wars.19 In his eleven seizures of industrial facilities, President Wilson *612acted, or at least purported to act,20 under authority-granted by Congress. Thus his seizures cannot be adduced as interpretations by a President of his own powers in the absence of statute.

Down to the World War II period, then, the record is barren of instances comparable to the one before us. Of twelve seizures by President Roosevelt prior to the enactment of the War Labor Disputes Act in June, 1943, three were sanctioned by existing law, and six others *613were effected after Congress, on December 8, 1941, had declared the existence of a state of war. In this case, reliance on the powers that flow from declared war has been commendably disclaimed by the Solicitor General. Thus the list of executive assertions of the power of seizure in circumstances comparable to the present reduces to three in the six-month period from June to December of 1941. We need not split hairs in comparing those actions to the one before us, though much might be said by way of differentiation. Without passing on their validity, as we are not called upon to do, it suffices to say that these three isolated instances do not add up, either in number, scope, duration or contemporaneous legal justification, to the kind of executive construction of the Constitution revealed in the Midwest Oil case. Nor do they come to us sanctioned by long-continued acquiescence of Congress giving decisive weight to a construction by the Executive of its powers.

A scheme of government like ours no doubt at times feels the lack of power to act with complete, all-embracing, swiftly moving authority. No doubt a government with distributed authority, subject to be challenged in the courts of law, at least long enough to consider and adjudicate the challenge, labors under restrictions from which other governments are free. It has not been our tradition to envy such governments. In any event our government was designed to have such restrictions. The price was deemed not too high in view of the safeguards which these restrictions afford. I know no more impressive words on this subject than those of Mr. Justice Brandéis:

“The doctrine of the separation of powers was adopted by the Convention of 1787, not to promote efficiency but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power. The purpose was, not to avoid friction, but, *614by means of the inevitable friction incident to the distribution of the governmental powers among three departments, to save the people from autocracy.” Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52, 240, 293.

It is not a pleasant judicial duty to find that the President has exceeded his powers and still less so when his purposes were dictated by concern for the Nation’s well-being, in the assured conviction that he acted to avert danger. But it would stultify one’s faith in our people to entertain even a momentary fear that the patriotism and the wisdom of the President and the Congress, as well as the long view of the immediate parties in interest, will not find ready accommodation for differences on matters which, however close to their concern and however intrinsically important, are overshadowed by the awesome issues which confront the world. When at a moment of utmost anxiety President Washington turned to this Court for advice, and he had to be denied it as beyond the Court’s competence to give, Chief Justice Jay, on behalf of the Court, wrote thus to the Father of his Country:

“We exceedingly regret every event that may cause embarrassment to your administration, but we derive consolation from the reflection that your judgment will discern what is right, and that your usual prudence, decision, and firmness will surmount every obstacle to the preservation of the rights, peace, and dignity of the United States.” Letter of August 8, 1793, 3 Johnston, Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay (1891), 489.

In reaching the conclusion that conscience compels, I too- derive consolation from the reflection that the President and the Congress between them will continue to safeguard the heritage which comes to them straight from George Washington.

*615

*616

*617

*618

*619

*620

*621

*622

*623

*624

*625None. None. (Strike over rgal discrimination.) None. Eighth Regional War L a b o r B d. v. Humble Oil & Refining Co., 145 F. 2d 462 (5th Cir. 1945). † REPORTED LEGAL ACTION » None. War Labor Board recommendation. War Labor Board recommendation. War Labor Board recommendation. War Labor Board recommendation. agree-,ge in-Maintenance of mejership during period of seizul pership Eainte-d vol-period War Labor Board recommendation. War Labor Board recommendation. War Labor Board recommendation. BASIS FOR CHANGES riod of 7 See n. 7, p. 621, supra. s See n. 8, p. 621, supra. Property returned upi ment by parties to crease. None. Maintenance of me during period of seizuj Contract extension; nance of membership! untary check-off duri of seizure. Wage increase and malenanee of membership durij period of seizure. Wage increase. membership during seizure. Wage increase; maint(|ance of pr con-;NS OF NG Union's privileges urfj tract revoked. CHANGES IN CONUIT EMPLOYMENT DU seizure 7 7/1/45 6/19/45 6/14/45 6/6/45 None. 6/1/45 5/28/45 5/24/45 6/27/45 =* 5/20/45 (?)* To6 6/29/45 6/15/45 5/20/45 5/14/45 None. 4/1/45 (?) 5/19/45 6/16/45 (?) 4/12/45 From DURATION OF STOPPAGE § 9, Selective Service Act of 1940 as amended by the War Labor Disputes Act. § 9, Selective Service Act of 1940 as amended by the War Labor Disputes Act. § 9, Selective Service Act of 1940 as amended by § 3 of the War Labor Disputes Act. Act of Aug. 20, 1916. First War Powers Act of 1941. 9, Selective Service Act of 1940 as amended by the War Labor Disputes Act. 9577A. 10 Fed. Reg. 8090. 9574. 10 Fed. Reg. 7435. 9570. 10 Fed. Reg. 7235. 9565. 10 Fed. Reg. 6792. 9, Selective Service Act of 1940 as amended by the War Labor Disputes Act. i 9, Selective Service Act of 1940 as amended by the War Labor Disputes Act. 9, Selective Service Act of 1940 as amended by the War Labor Disputes Act. § 9, Selective Service Act of 1940 as amended by the War Labor Disputes Act. Act of Aug. 29,1916. First War Powers Act of 1941, ; 9, Selective Service Act of 1940 as amended by the War Labor Disputes Act. Act. 9, Selective Service Act of 1940 as amended by the War Labor Disputes statutory authority cited « 9564. 10 Fed. Reg. 6791. 9560. 10 Fed. Reg. 6547. 9559. 10 Fed. Reg. 6287. 9554. 10 Fed. Reg. 5981. 9552: 10 Fed. Reg. 5757. 9542. 10 Fed. Reg. 4591. EXECUTIVE ORDER supra. 10/45 {{19/45 8/45 10/45 10/45 31/45 '9/45 16/45 31/45 Texas Co., Port Arthur, Tex., | 7/1/45 plant. 5 See n. 5, p. 621, supra. 6 See n. 6, p. 6/19/45 6/14/45 6/6/45 6/5/45 6/1/45 5/28/45 5/23/45 5/20/45 Diamond Alkali Co., Painesville, Ohio. Scranton Transit Co., Scranton, Pa. Pure Oil Co., Cabin Creek oil field, Dawes, W. Va., facilities. Humble Oil & Refining Co., Ingle-side, Tex., plant. Mary-Leila Cotton Mills, Greensboro, Ga. Gaffney Mfg. Co., Gaffney, S. C. Chicago, Ill., Motor Carriers. United Engineering Co., Ltd., San Francisco, Calif. Cocker Machine & Foundry Co., Gastonia, N. C.

*626

*627

*628

*629Mr. Justice Douglas,

concurring.

There can be no doubt that the emergency which caused the President to seize these steel plants was one that bore heavily on the country. But the emergency did not create power; it merely marked an occasion when power should be exercised. And the fact that it was necessary that measures be taken to keep steel in production does not mean that the President, rather than the Congress, had the constitutional authority to act. The Congress, as well as the President, is trustee of the national welfare. The President can act more quickly than the Congress. The President with the armed services at his disposal can move with force as well as with speed. All executive power — from the reign of ancient kings to the rule of modern dictators — has the outward appearance of efficiency.

Legislative power, by contrast, is slower to exercise. There must be delay while the ponderous machinery of committees, hearings, and debates is put into motion. That takes time; and while the Congress slowly moves into action, the emergency may take its toll in wages, consumer goods, war production, the standard of living of the people, and perhaps even lives. Legislative action may indeed often be cumbersome, time-consuming, and apparently inefficient. But as Mr. Justice Brandéis stated in his dissent in Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52, 293:

“The doctrine of the separation of powers was adopted by the Convention of 1787, not to promote efficiency but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power. The purpose was, not to avoid friction, but, by means of the inevitable friction incident to the distribution of the governmental powers among three departments, to save the people from autocracy.”

*630We therefore cannot decide this case by determining which branch of government can deal most expeditiously with the present crisis. The answer must depend on the allocation of powers under the Constitution. That in turn requires an analysis of the conditions giving rise to the seizure and of the seizure itself.

The relations between labor and industry are one of the crucial problems of the era. Their solution will doubtless entail many methods — education of labor leaders and business executives; the encouragement of mediation and conciliation by the President and the use of his great office in the cause of industrial peace; and the passage of laws. Laws entail sanctions — penalties for their violation. One type of sanction is fine and imprisonment. Another is seizure of property. An industry may become so lawless, so irresponsible as to endanger the whole economy. Seizure of the industry may be the only wise and practical solution.

The method by which industrial peace is achieved is of vital importance not only to the parties but to society as well. A determination that sanctions should be applied, that the hand of the law should be placed upon the parties, and that the force of the courts should be directed against them, is an exercise of legislative power. In some nations that power is entrusted to the executive branch as a matter of course or in case of emergencies. We chose another course. We chose to place the legislative power of the Federal Government in the Congress. The language of the Constitution is not ambiguous or qualified. It places not some legislative power in the Congress; Article I, Section 1 says “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”

The legislative nature of the action taken by the President seems to me to be clear. When the United States *631takes over an industrial plant to settle a labor controversy, it is condemning property. The seizure of the plant is a taking in the constitutional sense. United States v. Pewee Coal Co., 341 U. S. 114. A permanent taking would amount to the nationalization of the industry. A temporary taking falls short of that goal. But though the seizure is only for a week .or a month, the condemnation is complete and the United States must pay compensation for the temporary possession. United States v. General Motors Corp., 323 U. S. 373; United States v. Pewee Coal Co., supra.

The power of the Federal Government to condemn property is well established. Kohl v. United States, 91 U. S. 367. It can condemn for any public purpose; and I have no doubt but that condemnation of a plant, factory, or industry in order to promote industrial peace would be constitutional. But there is a duty to pay for all property taken by the Government. The command of the Fifth Amendment is that no “private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” That constitutional requirement has an important bearing on the present case.

The President has no power to raise revenues. That power is in the Congress by Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. The President might seize and the Congress by subsequent action might ratify the seizure.1 But until and unless Congress acted, no condemnation would be lawful. The branch of government that has the power to pay compensation for a seizure is the only one able to authorize a seizure or make lawful one that *632the President has effected.2 That seems to me to be the necessary result of the condemnation provision in the Fifth Amendment. It squares with the theory of checks and balances expounded by Mr. Justice Black in the opinion of the Court in which I join.

If we sanctioned the present exercise of power by the President, we would be expanding Article II of the Constitution and rewriting it to suit the political conveniences of the present emergency. Article II which vests the “executive Power” in the President defines that power with particularity. Article II, Section 2 makes the Chief Executive the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy. But our history and tradition rebel at the thought that the grant of military power carries with it authority over civilian affairs. Article II, Section 3 provides that the President shall “from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” The power to recommend legislation, granted to the President, serves only to emphasize that it is his function to recommend and that it is the function of the Congress to legislate. Article II, *633Section 3 also provides that the President “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” But, as Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Frankfurter point out, the power to execute the laws starts and ends with the laws Congress has enacted.

The great office of President is not a weak and powerless one. The President represents the people and is their spokesman in domestic and foreign affairs. The office is respected more than any other in the land. It gives a position of leadership that is unique. The power to formulate policies and mould opinion inheres in the Presidency and conditions our national life. The impact of the man and the philosophy he represents may at times be thwarted by the Congress. Stalemates may occur when emergencies mount and the Nation suffers for lack of harmonious, reciprocal action between the White House and Capitol Hill. That is a risk inherent in our system of separation of powers. The tragedy of such stalemates might be avoided by allowing the President the use of some legislative authority. The Framers with memories of the tyrannies produced by a blending of executive and legislative power rejected that political arrangement. Some future generation may, however, deem it so urgent that the President have legislative authority that the Constitution will be amended. We could not sanction the seizures and condemnations of the steel plants in this case without reading Article II as giving the President not only the power to execute the laws but to make some. Such a step would most assuredly alter the pattern of the Constitution.

We pay a price for our system of checks and balances, for the distribution of power among the three branches of government. It is a price that today may seem exorbitant to many. Today a kindly President uses the seizure power to effect a wage increase and to keep the steel furnaces in production. Yet tomorrow another *634President might use the same power to prevent a wage increase, to curb trade-unionists, to regiment labor as oppressively as industry thinks it has been regimented by this seizure.

Mr. Justice Jackson,

concurring in the judgment and opinion of the Court.

That comprehensive and undefined presidential powers hold both practical advantages and grave dangers for the country will impress anyone who has served as legal adviser to a President in time of transition and public anxiety. While an interval of detached reflection may temper teachings of that experience, they probably are a more realistic influence on my views than the conventional materials of judicial decision which seem unduly to accentuate doctrine and legal fiction. But as we approach the question of presidential power, we half overcome mental hazards by recognizing them. The opinions of judges, no less than executives and publicists, often suffer the infirmity of confusing the issue of a power’s validity with the cause it is invoked to promote, of confounding the permanent executive office with its temporary occupant. The tendency is strong to emphasize transient results upon policies — such as wages or stabilization — and lose sight of enduring consequences upon the balanced power structure of our Republic.

A judge, like an executive adviser, may be surprised at the poverty of really useful and unambiguous authority applicable to concrete problems of executive power as they actually present themselves. Just what our forefathers did envision, or would have envisioned had they foreseen modern conditions, must be divined from materials almost as enigmatic as the dreams Joseph was called upon to interpret for Pharaoh. A century and a half of partisan debate and scholarly speculation yields no net result but only supplies more or less apt quotations from *635respected sources on each side of any question. They largely cancel each other.1 And court decisions are indecisive because of the judicial practice of dealing with the largest questions in the most narrow way.

The actual art of governing under our Constitution does not and cannot conform to judicial definitions of the power of any of its branches based on isolated clauses or even single Articles torn from context. While the Constitution diffuses power the better to secure liberty, it also contemplates that practice will integrate the dispersed powers into a workable government. It enjoins upon its branches separateness but interdependence, autonomy but reciprocity. Presidential powers are not fixed but fluctuate, depending upon their disjunction or conjunction with those of Congress. We may well begin by a somewhat over-simplified grouping of practical situations in which a President may doubt, or others may challenge, his powers, and by distinguishing roughly the legal consequences of this factor of relativity.

1. When the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress, his authority is at its maximum, for it includes all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate.2. In these cir*636cumstances, and in these only, may he be said (for what it may be worth) to personify the federal sovereignty. If his act is held unconstitutional under' these circumstances, it usually means that the Federal Government *637as an undivided whole lacks power. A seizure executed by the President pursuant to an Act of Congress would be supported by the strongest of presumptions and the widest latitude of judicial interpretation, and the burden of persuasion would rest heavily upon any who might attack it.

2. When the President acts in absence of either a congressional grant or denial of authority, he can only rely upon his own independent powers, but there is a zone of twilight in which he and Congress may have concurrent authority, or in which its distribution is uncertain. Therefore, congressional inertia, indifference or quiescence may sometimes, at least as a practical matter, enable, if not invite, measures on independent presidential responsibility. In this area, any actual test of power is likely to depend on the imperatives of events and contemporary imponderables rather than on abstract theories of law.3

3. When the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter. Courts can sustain exclusive presidential control in such a case only by dis*638abling the Congress from acting upon the subject.4 Presidential claim to a power at once so conclusive and preclusive must be scrutinized with caution, for what is at stake is the equilibrium established by our constitutional system.

Into which of these classifications does this executive seizure of the steel industry fit? It is eliminated from the first by admission, for it is conceded that no congressional authorization exists for this seizure. That takes away also the support of the many precedents and declarations which were made in relation, and must be confined, to this category.5

*639Can it then be defended under flexible tests available to the second category? It seems clearly eliminated from that class because Congress has not left seizure of private property an open field but has covered it by three statutory policies inconsistent with this seizure. In cases where the purpose is to supply needs of the Government itself, two courses are provided: one, seizure of a plant which fails to comply with obligatory orders placed by the Government;6 another, condemnation of facilities, including temporary use under the power of eminent domain.7 The third is applicable where it is the general economy of the country that is to be protected rather than exclusive governmental interests.8 None of these were invoked. In choosing a different and inconsistent way of his own, the President cannot claim that it is necessitated or invited by failure of Congress to legislate upon the occasions, grounds and methods for seizure of industrial properties.

*640This leaves the current seizure to be justified only by the severe tests under the third grouping, where it can be supported only by any remainder of executive power after subtraction of such powers as Congress may have over the subject. In short, we can sustain the President only by holding that seizure of such strike-bound industries is within his domain and beyond control by Congress. Thus, this Court’s first review of such seizures occurs under circumstances which leave presidential power most vulnerable to attack and in the least favorable of possible constitutional postures.

I did not suppose, and I am not persuaded, that history leaves it open to question, at least in the courts, that the executive branch, like the Federal Government as a whole, possesses only delegated powers. The purpose of the Constitution was not only to grant power, but to keep it from getting out of hand. However, because the President does not enjoy unmentioned powers does not mean that the mentioned ones should be narrowed by a niggardly construction. Some clauses could be made almost unworkable, as well as immutable, by refusal to indulge some latitude of interpretation for changing times. I have heretofore, and do now, give to the enumerated powers the scope and elasticity afforded by what seem to be reasonable, practical implications instead of the rigidity dictated by a doctrinaire textualism.

The Solicitor General seeks the power of seizure in three clauses of the Executive Article, the first reading, “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” Lest I be thought to exaggerate, I quote the interpretation which his brief puts upon it: “In our view, this clause constitutes a grant of all the executive powers of which the Government is capable.” If that be true, it is difficult to see why the *641forefathers bothered to add several specific items, including some trifling ones.9

The example of such unlimited executive power that must have most impressed the forefathers was the prerogative exercised by George III, and the description of its evils in the Declaration of Independence leads me to doubt that they were creating their new Executive in his image. Continental European examples were no more appealing. And if we seek instruction from our own times, we can match it only from the executive powers in those governments we disparagingly describe as totalitarian. I cannot accept the view that this clause is a grant in bulk of all conceivable executive power but regard it as an allocation to the presidential office of the generic powers thereafter stated.

The clause on which the Government next relies is that “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States . . . These cryptic words have given rise to some of the most persistent controversies in our constitutional history. Of course, they imply something more than an empty title. But just what authority goes with the name has plagued presidential advisers who would not waive or narrow it by nonassertion yet cannot say where it begins or ends. It undoubtedly puts the Nation’s armed forces under presidential command. Hence, this loose appellation is sometimes advanced as support for any presidential action, internal or external, involving use of force, the *642idea being that it vests power to do anything, anywhere, that can be done with an army or navy.

That seems to be the logic of an argument tendered at our bar — that the President having, on his own responsibility, sent American troops abroad derives from that act “affirmative power” to seize the means of producing a supply of steel for them. To quote, “Perhaps the most forceful illustration of the scope of Presidential power in this connection is the fact that American troops in Korea, whose safety and effectiveness are so directly involved here, were sent to the field by an exercise of the President’s constitutional powers.” Thus, it is said, he has invested himself with “war powers.”

I cannot foresee all that it might entail if the Court should indorse this argument. Nothing in our Constitution is plainer than that declaration of a war is entrusted only to Congress. Of course, a state of war may in fact exist without a formal declaration. But no doctrine that the Court 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 Nation’s armed forces to some foreign venture.10 *643I do not, however, find it necessary or appropriate to consider the legal status of the Korean enterprise to discountenance argument based on it.

Assuming that we are in a war de jacto, whether it is or is not a war de jure, does that empower the Commander in Chief to seize industries he thinks necessary to supply our army? The Constitution expressly places in Congress power “to raise and support Armies” and “to provide and maintain a Navy.” (Emphasis supplied.) This certainly lays upon Congress primary responsibility for supplying the armed forces. Congress alone controls the raising of revenues and their appropriation and may determine in what manner and by what means they shall be spent for military and naval procurement. I suppose no one would doubt that Congress can take over war supply as a Government enterprise. On the other hand, if Congress sees fit to rely on free private enterprise collectively bargaining with free labor for support and maintenance of our armed forces, can the Executive, because of lawful disagreements incidental to that process, seize the facility for operation upon Government-imposed terms?

There are indications that the Constitution did not contemplate that the title Commander in Chief of the *644Army and Navy will constitute him also Commander in Chief of the country, its industries and its inhabitants. He has no monopoly of “war powers,” whatever they are. While Congress cannot deprive the President of the command of the army and navy, only Congress can provide him an army or navy to command. It is also empowered to make rules for the “Government and Regulation of land and naval Forces,” by which it may to some unknown extent impinge upon even command functions.

That military powers of the Commander in Chief were not to supersede representative government of internal affairs seems obvious from the Constitution and from elementary American history. Time out of mind, and even now in many parts of the world, a military commander can seize private housing to shelter his troops. Not so, however, in the United States, for the Third Amendment says, “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.” Thus, even in war time, his seizure of needed military housing must be authorized by Congress. It also was expressly left to Congress to “provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions . . . .”11 Such a limitation on the command power, written at a time when the militia rather than a standing army was contemplated as the military weapon of the Republic, underscores the Constitution's policy that Congress, not the Executive, should control utilization of the war power as an instrument of domestic policy. Congress, fulfilling that function, has authorized the President to use the army to enforce certain civil rights.12 On the other hand, Congress has forbidden him to use the army for the pur*645pose of executing general laws except when expressly authorized by the Constitution or by Act of Congress.13

While broad claims under this rubric often have been made, advice to the President in specific matters usually has carried overtones that powers, even under this head, are measured by the command functions usual to the topmost officer of the army and navy. Even then, heed has been taken of any efforts of Congress to negative his authority.14

We should not use this occasion to circumscribe, much less to contract, the lawful role of the President as Commander in Chief. I should indulge the widest latitude of interpretation to sustain his exclusive function to command the instruments of national force, at least when turned against the outside world for the security of our society. But, when it is turned inward, not because of rebellion but because of a lawful economic struggle between industry and labor, it should have no such indulgence. His command power is not such an absolute as might be implied from that office in a militaristic system but is subject to limitations consistent with a constitutional Republic whose law and policy-making branch *646is a representative Congress. The purpose of lodging dual titles in one man was to insure that the civilian would control the military, not to enable the military to subordinate the presidential office. No penance would ever expiate the sin against free government of holding that a President can escape control of executive powers by law through assuming his military role. What the power of command may include I do not try to envision, but I think it is not a military prerogative, without support of law, to seize persons or property because they are important or even essential for the military and naval establishment.

The third clause in which the Solicitor General finds seizure powers is that “he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed . . . .”15 That authority must be matched against words of the Fifth Amendment that “No person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law . . . One gives a governmental authority that reaches so far as there is law, the other gives a private right that authority shall go no farther. These signify about all there is of the principle that ours is a government of laws, not of men, and that we submit ourselves to rulers only if under rules.

The Solicitor General lastly grounds support of the seizure upon nebulous, inherent powers never expressly granted but said to have accrued to the office from the customs and claims of preceding administrations. The plea is for a resulting power to deal with a crisis or an emergency according to the necessities of the case, the unarticulated assumption being that necessity knows no law.

Loose and irresponsible use of adjectives colors all nonlegal and much legal discussion of presidential powers. *647“Inherent” powers, “implied” powers, “incidental” powers, “plenary” powers, “war” powers and “emergency” powers are used, often interchangeably and without fixed or ascertainable meanings.

The vagueness and generality of the clauses that set forth presidential powers afford a plausible basis for pressures within and without an administration for presidential action beyond that supported by those whose responsibility it is to defend his actions in court. The claim of inherent and unrestricted presidential powers has long been a persuasive dialectical weapon in political controversy. While it is not surprising that counsel should grasp support from such unadjudicated claims of power, a judge cannot accept self-serving press statements of the attorney for one of the interested parties as authority in answering a constitutional question, even if the advocate was himself. But prudence has counseled that actual reliance on such nebulous claims stop short of provoking a judicial test.16

*648The Solicitor General, acknowledging that Congress has never authorized the seizure here, says practice of prior Presidents has authorized it. He seeks color of legality from claimed executive precedents, chief of which is President Roosevelt’s seizure on June 9, 1941, of the California plant of the North American Aviation Company. Its superficial similarities with the present case, upon analysis, yield to distinctions so decisive that it *649cannot be regarded as even a precedent, much less an authority for the present seizure.17

The appeal, however, that we declare the existence of inherent powers ex necessitate to meet an emergency asks us to do what many think would be wise, although *650it is something the forefathers omitted. They knew what emergencies were, knew the pressures they engender for authoritative action, knew, too, how they afford a ready pretext for usurpation. We may also suspect that they suspected that emergency powers would tend to kindle emergencies. Aside from suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in time of rebellion or invasion, when the public safety may require it,18 they made no express provision for exercise of extraordinary authority because of a crisis.19 I do not think we rightfully may so amend their work, and, if we could, I am not convinced it would be wise to do so, although many modern nations have forthrightly recognized that war and economic crises may upset the normal balance between liberty and au-*651thonty. Their experience with emergency powers may not be irrelevant to the argument here that we should say that the Executive, of his own volition, can invest himself with undefined emergency powers.

Germany, after the First World War, framed the Weimar Constitution, designed to secure her liberties in the Western tradition. However, the President of the Republic, without concurrence of the Reichstag, was empowered temporarily to suspend any or all individual rights if public safety and order were seriously disturbed or endangered. This proved a temptation to every government, whatever its shade of opinion, and in 13 years suspension of rights was invoked on more than 250 occasions. Finally, Hitler persuaded President Yon Hindenberg to suspend all such rights, and they were never restored.20

The French Republic provided for a very different kind of emergency government known as the “state of siege.” It differed from the German emergency dictatorship, particularly in that emergency powers could not be assumed at will by the Executive but could only be granted as a parliamentary measure. And it did not, as in Germany, result in a suspension or abrogation of law but was a legal institution governed by special legal rules and terminable by parliamentary authority.21

Great Britain also has fought both World Wars under a sort of temporary dictatorship created by legislation.22 As Parliament is not bound by written constitutional limitations, it established a crisis government simply by *652delegation to its Ministers of a larger measure than usual of its own unlimited power, which is exercised under its supervision by Ministers whom it may dismiss. This has been called the “high-water mark in the voluntary surrender of liberty,” but, as Churchill put it, “Parliament stands custodian of these surrendered liberties, and its most sacred duty will be to restore them in their fullness when victory has crowned our exertions and our perseverance.” 23 Thus, parliamentary control made emergency powers compatible with freedom.

This contemporary foreign experience may be inconclusive as to the wisdom of lodging emergency powers somewhere in a modern government. But it suggests that emergency powers are consistent with free government only when their control is lodged elsewhere than in the Executive who exercises them. That is the safeguard that would be nullified by our adoption of the “inherent powers” formula. Nothing in my experience convinces me that such risks are warranted by any real necessity, although such powers would, of course, be an executive convenience.

In the practical working of our Government we already have evolved a technique within the framework of the Constitution by which normal executive powers may be considerably expanded to meet an emergency. Congress may and has granted extraordinary authorities which lie dormant in normal times but may be called into play by the Executive in war or upon proclamation of a national emergency. In 1939, upon congressional request, the Attorney General listed ninety-nine such separate statutory grants by Congress of emergency or wartime executive powers.24 They were invoked from time to time as need appeared. Under this procedure we retain Government *653by law — special, temporary law, perhaps, but law nonetheless. The public may know the extent and limitations of the powers that can be asserted, and persons affected may be informed from the statute of their rights and duties.

In view of the ease, expedition and safety with which Congress can grant and has granted large emergency powers, certainly ample to embrace this crisis, I am quite unimpressed with the argument that we should affirm possession of them without statute. Such power either has no beginning or it has no end. If it exists, it need submit to no legal restraint. I am not alarmed that it would plunge us straightway into dictatorship, but it is at least a step in that wrong direction.

As to whether there is imperative necessity for such powers, it is relevant to note the gap that exists between the President’s paper powers and his real powers. The Constitution does not disclose the measure of the actual controls wielded by the modern presidential office. That instrument must be understood as an Eighteenth-Century sketch of a government hoped for, not as a blueprint of the Government that is. Vast accretions of federal power, eroded from that reserved by the States, have magnified the scope of presidential activity. Subtle shifts take place in the centers of real power that do not show on the face of the Constitution.

Executive power has the advantage of concentration in a single head in whose choice the whole Nation has a part, making him the focus of public hopes and expectations. In drama, magnitude and finality his decisions so far overshadow any others that almost alone he fills the public eye and ear. No other personality in public life can begin to compete with him in access to the public mind through modern methods of communications. By his prestige as head of state and his influence upon public opinion he exerts a leverage upon those who are supposed *654to check and balance his power which often cancels their effectiveness.

Moreover, rise of the party system has made a significant extraconstitutional supplement to real executive power. No appraisal of his necessities is realistic which overlooks that he heads a political system as well as a legal system. Party loyalties and interests, sometimes more binding than law, extend his effective control into branches of government other than his own and he often may win, as a political leader, what he cannot command under the Constitution. Indeed, Woodrow Wilson, commenting on the President as leader both of his party and of the Nation, observed, “If he rightly interpret the national thought and boldly insist upon it, he is irresistible .... His office is anything he has the sagacity and force to make it.” 25 I cannot be brought to believe that this country will suffer if the Court refuses further to aggrandize the presidential office, already so potent and so relatively immune from judicial review,26 at the expense of Congress.

But I have no illusion that any decision by this Court can keep power in the hands of Congress if it is not wise and timely in meeting its problems. A crisis that challenges the President equally, or perhaps primarily, challenges Congress. If not good law, there was worldly wisdom in the maxim attributed to Napoleon that “The tools belong to the man who can use them.” We may say that power to legislate for emergencies belongs in the hands of Congress, but only Congress itself can prevent power from slipping through its fingers.

The essence of our free Government is “leave to live by no man’s leave, underneath the law” — to be governed by those impersonal forces which we call law. Our Gov*655ernment is fashioned to fulfill this concept so far as humanly possible. The Executive, except for recommendation and veto, has no legislative power. The executive action we have here originates in the individual will of the President and represents an exercise of authority without law. No one, perhaps not even the President, knows the limits of the power he may seek to exert in this instance and the parties affected cannot learn the limit of their rights. We do not know today what powers over labor or property would be claimed to flow from Government possession if we should legalize it, what rights to compensation would be claimed or recognized, or on what contingency it would end. With all its defects, delays and inconveniences, men have discovered no technique for long preserving free government except that the Executive be under the law, and that the law be made by parliamentary deliberations.

Such institutions may be destined to pass away. But it is the duty of the Court to be last, not first, to give them up.27

Mr. Justice Burton,

concurring in both the opinion and judgment of the Court.

My position may be summarized as follows:

The validity of the President’s order of seizure is at issue and ripe for decision. Its validity turns upon its relation to the constitutional division of governmental power between Congress and the President.

*656The Constitution has delegated to Congress power to authorize action to meet a national emergency of the kind we face.1 Aware of this responsibility, Congress has responded to it. It has provided at least two procedures for the use of the President.

It has outlined one in the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, better known as the Taft-Hartley Act. The accuracy with which Congress there describes the present emergency demonstrates its applicability. It says:

“Whenever in the opinion of the President of the United States, a threatened or actual strike or lockout affecting an entire industry or a substantial part thereof engaged in trade, commerce, transportation, transmission, or communication among the several States or with foreign nations, or engaged in the production of goods for commerce, will, if permitted to occur or to continue, imperil the national health or safety, he may appoint a board of inquiry to inquire into the issues involved in the dispute and to make a written report to him within such time as he shall prescribe. . . .”2

*657In that situation Congress has authorized not only-negotiation, conciliation and impartial inquiry but also a 60-day cooling-off period under injunction, followed by 20 days for a secret ballot upon the final offer of settlement and then by recommendations from the President to Congress.3

For the purposes of this case the most significant feature of that Act is its omission of authority to seize an affected industry. The debate preceding its passage demonstrated the significance of that omission. Collective bargaining, rather than governmental seizure, was to be relied upon. Seizure was not to be resorted to without specific congressional authority. Congress reserved to itself the opportunity to authorize seizure to meet particular emergencies.4

*658The President, however, chose not to use the Taft-Hartley procedure. He chose another course, also authorized by Congress. He referred the controversy to the Wage Stabilization Board.5 'If that course had led to a settlement of the labor dispute, it would have avoided the need for other action. It, however, did not do so.

Now it is contended that although the President did not follow the procedure authorized by the Taft-Hartley Act, his substituted procedure served the same purpose and must be accepted as its equivalent. Without appraising that equivalence, it is enough to point out that neither procedure carried statutory authority for the seizure of private industries in the manner now at issue.6 The exhaustion of both procedures fails to cloud the *659clarity of the congressional reservation of seizure for its own consideration.

The foregoing circumstances distinguish this emergency from one in which Congress takes no action and outlines no governmental policy. In the case before us, Congress authorized a procedure which the President declined to follow. Instead, he followed another procedure which he hoped might eliminate the need for the first. Upon its failure, he issued an executive order to seize the steel properties in the face of the reserved right of Congress to adopt or reject that course as a matter of legislative policy.

This brings us to a further crucial question. Does the President, in such a situation, have inherent constitutional power to seize private property which makes congressional action in relation thereto unnecessary? We find no such power available to him under the present circumstances. The present situation is not comparable to that of an imminent invasion or threatened attack. We do not face the issue of what might be the President’s constitutional power to meet such catastrophic situations. Nor is it claimed that the current seizure is in the nature of a military command addressed by the President, as Commander-in-Chief, to a mobilized nation waging, or imminently threatened with, total war.7

*660The controlling fact here is that Congress, within its constitutionally delegated power, has prescribed, for the President specific procedures, exclusive of seizure, for his use in meeting the present type of emergency. Congress has reserved to itself the right to determine where and when to authorize the seizure of property in meeting such an emergencv. Under these circumstances, the President’s order of April 8 invaded the jurisdiction of Congress. It violated the essence of the principle of the separation of governmental powers. Accordingly, the injunction against its effectiveness should be sustained.

Mr. Justice Clark,

concurring in the judgment of the Court.

One of this Court’s first pronouncements upon the powers of the President under the Constitution was made by Mr. Chief Justice John Marshall some one hundred and fifty years ago. In Little v. Barreme,1 he used this characteristically clear language in discussing the power of the President to instruct the seizure of the Flying Fish, a vessel bound from a French port: “It is by no means clear that the president of the United States whose high duty it is to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’ and who is commander in chief of the armies and navies of the United States, might not, without any special authority for that purpose, in the then existing state of things, have empowered the officers commanding the armed vessels of the United States, to seize and send into port for adjudication, American vessels which were forfeited by being engaged in this illicit commerce. But when it is observed that [an act of Congress] gives a special authority to seize on the high seas, and limits that authority to the seizure of vessels bound or sailing to a French port, the legislature seem to have prescribed that *661the manner in which this law shall be carried into execution, was to exclude a seizure of any vessel not bound to a French port.” 2 Accordingly, a unanimous Court held that the President’s instructions had been issued without authority and that they could not “legalize an act which without those instructions would have been a plain trespass.” I know of no subsequent holding of this Court to the contrary.3

The limits of presidential power are obscure. However, Article II, no less than Article I, is part of “a constitution intended to endure for ages to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs.”4 Some of our Presidents, such as Lincoln, “felt that measures otherwise unconstitutional might become lawful by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution through the preservation of the na*662tion.” 5 Others, such as Theodore Roosevelt, thought the President to be capable, as a “steward” of the people, of exerting all power save that which is specifically prohibited by the Constitution or the Congress.6 In my view — taught me not only by the decision of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in Little v. Barreme, but also by a score of other pronouncements of distinguished members of this bench — the Constitution does grant to the President extensive authority in times of grave and imperative national emergency. In fact, to my thinking, such a grant may well be necessary to the very existence of the Constitution itself. As Lincoln aptly said, “[is] it possible to lose the nation and yet preserve the Constitution?” 7 In describing this authority I care not whether one calls it “residual,” “inherent,” “moral,” “implied,” “aggregate,” “emergency,” or otherwise. I am of the conviction that those who have had the gratifying experience of being the President’s lawyer have used one or more of these adjectives only with the utmost of sincerity and the highest of purpose.

I conclude that where Congress has laid down specific procedures to deal with the type of crisis confronting the President, he must follow those procedures in meeting the crisis; but that in the absence of such action by Congress, the President’s independent power to act depends upon the gravity of the situation confronting the nation. I cannot sustain the seizure in question because here, as in Little v. Barreme, Congress had prescribed methods to be followed by the President in meeting the emergency at hand.

*663Three statutory procedures were available: those provided in the Defense Production Act of 1950, the Labor Management Relations Act, and the Selective Service Act of 1948. In this case the President invoked the first of these procedures; he did not invoke the other two.

The Defense Production Act of 1950 provides for mediation of labor disputes affecting national defense. Under this statutory authorization, the President has established the Wage Stabilization Board. The Defense Production Act, however, grants the President no power to seize real property except through ordinary condemnation proceedings, which were not used here, and creates no sanctions for the settlement of labor disputes.

The Labor Management Relations Act, commonly known as the Taft-Hartley Act, includes provisions adopted for the purpose of dealing with nationwide strikes. They establish a procedure whereby the President may appoint a board of inquiry and thereafter, in proper cases, seek injunctive relief for an 80-day period against a threatened work stoppage. The President can invoke that procedure whenever, in his opinion, “a threatened or actual strike . . . affecting an entire industry . . . will, if permitted to occur or to continue, imperil the national health or safety.” 8 At the time that Act was passed, Congress specifically rejected a proposal to empower the President to seize any “plant, mine, or facility” in which a threatened work stoppage would, in his judgment, “imperil the public health or security.” 9 Instead, the Taft-Hartley Act directed the President, in the event a strike had not been settled during the 80-day injunction period, to submit to Congress “a full and comprehensive report . . . together with such recommendations as he may see fit to make for consideration and *664appropriate action.”10 The legislative history of the Act demonstrates Congress’ belief that the 80-day period would afford it adequate opportunity to determine whether special legislation should be enacted to meet the emergency at hand.11

The Selective Service Act of 1948 gives the President specific authority to seize plants which fail to produce goods required by the armed forces or the Atomic Energy Commission for national defense purposes. The Act provides that when a producer from whom the President has ordered such goods “refuses or fails” to fill the order within a period of time prescribed by the President, the President may take immediate possession of the producer’s plant.12 This language is significantly broader than *665that used in the National Defense Act of 1916 and the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, which provided for seizure when a producer “refused” to supply essential defense materials, but not when he “failed” to do so.13

These three statutes furnish the guideposts for decision in this case. Prior to seizing the steel mills on April 8 the President had exhausted the mediation procedures of the Defense Production Act through the Wage Stabilization Board. Use of those procedures had failed to avert the impending crisis; however, it had resulted in a 99-day postponement of the strike. The Government argues that this accomplished more than the maximum 80-day waiting period possible under the sanctions of the Taft-Hartley Act, and therefore amounted to compliance with the substance of that Act. Even if one were to accept this somewhat hyperbolic conclusion, the hard fact remains that neither the Defense Production Act nor Taft-Hartley authorized the seizure challenged here, and the Government made no effort to comply with the proce*666dures established by the Selective Service Act of 1948, a statute which expressly authorizes seizures when producers fail to supply necessary defense materiel.14

For these reasons I concur in the judgment of the Court. As Mr. Justice Story once said: "For the executive department of the government, this court entertain the most entire respect; and amidst the multiplicity of cares in that department, it may, without any violation of decorum, be presumed, that sometimes there may be an inaccurate construction of a law. It is our duty to expound the laws as we find them in the records of state; *667and we cannot, when called upon by the citizens of the country, refuse our opinion, however it may differ from that of very great authorities.” 15

Mr. Chief Justice Vinson,

with whom Mr. Justice Reed and Mr. Justice Minton join,

dissenting.

The President of the United States directed the Secretary of Commerce to take temporary possession of the Nation’s steel mills during the existing emergency because “a work stoppage would immediately jeopardize and imperil our national defense and the defense of those joined with us in resisting aggression, and would add to the continuing danger of our soldiers, sailors, and airmen engaged in combat in the field.” The District Court ordered the mills returned to their private owners on the ground that the President’s action was beyond his powers under the Constitution.

This Court affirms. Some members of the Court are of the view that the President is without power to act in time of crisis in the absence of express statutory authorization. Other members of the Court affirm on the basis of their reading of certain statutes. Because we cannot agree that affirmance is proper on any ground, and because of the transcending importance of the questions presented not only in this critical litigation but also to the powers of the President and of future Presidents to act in time of crisis, we are compelled to register this dissent.

I.

In passing upon the question of Presidential powers in this case, we must first consider the context in which those powers were exercised.

*668Those who suggest that this is a case involving extraordinary powers should be mindful that these are extraordinary times. A world not yet recovered from the devastation of World War II has been forced to face the threat of another and more terrifying global conflict.

Accepting in full measure its responsibility in the world community, the United States was instrumental in securing adoption of the United Nations Charter, approved by the Senate by a vote of 89 to 2. The first purpose of the United Nations is to “maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, . ...”1 In 1950, when the United Nations called upon member nations “to render every assistance” to repel aggression in Korea, the United States furnished its vigorous support.2 For almost two full years, our armed forces have been fighting in Korea, suffering casualties of over 108,000 men. Hostilities have not abated. The “determination of the United Nations to continue its action in Korea to meet the aggression” has been reaffirmed.3 Congressional support of the action in Korea has been manifested by provisions for increased military manpower and equipment and for economic stabilization, as hereinafter described.

Further efforts to protect the free world from aggression are found in the congressional enactments of the Truman Plan for assistance to Greece and Turkey4 and *669the Marshall Plan for economic aid needed to build up the strength of our friends in Western Europe.5 In 1949, the Senate approved the North Atlantic Treaty under which each member nation agrees that an armed attack against one is an armed attack against all.6 Congress immediately implemented the North Atlantic Treaty by authorizing military assistance to nations dedicated to the principles of mutual security under the United Nations Charter.7 The concept of mutual security recently has been extended by treaty to friends in the Pacific.8

Our treaties represent not merely legal obligations but show congressional recognition that mutual security for the free world is the best security against the threat of aggression on a global scale. The need for mutual security is shown by the very size of the armed forces outside the free world. Defendant’s brief informs us that the Soviet Union maintains the largest air force in the world and maintains ground forces much larger than those presently available to the United States and the countries joined with us in mutual security arrangements. Constant international tensions are cited to demonstrate how precarious is the peace.

Even this brief review of our responsibilities in the world community discloses the enormity of our undertaking. Success of these measures may, as has often been *670observed, dramatically influence the lives of many generations of the world’s peoples yet unborn. Alert to our responsibilities, which coincide with our own self-preservation through mutual security, Congress has enacted a large body of implementing legislation. As an illustration of the magnitude of the over-all program, Congress has appropriated $130 billion for our own defense and for military assistance to our allies since the June, 1950, attack in Korea.

In the Mutual Security Act of 1951, Congress authorized “military, economic, and technical assistance to friendly countries to strengthen the mutual security and individual and collective defenses of the free world, . ...” 9 Over $5% billion were appropriated for military assistance for fiscal year 1952, the bulk of that amount to be devoted to purchase of military equipment.10 A request for over $7 billion for the same purpose for fiscal year 1953 is currently pending in Congress.11 In addition to direct shipment of military equipment to nations of the free world, defense production in those countries relies upon shipment of machine tools and allocation of steel tonnage from the United States.12

Congress also directed the President to build up our own defenses. Congress, recognizing the “grim fact . . . that the United States is now engaged in a struggle for survival” and that “it is imperative that we now take those necessary steps to make our strength equal to the peril of the hour,” granted authority to draft men into *671the armed forces.13 As a result, we now have over 3,500,000 men in our armed forces.14

Appropriations for the Department of Defense, which had averaged less than $13 billion per year for the three years before attack in Korea, were increased by Congress to $48 billion for fiscal year 1951 and to $60 billion for fiscal year 1952.15 A request for $51 billion for the Department of Defense for fiscal year 1953 is currently pending in Congress.16 The bulk of the increase is for military equipment and supplies — guns, tanks, ships, planes and ammunition — all of which require steel. Other defense programs requiring great quantities of steel include the large scale expansion of facilities for the Atomic Energy Commission17 and the expansion of the Nation’s productive capacity affirmatively encouraged by Congress.18

Congress recognized the impact of these defense programs upon the economy. Following the attack in Korea, the President asked for authority to requisition property and to allocate and fix priorities for scarce goods. In the Defense Production Act of 1950, Congress granted the powers requested and, in addition, granted power to stabilize prices and wages and to provide for settlement *672of labor disputes arising in the defense program.19 The Defense Production Act was extended in 1951, a Senate Committee noting that in the dislocation caused by the programs for purchase of military equipment “lies the seed of an economic disaster that might well destroy the military might we are straining to build.” 20 Significantly, the Committee examined the problem “in terms of just one commodity, steel,” and found “a graphic picture of the over-all inflationary danger growing out of reduced civilian supplies and rising incomes.” Even before Korea, steel production at levels above theoretical 100% capacity was not capable of supplying civilian needs alone. Since Korea, the tremendous military demand for steel has far exceeded the increases in productive capacity. This Committee emphasized that the shortage of steel, even with the mills operating at full capacity, coupled with increased civilian purchasing power, presented grave danger of disastrous inflation.21

The President has the duty to execute the foregoing legislative programs. Their successful execution depends upon continued production of steel and stabilized prices for steel. Accordingly, when the collective bargaining agreements between the Nation’s steel producers and their employees, represented by the United Steel Workers, were due to expire on December 31, 1951, and a strike shutting down the entire basic steel industry was threatened, the President acted to avert a complete shutdown of steel production. On December 22, 1951, he certified the dispute to the Wage Stabilization Board, requesting that the Board investigate the dispute and promptly report its recommendation as to fair and equitable terms of settlement. The Union complied with the President’s *673request and delayed its threatened strike while the dispute was before the Board. After a special Board .panel had conducted hearings and submitted a report, the full Wage Stabilization Board submitted its report and recommendations to the President on March 20, 1952.

The Board’s report was acceptable to the Union but was rejected by plaintiffs. The Union gave notice of its intention to strike as of 12:01 a. m., April 9, 1952, but bargaining between the parties continued with hope of settlement until the evening of April 8, 1952. After bargaining had failed to avert the threatened shutdown of steel production, the President issued the following Executive Order:

“WHEREAS on December 16, 1950, I proclaimed the existence of a national emergency which requires that the military, naval, air, and civilian defenses of this country be strengthened as speedily as possible to the end that we may be able to repel any and all threats against our national security and to fulfill our responsibilities in the efforts being made throughout the United Nations and otherwise to bring about a lasting peace; and

“WHEREAS American fighting men and fighting men of other nations of the United Nations are now engaged in deadly combat with the forces of aggression in Korea, and forces of the United States are stationed elsewhere overseas for the purpose of participating in the defense of the Atlantic Community against aggression; and

“WHEREAS the weapons and other materials needed by our armed forces and by those joined with us in the defense of the free world are produced to a great extent in this country, and steel is an indispensable component of substantially all of such weapons and materials; and

*674“WHEREAS steel is likewise indispensable to the carrying out of programs of the Atomic Energy Commission of vital importance to our defense efforts; and

“WHEREAS a continuing and uninterrupted supply of steel is also indispensable to the maintenance of the economy of the United States, upon which our military strength depends; and

“WHEREAS a controversy has arisen between certain companies in the United States producing and fabricating steel and the elements thereof and certain of their workers represented by the United Steel Workers of America, CIO, regarding terms and conditions of employment; and

“WHEREAS the controversy has not been settled through the processes of collective bargaining or through the efforts of the Government, including those of the Wage Stabilization Board, to which the controversy was referred on December 22, 1951, pursuant to Executive Order No. 10233, and a strike has been called for 12:01 A. M., April 9, 1952; and

“WHEREAS a work stoppage would immediately jeopardize and imperil our national defense and the defense of those joined with us in resisting aggression, and would add to the continuing danger of our soldiers, sailors, and airmen engaged in combat in the field; and

“WHEREAS in order to assure the continued availability of steel and steel products during the existing emergency, it is necessary that the United States take possession of and operate the plants, facilities, and other property of the said companies as hereinafter provided:

“NOW, THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the *675United States, and as President of the United States and Commander in Chief of the armed forces of the United States, it is hereby ordered as follows:

“1. The Secretary of Commerce is hereby authorized and directed to take possession of all or such of the plants, facilities, and other property of the companies named in the list attached hereto, or any part thereof, as he may deem necessary in the interests of national defense; and to operate or to arrange for the operation thereof and to do all things necessary for, or incidental to, such operation. . . .”22

The next morning, April 9, 1952, the President addressed the following Message to Congress:

“To the Congress of the United States:

“The Congress is undoubtedly aware of the recent events which have taken place in connection with the management-labor dispute in the steel industry. These events culminated in the action which was taken last night to provide for temporary operation of the steel mills by the Government.

“I took this action with the utmost reluctance. The idea of Government operation of the steel mills is thoroughly distasteful to me and I want to see it ended as soon as possible. However, in the situation which confronted me yesterday, I felt that I could make no other choice. The other alternatives appeared to be even worse — so much worse that I could not accept them.

“One alternative would have been to permit a shutdown in the steel industry. The effects of such a shut-down would have been so immediate and damaging with respect to our efforts to support our Armed Forces and to protect our national security that it made this alternative unthinkable.

*676“The only way that I know of, other than Government operation, by which a steel shut-down could have been avoided was to grant the demands of the steel industry for a large price increase. I believed and the officials in charge of our stabilization agencies believed that this would have wrecked our stabilization program. I was unwilling to accept the incalculable damage which might be done to our country by following such a course.

“Accordingly, it was my judgment that Government operation of the steel mills for a temporary period was the least undesirable of the courses of action which lay open. In the circumstances, I believed it to be, and now believe it to be, my duty and within my powers as President to follow that course of action.

“It may be that the Congress will deem some other course to be wiser. It may be that the Congress will feel we should give in to the demands of the steel industry for an exorbitant price increase and take the consequences so far as resulting inflation is concerned.

“It may be that the Congress will feel the Government should try to force the steel workers to continue to work for the steel companies for another long period, without a contract, even though the steel workers have already voluntarily remained at work without a contract for 100 days in an effort to-reach an orderly settlement of their differences with management.

“It may even be that the Congress will feel that we should permit a shut-down of the steel industry, although that would immediately endanger the safety of our fighting forces abroad and weaken the whole structure of our national security.

*677“I do not believe the Congress will favor any of these courses of action, but that is a matter for the Congress to determine.

“It may be, on the other hand, that the Congress will wish to pass legislation establishing specific terms and conditions with reference to the operation of the steel mills by the Government. Sound legislation of this character might be very desirable.

“On the basis of the facts that are known to me at this time, I do not believe that immediate congressional action is essential; but I would, of course, be glad to cooperate in developing any legislative proposals which the Congress may wish to consider.

“If the Congress does not deem it necessary to act at this time, I shall continue to do all that is within my power to keep the steel industry operating and at the same time make every effort to bring about a settlement of the dispute so the mills can be returned to their private owners as soon as possible.” 23

Twelve days passed without action by Congress. On April 21, 1952, the President sent a letter to the President of the Senate in which he again described the purpose and need for his action and again stated his position that “The Congress can, if it wishes, reject the course of action I have followed in this matter.” 24 Congress has not so acted to this date.

Meanwhile, plaintiffs instituted this action in the District Court to compel defendant to return possession of the steel mills seized under Executive Order 10340. In this litigation for return of plaintiffs’ properties, we assume that defendant Charles Sawyer is not immune from judicial restraint and that plaintiffs are entitled to equitable relief if we find that the Executive Order *678under which defendant acts is unconstitutional. We also assume without deciding that the courts may go behind a President’s finding of fact that an emergency exists. But there is not the slightest basis for suggesting that the President’s finding in this case can be undermined. Plaintiffs moved for a preliminary injunction before answer or hearing. Defendant opposed the motion, filing uncontroverted affidavits of Government officials describing the facts underlying the President’s order.

Secretary of Defense Lovett swore that “a work stoppage in the steel industry will result immediately in serious curtailment of production of essential weapons and munitions of all kinds.” He illustrated by showing that 84% of the national production of certain alloy steel is currently used for production of military-end items and that 35% of total production of another form of steel goes into ammunition, 80% of such ammunition now going to Korea. The Secretary of Defense stated that: “We are holding the line [in Korea] with ammunition and not with the lives of our troops.”

Affidavits of the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Secretary of the Interior, defendant as Secretary of Commerce, and the Administrators of the Defense Production Administration, the National Production Authority, the General Services Administration and the Defense Transport Administration were also filed in the District Court. These affidavits disclose an enormous demand for steel in such vital defense programs as the expansion of facilities in atomic energy, petroleum, power, transportation and industrial production, including steel production. Those charged with administering allocations and priorities swore to the vital part steel production plays in our economy. The affidavits emphasize the critical need for steel in our defense program, *679the absence of appreciable inventories of steel, and the drastic results of any interruption in steel production.

One is not here called upon even to consider the possibility of executive seizure of a farm, a corner grocery store or even a single industrial plant. Such considerations arise only when one ignores the central fact of this case — that the Nation’s entire basic steel production would have shut down completely if there had been no Government seizure. Even ignoring for the moment whatever confidential information the President may possess as “the Nation’s organ for foreign affairs,” 25 the uncontroverted affidavits in this record amply support the finding that “a work stoppage would immediately jeopardize and imperil our national defense.”

Plaintiffs do not remotely suggest any basis for rejecting the President’s finding that any stoppage of steel production would immediately place the Nation in peril. Moreover, even self-generated doubts that any stoppage of steel production constitutes an emergency are of little comfort here. The Union and the plaintiffs bargained for 6 months with over 100 issues in dispute — issues not limited to wage demands but including the union shop and other matters of principle between the parties. At the time of seizure there was not, and there is not now, the slightest evidence to justify the belief that any strike will be of short duration. The Union and the steel companies may well engage in a lengthy struggle. Plaintiffs’ counsel tells us that “sooner or later” the mills will operate again. That may satisfy the steel companies and, perhaps, the Union. But our soldiers and our allies will hardly be cheered with the assurance that the ammunition upon which their lives depend will be forthcoming — “sooner or later,” or, in other words, “too little and too late.”

*680Accordingly, if the President has any power under the Constitution to meet a critical situation in the absence of express statutory authorization, there is no basis whatever for criticizing the exercise of such power in this case.

II.

The steel mills were seized for a public use. The power of eminent domain, invoked in this case, is an essential attribute of sovereignty and has long been recognized as a power of the Federal Government. Kohl v. United States, 91 U. S. 367 (1876). Plaintiffs cannot complain that any provision in the Constitution prohibits the exercise of the power of eminent domain in this case. The Fifth Amendment provides: “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” It is no bar to this seizure for, if the taking is not otherwise unlawful, plaintiffs are assured of receiving the required just compensation. United States v. Pewee Coal Co., 341 U. S. 114 (1951).

Admitting that the Government could seize the mills, plaintiffs claim that the implied power of eminent domain can be exercised only under an Act of Congress; under no circumstances, they say, can that power be exercised by the President unless he can point to an express provision in enabling legislation. This was the view adopted by the District Judge when he granted the preliminary injunction. Without an answer, without hearing evidence, he determined the issue on the basis of his “fixed conclusion . . . that defendant’s acts are illegal” because the President’s only course in the face of an emergency is to present the matter to Congress and await the final passage of legislation which will enable the Government to cope with threatened disaster.

Under this view, the President is left powerless at the very moment when the need for action may be most pressing and when no one, other than he, is immediately *681capable of action. Under this view, he is left powerless because a power not expressly given to Congress is nevertheless found to rest exclusively with Congress.

Consideration of this view of executive impotence calls for further examination of the nature of the separation of powers under our tripartite system of Government.

The Constitution provides:

Art. I,

Section 1. “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, . . .

Art. II,

Section 1. “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. . .

Section 2. “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, . . . .”

“He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; . . .

Section 3. “He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; ... he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, . . . .”

Art. Ill,

Section 1. “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.”

The whole of the “executive Power” is vested in the President. Before entering office, the President swears that he “will faithfully execute the Office of President of the *682United States, and will to the best of [his] Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Art. II, § 1.

This comprehensive grant of the executive power to a single person was bestowed soon after the country had thrown the yoke of monarchy. Only by instilling initiative and vigor in all of the three departments of Government, declared Madison, could tyranny in any form be avoided.26 Hamilton added: “Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy.” 27 It is thus apparent that the Presidency was deliberately fashioned as an office of power and independence. Of course, the Framers created no autocrat capable of arrogating any power unto himself at any time. But neither did they create an automaton impotent to exercise the powers of Government at a time when the survival of the Republic itself may be at stake.

In passing upon the grave constitutional question presented in this case, we must never forget, as Chief Justice Marshall admonished, that the Constitution is “intended to endure for ages to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs,” and that “[i]ts means are adequate to its ends.” 28 Cases do arise presenting questions which could not have been foreseen by the Framers. In such cases, the Constitution has been treated as a living document adaptable to new situa*683tions.29 But we are not called upon today to expand the Constitution to meet a new situation. For, in this case, we need only look to history and time-honored principles of constitutional law — principles that have been applied consistently by all branches of the Government throughout our history. It is those who assert the invalidity of the Executive Order who seek to amend the Constitution in this case.

III.

A review of executive action demonstrates that our Presidents have on many occasions exhibited the leadership contemplated by the Framers when they made the President Commander in Chief, and imposed upon him the trust to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” With or without explicit statutory authorization, Presidents have at such times dealt with national emergencies by acting promptly and resolutely to enforce legislative programs, at least to save those programs until Congress could act. Congress and the courts have responded to such executive initiative with consistent approval.

Our first President displayed at once the leadership contemplated by the Framers. When the national revenue laws were openly flouted in some sections of Pennsylvania, President Washington, without waiting for a call from the state government, summoned the militia and took decisive steps to secure the faithful execution of the laws.30 When international disputes engendered by the French revolution threatened to involve this country in war, and while congressional policy remained uncertain, Washington issued his Proclamation of Neutrality. Hamilton, whose defense of the Proclamation *684has endured the test of time, invoked the argument that the Executive has the duty to do that which will preserve peace until Congress acts and, in addition, pointed to the need for keeping the Nation informed of the requirements of existing laws and treaties as part of the faithful execution of the laws.31

President John Adams issued a warrant for the arrest of Jonathan Robbins in order to execute the extradition provisions of a treaty. This action was challenged in Congress on the ground that no specific statute prescribed the method to be used in executing the treaty. John Marshall, then a member of the House of Representatives, made the following argument in support of the President’s action:

“The treaty, which is a law, enjoins the performance of a particular object. The person who is to perform this object is marked out by the Constitution, since the person is named who conducts the foreign intercourse, and is to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. The means by which it is to be performed, the force of the nation, are in the hands of this person. Ought not this person to perform the object, although the particular mode of using the means has not been prescribed? Congress, unquestionably, may prescribe the mode, and Congress may devolve on others the whole execution of the contract; but, till this be done, it seems the duty of the Executive department to execute the contract by any means it possesses.” 32

Efforts in Congress to discredit the President for his action failed.33 Almost a century later, this Court had *685occasion to give its express approval to “the masterly and conclusive argument of John Marshall.” 34

Jefferson’s initiative in the Louisiana Purchase, the Monroe Doctrine, and Jackson’s removal of Government deposits from the Bank of the United States further serve to demonstrate by deed what the Pramers described by word when they vested the whole of the executive power in the President.

Without declaration of war, President Lincoln took energetic action with the outbreak of the War Between the States. He summoned troops and paid them out of the Treasury without appropriation therefor. He proclaimed a naval blockade of the Confederacy and seized ships violating that blockade. Congress, far from denying the validity of these acts, gave them express approval. The most striking action of President Lincoln was the Emancipation Proclamation, issued in aid of the successful prosecution of the War Between the States, but wholly without statutory authority.35

In an action furnishing a most apt precedent for this case, President Lincoln without statutory authority directed the seizure of rail and telegraph lines leading to Washington.36 Many months later, Congress recognized and confirmed the power of the President to seize railroads and telegraph lines and provided criminal penalties for interference with Government operation.37 This Act did not confer on the President any additional powers of seizure. Congress plainly rejected the view that the President’s acts had been without legal sanction until *686ratified by the legislature. Sponsors of the bill declared that its purpose was only to confirm the power which the President already possessed.38 Opponents insisted a statute authorizing seizure was unnecessary and might even be construed as limiting existing Presidential powers.39

Other seizures of private property occurred during the War Between the States, just as they had occurred during previous wars.40 In United States v. Russell, 13 Wall. 623 (1872), three river steamers were seized by Army Quartermasters on the ground of “imperative military necessity.” This Court affirmed an award of compensation, stating:

“Extraordinary and unforeseen occasions arise, however, beyond all doubt, in cases of extreme necessity in time of war or of immediate and impending public danger, in which private property may be impressed into the public service, or may be seized and appropriated to the public use, or may even be destroyed without the consent of the owner.

“Exigencies of the kind do arise in time of war or impending public danger, but it is the emergency, as was said by a great magistrate, that gives the right, *687and it is clear that the emergency must be shown to exist before the taking can be justified. Such a justification may be shown, and when shown the rule is well settled that the officer taking private property for such a purpose, if the emergency is fully proved, is not a trespasser, and that the government is bound to make full compensation to the owner.”41

In In re Neagle, 135 U. S. 1 (1890), this Court held that a federal officer had acted in line of duty when he was guarding a Justice of this Court riding circuit. It was conceded that there was no specific statute authorizing the President to assign such a guard. In holding that such a statute was not necessary, the Court broadly stated the question as follows:

"[The President] is enabled to fulfil the duty of his great department, expressed in the phrase that ‘he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.'

“Is this duty limited to the enforcement of acts of Congress or of treaties of the United States according to their express terms, or does it include the rights, duties and obligations growing out of the Constitution itself, our international relations, and all the protection implied by the nature of the government under the Constitution?” 42

The latter approach was emphatically adopted by the Court.

President Hayes authorized the wide-spread use of federal troops during the Railroad Strike of 1877.43 President Cleveland also used the troops in the Pullman Strike *688of 1895 and his action is of special significance. No statute authorized this action. No call for help had issued from the Governor of Illinois; indeed Governor Altgeld disclaimed the need for supplemental forces. But the President’s concern was that federal laws relating to the free flow of interstate commerce and the mails be continuously and faithfully executed without interruption.44 To further this aim his agents sought and obtained the injunction upheld by this Court in In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564 (1895). The Court scrutinized each of the steps taken by the President to insure execution of the “mass of legislation” dealing with commerce and the mails and gave his conduct full approval. Congress likewise took note of this use of Presidential power to forestall apparent obstacles to the faithful execution of the laws. By separate resolutions, both the Senate and the House commended the Executive’s action.45

President Theodore Roosevelt seriously contemplated seizure of Pennsylvania coal mines if a coal shortage necessitated such action.46 In his autobiography, President Roosevelt expounded the “Stewardship Theory” of Presidential power, stating that “the executive as subject only to the people, and, under the Constitution, bound to serve the people affirmatively in cases where the Constitution does not explicitly forbid him to render the service.” 47 Because the contemplated seizure of the coal mines was based on this theory, then ex-President Taft criticized President Roosevelt in a passage in his book relied upon by the District Court in this case. Taft, Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers (1916), 139-147. In the same book, however, President Taft agreed that *689such powers of the President as the duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” could not be confined to “express Congressional statutes.” Id., at 88. In re Neagle, supra, and In re Debs, supra, were cited as conforming with Taft’s concept of the office, id., at pp. 88-94, as they were later to be cited with approval in his opinion as Chief Justice in Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52, 133 (1926).48

In 1909, President Taft was informed that government-owned oil lands were being patented by private parties at such a rate that public oil lands would be depleted in a matter of months. Although Congress had explicitly provided that these lands were open to purchase by United States citizens, 29 Stat. 526 (1897), the President nevertheless ordered the lands withdrawn from sale “[i]n aid of proposed legislation.” In United States v. Midwest Oil Co., 236 U. S. 459 (1915), the President’s action was sustained as consistent with executive practice throughout our history. An excellent brief was filed in the case by the Solicitor General, Mr. John W. Davis, together with Assistant Attorney General Knaebel, later Reporter for this Court. In this brief, the situation confronting President Taft was described as “an emergency; there was no time to wait for the action of Congress.” The brief then discusses the powers of the President under the Constitution in such a case:

“Ours is a self-sufficient Government within its sphere. (Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S., 371, 395; in re Debs, 158 U. S., 564, 578.) ‘Its means are adequate to its ends’ (McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 *690Wheat., 316, 424), and it is rational to assume that its active forces will be found equal in most things to the emergencies that confront it. While perfect flexibility is not to be expected in a Government of divided powers, and while division of power is one of the principal features of the Constitution, it is the plain duty of those who are called upon to draw the dividing lines to ascertain the essential, recognize the practical, and avoid a slavish formalism which can only serve to ossify the Government and reduce its efficiency without any compensating good. The function of making laws is peculiar to Congress, and the Executive can not exercise that function to any degree. But this is not to say that all of the subjects concerning which laws might be made are perforce removed from the possibility of Executive influence. The Executive may act upon things and upon men in many relations which have not, though they might have, been actually regulated by Congress. In other words, just as there are fields which are peculiar to Congress and fields which are peculiar to the Executive, so there are fields which are common to both, in the sense that the Executive may move within them until they shall have been occupied by legislative action. These are not the fields of legislative prerogative, but fields within which the lawmaking power may enter and dominate whenever it chooses. This situation results from the fact that the President is the active agent, not of Congress, but of the Nation. As such he performs the duties which the Constitution lays upon him immediately, and as such, also, he executes the laws and regulations adopted by Congress. He is the agent of the people of the United States, deriving all his powers from them and responsible directly to them. In no *691sense is he the agent of Congress. He obeys and executes the laws of Congress, not because Congress is enthroned in authority over him, but because the Constitution directs him to do so.

“Therefore it follows that in ways short of making laws or disobeying them, the Executive may be under a grave constitutional duty to act for the national protection in situations not covered by the acts of Congress, and in which, even, it may not be said that his action is the direct expression of any particular one of the independent powers which are granted to him specifically by the Constitution. Instances wherein the President has felt and fulfilled such a duty have not been rare in our history, though, being for the public benefit and approved by all, his acts have seldom been challenged in the courts. We are able, however, to present a number of apposite cases which were subjected to judicial inquiry.”

The brief then quotes from such cases as In re Debs, supra, and In re Neagle, supra, and continues:

“As we understand the doctrine of the Neagle case, and the cases therein cited, it is clearly this: The Executive is authorized to exert the power of the United States when he finds this necessary for the protection of the agencies, the instrumentalities, or the property of the Government. This does not mean an authority to disregard the wishes of Congress on the subject, when that subject lies within its control and when those wishes have been expressed, and it certainly does not involve the slightest semblance of a power to legislate, much less to ‘suspend' legislation already passed by Congress. It involves the performance of specific acts, not of a *692legislative but purely of an executive character— acts which are not in themselves laws, but which presuppose a ‘law’ authorizing him to perform them. This law is not expressed, either in the Constitution or in the enactments of Congress, but reason and necessity compel that it be implied from the exigencies of the situation.

“In none of the cases which we have mentioned, nor in the cases cited in the extracts taken from the Neagle case, was it possible to say that the action of the President was directed, expressly or impliedly, by Congress. The situations dealt with had never been covered by any act of Congress, and there was no ground whatever for a contention that the possibility of their occurrence had ever been specifically considered by the legislative mind. In none of those cases did the action of the' President amount merely to the execution of some specific law.

“Neither does any of them stand apart in principle from the case at bar, as involving the exercise of specific constitutional powers of the President in a degree in which this case does not involve them. Taken collectively, the provisions of the Constitution which designate the President as the official who must represent us in foreign relations, in commanding the Army and Navy, in keeping Congress informed of the state of the Union, in insuring the faithful execution of the laws and in recommending new ones, considered in connection with the sweeping declaration that the executive power shall be vested in him, completely demonstrate that his is the watchful eye, the active hand, the overseeing dynamic force of the United States.” 49

*693This brief is valuable not alone because of the caliber of its authors but because it lays bare in succinct reasoning the basis of the executive practice which this Court approved in the Midwest Oil case.

During World War I, President Wilson established a War-Labor Board without awaiting specific direction by Congress.50 With William Howard Taft and Frank P. Walsh as co-chairmen, the Board had as its purpose the prevention of strikes and lockouts interfering with the production of goods needed to meet the emergency. Effectiveness of War Labor Board decision was accomplished by Presidential action, including seizure of industrial plants.51 Seizure of the Nation’s railroads was also ordered by President Wilson.52

Beginning with the Bank Holiday Proclamation 53 and continuing through World War II, executive leadership and initiative were characteristic of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration. In 1939, upon the outbreak *694of war in Europe, the President proclaimed a limited national emergency for the purpose of strengthening our national defense.54 In May of 1941, the danger from the Axis belligerents having become clear, the President proclaimed “an unlimited national emergency” calling for mobilization of the Nation’s defenses to repel aggression.55 The President took the initiative in strengthening our defenses by acquiring rights from the British Government to establish air bases in exchange for overage destroyers.56

In 1941, President Roosevelt acted to protect Iceland from attack by Axis powers, when British forces were withdrawn, by sending our forces to occupy Iceland. Congress was informed of this action on the same day that our forces reached Iceland.57 The occupation of Iceland was but one of “at least 125 incidents” in our history in which Presidents,, “without congressional authorization, and in the absence of a declaration of war, [have] ordered the Armed Forces to take action or maintain positions abroad.” 58

Some six months before Pearl Harbor, a dispute at a single aviation plant at Inglewood, California, interrupted a segment of the production of military aircraft. In spite of the comparative insignificance of this work stoppage to total defense production as contrasted with the complete paralysis now theatened by a shutdown of the entire basic steel industry, and even though *695our armed forces were not then engaged in combat, President Roosevelt ordered the seizure of the plant “pursuant to the powers vested in [him] by the Constitution and laws of the United States, as President of the United States of America and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” 59 The Attorney General (Jackson) vigorously proclaimed that the President had the moral duty to keep this Nation’s defense effort a “going concern.” His ringing moral justification was coupled with a legal justification equally well stated:

“The Presidential proclamation rests upon the aggregate of the Presidential powers derived from the Constitution itself and from statutes enacted by the Congress.

“The Constitution lays upon the President the duty 'to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.’ Among the laws which he is required to find means to execute are those which direct him to equip an enlarged army, to provide for a strengthened navy, to protect Government property, to protect those who are engaged in carrying out the business of the Government, and to carry out the provisions of the Lend-Lease Act. For the faithful execution of such laws the President has back of him not only each general law-enforcement power conferred by the various acts of Congress but the aggregate of all such laws plus that wide discretion as to method vested in him by the Constitution for the purpose of executing the laws.

“The Constitution also places on the President the responsibility and vests in him the powers of Commander in Chief of the Army and of the Navy. These weapons for the protection of the continued existence of the Nation are placed in his sole com*696mand and the implication is clear that he should not allow them to become paralyzed by failure to obtain supplies for which Congress has appropriated the money and which it has directed the President to obtain.” 60

At this time, Senator Connally proposed amending the Selective Training and Service Act to authorize the President to seize any plant where an interruption of production would unduly impede the defense effort.61 Proponents of the measure in no way implied that the legislation would add to the powers already possessed by the President62 and the amendment was opposed as unnecessary since the President already had the power.63 The amendment relating to plant seizures was not approved at that session of Congress.64

Meanwhile, and also prior to Pearl Harbor, the President ordered the seizure of a shipbuilding company and an aircraft parts plant.65 Following the declaration of war, but prior to the Smith-Connally Act of 1943, five additional industrial concerns were seized to avert inter*697ruption of needed production.66 During the same period, the President directed seizure of the Nation’s coal mines to remove an obstruction to the effective prosecution of the war.67

The procedures adopted by President Roosevelt closely resembled the methods employed by President Wilson. A National War Labor Board, like its predecessor of World War I, was created by Executive Order to deal effectively and fairly with disputes affecting defense production.68 Seizures were considered necessary, upon disobedience of War Labor Board orders, to assure that the mobilization effort remained a “going concern,” and to enforce the economic stabilization program.

At the time of the seizure of the coal mines, Senator Connally’s bill to provide a statutory basis for seizures and for the War Labor Board was again before Congress. As stated by its sponsor, the purpose of the bill was not to augment Presidential power, but to “let the country know that the Congress is squarely behind the President.” 69 As in the case of the legislative recognition of President Lincoln’s power to seize, Congress again recognized that the President already had the necessary power, for there was no intention to “ratify” past actions of doubtful validity. Indeed, when Senator Tydings offered an amendment to the Connally bill expressly to confirm and validate the seizure of the coal mines, sponsors of the bill *698opposed the amendment as casting doubt on the legality of the seizure and the amendment was defeated.70 When the Connally bill, S. 796, came before the House, all parts after the enacting clause were stricken and a bill introduced by Representative Smith of Virginia was substituted and passed. This action in the House is significant because the Smith bill did not contain the provisions authorizing seizure by the President but did contain provisions controlling and regulating activities in respect to properties seized by the Government under statute “or otherwise.” 71 After a conference, the seizure provisions of the Connally bill, enacted as the Smith-Connally or War Labor Disputes Act of 1943, 57 Stat. 163, were agreed to by the House.

Following passage of the Smith-Connally Act, seizures to assure continued production on the basis of terms recommended by the War Labor Board were based upon that Act as well as upon the President’s power under the Constitution and the laws generally. A question did arise as to whether the statutory language relating to “any plant, mine, or facility equipped for the manufacture, production, or mining of any articles or materials” 72 authorized the seizure of properties of Montgomery Ward & Co., a retail department store and mail-order concern. The Attorney General (Biddle) issued an opinion that the President possessed the power to seize Montgomery Ward properties to prevent a work stoppage whether or not the terms of the Smith-Connally Act authorized such a seizure.73 This opinion was in line with *699the views on Presidential powers maintained by the Attorney General’s predecessors (Murphy74 and Jackson75) and his successor (Clark76). Accordingly, the President ordered seizure of the Chicago properties of Montgomery Ward in April, 1944, when that company refused to obey a War Labor Board order concerning the bargaining representative of its employees in Chicago.77 In Congress, a Select Committee to Investigate Seizure of the Property of Montgomery Ward & Co., assuming that the terms of the Smith-Connally Act did not cover this seizure, concluded that the seizure “was not only within the constitutional power but was the plain duty of the President.” 78 Thereafter, an election determined the bargaining representative for the Chicago employees and the properties were returned to Montgomery Ward & Co. In December, 1944, after continued defiance of a series of War Labor Board orders, President Roosevelt ordered the seizure of Montgomery Ward properties throughout the country.79 The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld this seizure on statutory grounds and also indicated its disapproval of a lower court’s denial of seizure power apart from express statute.80

*700More recently, President Truman acted to repel aggression by employing our armed forces in Korea.81 Upon the intervention of the Chinese Communists, the President proclaimed the existence of an unlimited national emergency requiring the speedy build-up of our defense establishment.82 Congress responded by providing for increased manpower and weapons for our own armed forces, by increasing military aid under the Mutual Security Program and by enacting economic stabilization measures, as previously described.

This is but a cursory summary of executive leadership. But it amply demonstrates that Presidents have taken prompt action to enforce the laws and protect the country whether or not Congress happened to provide in advance for the particular method of execution. At the minimum, the executive actions reviewed herein sustain the action of the President in this case. And many of the cited examples of Presidential practice go far beyond the extent of power necessary to sustain the President’s order to seize the steel mills. The fact that temporary executive seizures of industrial plants to meet an emergency have not been directly tested in this Court furnishes not the slightest suggestion that such actions have been illegal. Rather, the fact that Congress and the courts have consistently recognized and given their support to such executive action indicates that such a power of seizure has been accepted throughout our history.

History bears out the genius of the Founding Fathers, who created a Government subject to law but not left subject to inertia when vigor and initiative are required.

*701IY.

Focusing now on the situation confronting the President on the night of April 8,1952, we cannot but conclude that the President was performing his duty under the Constitution to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” — a duty described by President Benjamin Harrison as “the central idea of the office.” 83

The President reported to Congress the morning after the seizure that he acted because a work stoppage in steel production would immediately imperil the safety of the Nation by preventing execution of the legislative programs for procurement of military equipment. And, while a shutdown could be averted by granting the price concessions requested by plaintiffs, granting such concessions would disrupt the price stabilization program also enacted by Congress. Rather than fail to execute either legislative program, the President acted to execute both.

Much of the argument in this case has been directed at straw men. We do not now have before us the case of a President acting solely on the basis of his own notions of the public welfare. Nor is there any question of unlimited executive power in this case. The President himself closed the door to any such claim when he sent his Message to Congress stating his purpose to abide by any action of Congress, whether approving or disapproving his seizure action. Here, the President immediately made sure that Congress was fully informed of the temporary action he had taken only to preserve the legislative programs from destruction until Congress could act.

The absence of a specific statute authorizing seizure of the steel mills as a mode of executing the laws — both the military procurement program and the anti-inflation program — has not until today been thought to prevent *702the President from executing the laws. Unlike an administrative commission confined to the enforcement of the statute under which it was created, or the head of a department when administering a particular statute, the President is a constitutional officer charged with taking care that a “mass of legislation” be executed. Flexibility as to mode of execution to meet critical situations is a matter of practical necessity. This practical construction of the “Take Care” clause, advocated by John Marshall, was adopted by this Court in In re Neagle, In re Debs and other cases cited supra. See also Ex parte Quirin, 317 U. S. 1, 26 (1942). Although more restrictive views of executive power, advocated in dissenting opinions of Justices Holmes, McReynolds and Brandéis, were emphatically rejected by this Court in Myers v. United States, supra, members of today’s majority treat these dissenting views as authoritative.

There is no statute prohibiting seizure as a method of enforcing legislative programs. Congress has in no wise indicated that its legislation is not to be executed by the taking of private property (subject of course to the payment of just compensation) if its legislation cannot otherwise be executed. Indeed, the Universal Military Training and Service Act authorizes the seizure of any plant that fails to fill a Government contract84 or the properties of any steel producer that fails to allocate steel as directed for defense production.85 And the Defense Production Act authorizes the President to requisition equipment and condemn real property needed without delay in the defense effort.86 Where Congress authorizes seizure in instances not necessarily crucial to the defense *703program, it can hardly be said to have disclosed an intention to prohibit seizures where essential to the execution of that legislative program.

Whatever the extent of Presidential power on more tranquil occasions, and whatever the right of the President to execute legislative programs as he sees fit without reporting the mode of execution to Congress, the single Presidential purpose disclosed on this record is to faithfully execute the laws by acting in an emergency to maintain the status quo, thereby preventing collapse of the legislative programs until Congress could act. The President’s action served the same purposes as a judicial stay entered to maintain the status quo in order to preserve the jurisdiction of a court. In his Message to Congress immediately following the seizure, the President explained the necessity of his action in executing the military procurement and anti-inflation legislative programs and expressed his desire to cooperate with any legislative proposals approving, regulating or rejecting the seizure of the steel mills. Consequently, there is no evidence whatever of any Presidential purpose to defy Congress or act in any way inconsistent with the legislative will.

In United States v. Midwest Oil Co., supra, this Court approved executive action where, as here, the President acted to preserve an important matter until Congress could act — even though his action in that case was contrary to an express statute. In this case, there is no statute prohibiting the action taken by the President in a matter not merely important but threatening the very safety of the Nation. Executive inaction in such a situation, courting national disaster, is foreign to the concept of energy and initiative in the Executive as created by the Founding Fathers. The Constitution was itself “adopted in a period of grave emergency. . . . While emergency does not create power, emergency may furnish *704the occasion for the exercise of power.” 87 The Framers knew, as we should know in these times of peril, that there is real danger in Executive weakness. There is no cause to fear Executive tyranny so long as the laws of Congress are being faithfully executed. Certainly there is no basis for fear of dictatorship when the Executive acts, as he did in this case, only to save the situation until Congress could act.

V.

Plaintiffs place their primary emphasis on the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, hereinafter referred to as the Taft-Hartley Act, but do not contend that that Act contains any provision prohibiting seizure.

Under the Taft-Hartley Act, as under the Wagner Act, collective bargaining and the right to strike are at the heart of our national labor policy. Taft-Hartley preserves the right to strike in any emergency, however serious, subject only to an 80-day delay in cases of strikes imperiling the national health and safety.88 In such a case, the President may appoint a board of inquiry to report the facts of the labor dispute. Upon receiving that report, the President may direct the Attorney General to petition a District Court to enjoin the strike. If the injunction is granted, it may continue in effect for no more than 80 days, during which time the board of inquiry makes further report and efforts are made to settle the dispute. When the injunction is dissolved, the President is directed to submit a report to Congress together with his recommendations.89

Enacted after World War II, Taft-Hartley restricts the right to strike against private employers only to a lim*705ited extent and for the sole purpose of affording an additional period of time within which to settle the dispute. Taft-Hartley in no way curbs strikes before an injunction can be obtained and after an 80-day injunction is dissolved.

Plaintiffs admit that the emergency procedures of Taft-Hartley are not mandatory. Nevertheless, plaintiffs apparently argue that, since Congress did provide the 80-day injunction method for dealing with emergency strikes, the President cannot claim that an emergency exists until the procedures of Taft-Hartley have been exhausted. This argument was not the basis.of the District Court’s opinion and, whatever merit the argument might have had following the enactment of Taft-Hartley, it loses all force when viewed in light of the statutory pattern confronting the President in this case.

In Title V of the Defense Production Act of 1950,90 Congress stated:

“It is the intent of Congress, in order to provide for effective price and wage stabilization pursuant to title IV of this Act and to maintain uninterrupted production, that there be effective procedures for the settlement of labor disputes affecting national defense.” ( § 501.)

Title V authorized the President to initiate labor-management conferences and to take action appropriate to carrying out the recommendations of such conferences and the provisions of Title V. (§ 502.) Due regard is to be given to collective bargaining practice and stabilization policies and no action taken is to be inconsistent with Taft-Hartley and other laws. (§ 503.) The purpose of these provisions was to authorize the President “to establish a board, commission or other agency, sim*706ilar to the War Labor Board of World War II, to carry out the title.”91

The President authorized the Wage Stabilization Board (WSB), which administers the wage stabilization functions of Title IV of the Defense Production Act, also to deal with labor disputes affecting the defense program.92 When extension of the Defense Production Act was before Congress in 1951, the Chairman of the Wage Stabilization Board described in detail the relationship between the Taft-Hartley procedures applicable to labor disputes imperiling the national health and safety and the new WSB disputes procedures especially devised for settlement of labor disputes growing out of the needs of the defense program.93 Aware that a technique separate from Taft-Hartley had been devised, members of Congress attempted to divest the WSB of its disputes powers. These attempts were defeated in the House, were not brought to a vote in the Senate, and the Defense Production Act was extended through June 30, 1952, without change in the disputes powers of the WSB.94 *707Certainly this legislative creation of a new procedure for dealing with defense disputes negatives any notion that Congress intended the earlier and discretionary Taft-Hartley procedure to be an exclusive procedure.

Accordingly, as of December 22, 1951, the President had a choice between alternate procedures for settling the threatened strike in the steel mills: one route created to deal with peacetime disputes; the other route specially created to deal with disputes growing out of the defense and stabilization program. There is no question of bypassing a statutory procedure because both of the routes available to the President in December were based upon statutory authorization. Both routes were available in the steel dispute. The Union, by refusing to abide by the defense and stabilization program, could have forced the President to invoke Taft-Hartley at that time to delay the strike a maximum of 80 days. Instead, the Union agreed to cooperate with the defense program and submit the dispute to the Wage Stabilization Board.

Plaintiffs had no objection whatever at that time to the President’s choice of the WSB route. As a result, the strike was postponed, a WSB panel held hearings and reported the position of the parties and the WSB recommended the terms of a settlement which it found were fair and equitable. Moreover, the WSB performed a function which the board of inquiry contemplated by Taft-Hartley could not have accomplished when it checked the recommended wage settlement against its own wage stabilization regulations issued pursuant to its stabilization functions under Title IV of the Defense Production Act. Thereafter, the parties bargained on the basis of the WSB recommendation.

When the President acted on April 8, he had exhausted the procedures for settlement available to him. Taft-Hartley was a route parallel to, not connected with, the WSB procedure. The strike had been delayed 99 *708days as contrasted with the maximum delay of 80 days under Taft-Hartley. There had been a hearing on the issues in dispute and bargaining which promised settlement up to the very hour before seizure had broken down. Faced with immediate national peril through stoppage in steel production on the one hand and faced with destruction of the wage and price legislative programs on the other, the President took temporary possession of the steel mills as the only course open to him consistent with his duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

Plaintiffs’ property was taken and placed in the possession of the Secretary of Commerce to prevent any interruption in steel production. It made no difference whether the stoppage was caused by a union-management dispute over terms and conditions of employment, a union-Government dispute over wage stabilization or a management-Government dispute over price stabilization. The President’s action has thus far been effective, not in settling the dispute, but in saving the various legislative programs at stake from destruction until Congress could act in the matter.

VI.

The diversity of views expressed in the six opinions of the majority, the lack of reference to authoritative precedent, the repeated reliance upon prior dissenting opinions, the complete disregard of the uncontroverted facts showing the gravity of the emergency and the temporary nature of the taking all serve to demonstrate how far afield one must go to affirm the order of the District Court.

The broad executive power granted by Article II to an officer on duty 365 days a year cannot, it is said, be invoked to avert disaster. Instead, the President must confine himself to sending a message to Congress recommending action. Under this messenger-boy concept of *709the Office, the President cannot even act to preserve legislative programs from destruction so that Congress will have something left to act upon. There is no judicial finding that the executive action was unwarranted because there was in fact no basis for the President’s finding of the existence of an emergency95 for, under this view, the gravity of the emergency and the immediacy of the threatened disaster are considered irrelevant as a matter of law.

Seizure of plaintiffs’ property is not a pleasant undertaking. Similarly unpleasant to a free country are the draft which disrupts the home and military procurement which causes economic dislocation and compels adoption of price controls, wage stabilization and allocation of materials. The President informed Congress that even a temporary Government operation of plaintiffs’ properties was “thoroughly distasteful” to him, but was necessary to prevent immediate paralysis of the mobilization program. Presidents have been in the past, and any man worthy of the Office should be in the future, free to take at least interim action necessary to execute legislative programs essential to survival of the Nation. A sturdy judiciary should not be swayed by the unpleasantness or unpopularity of necessary executive action, but must independently determine for itself whether the President was acting, as required by the Constitution, to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

As the District Judge stated, this is no time for “timorous” judicial action. But neither is this a time for timorous executive action. Faced with the duty of executing the defense programs which Congress had enacted and the disastrous effects that any stoppage in steel production would have on those programs, the President acted to preserve those programs by seizing the steel mills. *710There is no question that the possession was other than temporary in character and subject to congressional direction — either approving, disapproving or regulating the manner in which the mills were to be administered and returned to the owners. The President immediately informed Congress of his action and clearly stated his intention to abide by the legislative will. No basis for claims of arbitrary action, unlimited powers or dictatorial usurpation of congressional power appears from the facts of this case. On the contrary, judicial, legislative and executive precedents throughout our history demonstrate that in this ease the President acted in full conformity with his duties under the Constitution. Accordingly, we would reverse the order of the District Court.

Justice KENNEDYdelivered the opinion of the Court.

A delicate subject lies in the background of this case. That subject is Jerusalem. Questions touching upon the history of the ancient city and its present legal and international status are among the most difficult and complex in international affairs. In our constitutional system these matters are committed to the Legislature and the Executive, not the Judiciary. As a result, in this opinion the Court does no more, and must do no more, than note the existence of international debate and tensions respecting Jerusalem. Those matters are for Congress and the President to discuss and consider as they seek to shape the Nation's foreign policies.

The Court addresses two questions to resolve the interbranch dispute now before it. First, it must determine whether the President has the exclusive power to grant formal recognition to a foreign sovereign. Second, if he has that power, the Court must determine whether Congress can command the President and his Secretary of State to issue a formal statement that contradicts the earlier recognition. The statement in question here is a congressional mandate that allows a United States citizen born in Jerusalem to direct the President and Secretary of State, when issuing his passport, to state that his place of birth is "Israel."

I

A

Jerusalem's political standing has long been, and remains, one of the most sensitive issues in American foreign policy, and indeed it is one of the most delicate issues in current international affairs. In 1948, President Truman formally recognized Israel in a signed statement of "recognition." See Statement by the President Announcing Recognition of the State of Israel, Public Papers of the Presidents, May 14, 1948, p. 258 (1964). That statement did not recognize Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. Over the last 60 years, various actors have sought to assert full or partial sovereignty over the city, including Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians. Yet, in contrast to a consistent policy of formal recognition of Israel, neither President Truman nor any later United States President has issued an official statement or declaration acknowledging any country's sovereignty over Jerusalem. Instead, the Executive Branch has maintained that " 'the status of Jerusalem ... should be decided not unilaterally but in consultation with all concerned.' " United Nations Gen. Assembly Official Records, 5th Emergency Sess., 1554th Plenary Meetings, United Nations Doc. No. 1 A/PV.1554, p. 10 (July 14, 1967); see, e.g.,Remarks by President Obama in Address to the United Nations Gen. Assembly (Sept. 21, 2011), 2011 Daily Comp. of Pres. Doc. No. 00661, p. 4 ("Ultimately, it is the Israelis and the Palestinians, not us, who must reach agreement on the issues that divide them," including "Jerusalem"). In a letter to Congress then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher expressed the Executive's concern that "[t]here is no issue related to the Arab-Israeli negotiations that is more sensitive *2082than Jerusalem." See 141 Cong. Rec. 28967 (1995) (letter to Robert Dole, Majority Leader, (June 20, 1995)). He further noted the Executive's opinion that "any effort ... to bring it to the forefront" could be "very damaging to the success of the peace process." Ibid.

The President's position on Jerusalem is reflected in State Department policy regarding passports and consular reports of birth abroad. Understanding that passports will be construed as reflections of American policy, the State Department's Foreign Affairs Manual instructs its employees, in general, to record the place of birth on a passport as the "country [having] present sovereignty over the actual area of birth." Dept. of State, 7 Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM) § 1383.4 (1987). If a citizen objects to the country listed as sovereign by the State Department, he or she may list the city or town of birth rather than the country. See id.,§ 1383.6. The FAM, however, does not allow citizens to list a sovereign that conflicts with Executive Branch policy. See generally id.,§ 1383. Because the United States does not recognize any country as having sovereignty over Jerusalem, the FAM instructs employees to record the place of birth for citizens born there as "Jerusalem." Id.,§ 1383.5-6 (emphasis deleted).

In 2002, Congress passed the Act at issue here, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2003, 116 Stat. 1350. Section 214 of the Act is titled "United States Policy with Respect to Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel." Id.,at 1365. The subsection that lies at the heart of this case, § 214(d), addresses passports. That subsection seeks to override the FAM by allowing citizens born in Jerusalem to list their place of birth as "Israel." Titled "Record of Place of Birth as Israel for Passport Purposes," § 214(d) states "[f]or purposes of the registration of birth, certification of nationality, or issuance of a passport of a United States citizen born in the city of Jerusalem, the Secretary shall, upon the request of the citizen or the citizen's legal guardian, record the place of birth as Israel." Id.,at 1366.

When he signed the Act into law, President George W. Bush issued a statement declaring his position that § 214 would, "if construed as mandatory rather than advisory, impermissibly interfere with the President's constitutional authority to formulate the position of the United States, speak for the Nation in international affairs, and determine the terms on which recognition is given to foreign states." Statement on Signing the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2003, Public Papers of the Presidents, George W. Bush, Vol. 2, Sept. 30, 2002, p. 1698 (2005). The President concluded, "U.S. policy regarding Jerusalem has not changed." Ibid.

Some parties were not reassured by the President's statement. A cable from the United States Consulate in Jerusalem noted that the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee, Fatah Central Committee, and the Palestinian Authority Cabinet had all issued statements claiming that the Act " 'undermines the role of the U.S. as a sponsor of the peace process.' " App. 231. In the Gaza Strip and elsewhere residents marched in protest. See The Associated Press and Reuters, Palestinians Stone Police Guarding Western Wall, The Seattle Times, Oct. 5, 2002, p. A7.

In response the Secretary of State advised diplomats to express their understanding of "Jerusalem's importance to both sides and to many others around the world." App. 228. He noted his belief that America's "policy towards Jerusalem" had not changed. Ibid.

*2083B

In 2002, petitioner Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky was born to United States citizens living in Jerusalem. App. 24-25. In December 2002, Zivotofsky's mother visited the American Embassy in Tel Aviv to request both a passport and a consular report of birth abroad for her son. Id.,at 25. She asked that his place of birth be listed as " 'Jerusalem, Israel.' " Ibid.The Embassy clerks explained that, pursuant to State Department policy, the passport would list only "Jerusalem." Ibid.Zivotofsky's parents objected and, as his guardians, brought suit on his behalf in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking to enforce § 214(d).

Pursuant to § 214(d), Zivotofsky claims the right to have "Israel" recorded as his place of birth in his passport. See Zivotofsky v. Clinton,566 U.S. ----, ----, 132 S.Ct. 1421, 1426, 182 L.Ed.2d 423 (2012)("[W]hile Zivotofsky had originally asked that 'Jerusalem, Israel' be recorded on his passport, '[b]oth sides agree that the question now is whether § 214(d) entitles [him] to have just "Israel" listed' "). The arguments in Zivotofsky's brief center on his passport claim, as opposed to the consular report of birth abroad. Indeed, in the court below, Zivotofsky waived any argument that his consular report of birth abroad should be treated differently than his passport. Zivotofsky v. Secretary of State,725 F.3d 197, 203, n. 3 (C.A.D.C.2013). He has also waived the issue here by failing to differentiate between the two documents. As a result, the Court addresses Zivotofsky's passport arguments and need not engage in a separate analysis of the validity of § 214(d) as applied to consular reports of birth abroad.

After Zivotofsky brought suit, the District Court dismissed his case, reasoning that it presented a nonjusticiable political question and that Zivotofsky lacked standing. App. 28-39. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed on the standing issue, Zivotofsky v. Secretary of State,444 F.3d 614, 617-619 (2006), but later affirmed the District Court's political question determination. See Zivotofsky v. Secretary of State,571 F.3d 1227, 1228 (2009).

This Court granted certiorari, vacated the judgment, and remanded the case. Whether § 214(d) is constitutional, the Court held, is not a question reserved for the political branches. In reference to Zivotofsky's claim the Court observed "the Judiciary must decide if Zivotofsky's interpretation of the statute is correct, and whether the statute is constitutional"-not whether Jerusalem is, in fact, part of Israel. Zivotofsky v. Clinton, supra,at ----, 132 S.Ct., at 1427.

On remand the Court of Appeals held the statute unconstitutional. It determined that "the President exclusively holds the power to determine whether to recognize a foreign sovereign," 725 F.3d, at 214, and that "section 214(d) directly contradicts a carefully considered exercise of the Executive branch's recognition power." Id.,at 217.

This Court again granted certiorari. 572 U.S. ----, 134 S.Ct. 1873, 188 L.Ed.2d 910 (2014).

II

In considering claims of Presidential power this Court refers to Justice Jackson's familiar tripartite framework from Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer,343 U.S. 579, 635-638, 72 S.Ct. 863, 96 L.Ed. 1153 (1952)(concurring opinion). The framework divides exercises of Presidential power into three categories: First, when "the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of *2084Congress, his authority is at its maximum, for it includes all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate." Id.,at 635, 72 S.Ct. 863. Second, "in absence of either a congressional grant or denial of authority" there is a "zone of twilight in which he and Congress may have concurrent authority," and where "congressional inertia, indifference or quiescence may" invite the exercise of executive power. Id.,at 637, 72 S.Ct. 863. Finally, when "the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress ... he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter." Ibid.To succeed in this third category, the President's asserted power must be both "exclusive" and "conclusive" on the issue. Id.,at 637-638, 72 S.Ct. 863.

In this case the Secretary contends that § 214(d) infringes on the President's exclusive recognition power by "requiring the President to contradict his recognition position regarding Jerusalem in official communications with foreign sovereigns." Brief for Respondent 48. In so doing the Secretary acknowledges the President's power is "at its lowest ebb." Youngstown,343 U.S., at 637, 72 S.Ct. 863. Because the President's refusal to implement § 214(d) falls into Justice Jackson's third category, his claim must be "scrutinized with caution," and he may rely solely on powers the Constitution grants to him alone. Id.,at 638, 72 S.Ct. 863.

To determine whether the President possesses the exclusive power of recognition the Court examines the Constitution's text and structure, as well as precedent and history bearing on the question.

A

Recognition is a "formal acknowledgement" that a particular "entity possesses the qualifications for statehood" or "that a particular regime is the effective government of a state." Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law of the United States § 203, Comment a,p. 84 (1986). It may also involve the determination of a state's territorial bounds. See 2 M. Whiteman, Digest of International Law § 1, p. 1 (1963) (Whiteman) ("[S]tates may recognize or decline to recognize territory as belonging to, or under the sovereignty of, or having been acquired or lost by, other states"). Recognition is often effected by an express "written or oral declaration." 1 J. Moore, Digest of International Law § 27, p. 73 (1906) (Moore). It may also be implied-for example, by concluding a bilateral treaty or by sending or receiving diplomatic agents. Ibid.; I. Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law 93 (7th ed. 2008) (Brownlie).

Legal consequences follow formal recognition. Recognized sovereigns may sue in United States courts, see Guaranty Trust Co. v. United States,304 U.S. 126, 137, 58 S.Ct. 785, 82 L.Ed. 1224 (1938), and may benefit from sovereign immunity when they are sued, see National City Bank of N.Y. v. Republic of China,348 U.S. 356, 358-359, 75 S.Ct. 423, 99 L.Ed. 389 (1955). The actions of a recognized sovereign committed within its own territory also receive deference in domestic courts under the act of state doctrine. See Oetjen v. Central Leather Co.,246 U.S. 297, 302-303, 38 S.Ct. 309, 62 L.Ed. 726 (1918). Recognition at international law, furthermore, is a precondition of regular diplomatic relations. 1 Moore § 27, at 72. Recognition is thus "useful, even necessary," to the existence of a state. Ibid.

Despite the importance of the recognition power in foreign relations, the Constitution does not use the term "recognition," either in Article II or elsewhere. The Secretary asserts that the President exercises *2085the recognition power based on the Reception Clause, which directs that the President "shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers." Art. II, § 3. As Zivotofsky notes, the Reception Clause received little attention at the Constitutional Convention. See Reinstein, Recognition: A Case Study on the Original Understanding of Executive Power, 45 U. Rich. L. Rev. 801, 860-862 (2011). In fact, during the ratification debates, Alexander Hamilton claimed that the power to receive ambassadors was "more a matter of dignity than of authority," a ministerial duty largely "without consequence." The Federalist No. 69, p. 420 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961).

At the time of the founding, however, prominent international scholars suggested that receiving an ambassador was tantamount to recognizing the sovereignty of the sending state. See E. de Vattel, The Law of Nations § 78, p. 461 (1758) (J. Chitty ed. 1853) ("[E]very state, truly possessed of sovereignty, has a right to send ambassadors" and "to contest their right in this instance" is equivalent to "contesting their sovereign dignity"); see also 2 C. van Bynkershoek, On Questions of Public Law 156-157 (1737) (T. Frank ed. 1930) ("Among writers on public law it is usually agreed that only a sovereign power has a right to send ambassadors"); 2 H. Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace 440-441 (1625) (F. Kelsey ed. 1925) (discussing the duty to admit ambassadors of sovereign powers). It is a logical and proper inference, then, that a Clause directing the President alone to receive ambassadors would be understood to acknowledge his power to recognize other nations.

This in fact occurred early in the Nation's history when President Washington recognized the French Revolutionary Government by receiving its ambassador. See A. Hamilton, Pacificus No. 1, in The Letters of Pacificus and Helvidius 5, 13-14 (1845) (reprint 1976) (President "acknowledged the republic of France, by the reception of its minister"). After this incident the import of the Reception Clause became clear-causing Hamilton to change his earlier view. He wrote that the Reception Clause "includes th[e power] of judging, in the case of a revolution of government in a foreign country, whether the new rulers are competent organs of the national will, and ought to be recognised, or not." See id.,at 12; see also 3 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 1560, p. 416 (1833) ("If the executive receives an ambassador, or other minister, as the representative of a new nation ... it is an acknowledgment of the sovereign authority de factoof such new nation, or party"). As a result, the Reception Clause provides support, although not the sole authority, for the President's power to recognize other nations.

The inference that the President exercises the recognition power is further supported by his additional Article II powers. It is for the President, "by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate," to "make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur." Art. II, § 2, cl. 2. In addition, "he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors" as well as "other public Ministers and Consuls." Ibid.

As a matter of constitutional structure, these additional powers give the President control over recognition decisions. At international law, recognition may be effected by different means, but each means is dependent upon Presidential power. In addition to receiving an ambassador, recognition may occur on "the conclusion of a bilateral treaty," or the "formal initiation of diplomatic relations," including the dispatch of an ambassador. Brownlie 93; see *2086also 1 Moore § 27, at 73. The President has the sole power to negotiate treaties, see United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp.,299 U.S. 304, 319, 57 S.Ct. 216, 81 L.Ed. 255 (1936), and the Senate may not conclude or ratify a treaty without Presidential action. The President, too, nominates the Nation's ambassadors and dispatches other diplomatic agents. Congress may not send an ambassador without his involvement. Beyond that, the President himself has the power to open diplomatic channels simply by engaging in direct diplomacy with foreign heads of state and their ministers. The Constitution thus assigns the President means to effect recognition on his own initiative. Congress, by contrast, has no constitutional power that would enable it to initiate diplomatic relations with a foreign nation. Because these specific Clauses confer the recognition power on the President, the Court need not consider whether or to what extent the Vesting Clause, which provides that the "executive Power" shall be vested in the President, provides further support for the President's action here. Art. II, § 1, cl. 1.

The text and structure of the Constitution grant the President the power to recognize foreign nations and governments. The question then becomes whether that power is exclusive. The various ways in which the President may unilaterally effect recognition-and the lack of any similar power vested in Congress-suggest that it is. So, too, do functional considerations. Put simply, the Nation must have a single policy regarding which governments are legitimate in the eyes of the United States and which are not. Foreign countries need to know, before entering into diplomatic relations or commerce with the United States, whether their ambassadors will be received; whether their officials will be immune from suit in federal court; and whether they may initiate lawsuits here to vindicate their rights. These assurances cannot be equivocal.

Recognition is a topic on which the Nation must " 'speak ... with one voice.' " American Ins. Assn. v. Garamendi,539 U.S. 396, 424, 123 S.Ct. 2374, 156 L.Ed.2d 376 (2003)(quoting Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council,530 U.S. 363, 381, 120 S.Ct. 2288, 147 L.Ed.2d 352 (2000)). That voice must be the President's. Between the two political branches, only the Executive has the characteristic of unity at all times. And with unity comes the ability to exercise, to a greater degree, "[d]ecision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch." The Federalist No. 70, p. 424 (A. Hamilton). The President is capable, in ways Congress is not, of engaging in the delicate and often secret diplomatic contacts that may lead to a decision on recognition. See, e.g.,United States v. Pink,315 U.S. 203, 229, 62 S.Ct. 552, 86 L.Ed. 796 (1942). He is also better positioned to take the decisive, unequivocal action necessary to recognize other states at international law. 1 Oppenheim's International Law § 50, p. 169 (R. Jennings & A. Watts eds., 9th ed. 1992) (act of recognition must "leave no doubt as to the intention to grant it"). These qualities explain why the Framers listed the traditional avenues of recognition-receiving ambassadors, making treaties, and sending ambassadors-as among the President's Article II powers.

As described in more detail below, the President since the founding has exercised this unilateral power to recognize new states-and the Court has endorsed the practice. See Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino,376 U.S. 398, 410, 84 S.Ct. 923, 11 L.Ed.2d 804 (1964); Pink, supra,at 229, 62 S.Ct. 552; Williams v. Suffolk Ins. Co.,13 Pet. 415, 420, 10 L.Ed. 226 (1839). Texts and treatises on international law treat the President's word as the final word on recognition. See, e.g., *2087Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law § 204, at 89("Under the Constitution of the United States the President has exclusive authority to recognize or not to recognize a foreign state or government"); see also L. Henkin, Foreign Affairs and the U.S. Constitution 43 (2d ed. 1996) ("It is no longer questioned that the President does not merely perform the ceremony of receiving foreign ambassadors but also determines whether the United States should recognize or refuse to recognize a foreign government"). In light of this authority all six judges who considered this case in the Court of Appeals agreed that the President holds the exclusive recognition power. See 725 F.3d, at 214("[W]e conclude that the President exclusively holds the power to determine whether to recognize a foreign sovereign"); Zivotofsky,571 F.3d, at 1231("That this power belongs solely to the President has been clear from the earliest days of the Republic"); id.,at 1240(Edwards, J., concurring) ("The Executive has exclusive and unreviewable authority to recognize foreign sovereigns").

It remains true, of course, that many decisions affecting foreign relations-including decisions that may determine the course of our relations with recognized countries-require congressional action. Congress may "regulate Commerce with foreign Nations," "establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization," "define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations," "declare War," "grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal," and "make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces." U.S. Const., Art. I, § 8. In addition, the President cannot make a treaty or appoint an ambassador without the approval of the Senate.Art. II, § 2, cl. 2. The President, furthermore, could not build an American Embassy abroad without congressional appropriation of the necessary funds. Art. I, § 8, cl. 1. Under basic separation-of-powers principles, it is for the Congress to enact the laws, including "all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution" the powers of the Federal Government. § 8, cl. 18.

In foreign affairs, as in the domestic realm, the Constitution "enjoins upon its branches separateness but interdependence, autonomy but reciprocity." Youngstown,343 U.S., at 635, 72 S.Ct. 863(Jackson, J., concurring). Although the President alone effects the formal act of recognition, Congress' powers, and its central role in making laws, give it substantial authority regarding many of the policy determinations that precede and follow the act of recognition itself. If Congress disagrees with the President's recognition policy, there may be consequences. Formal recognition may seem a hollow act if it is not accompanied by the dispatch of an ambassador, the easing of trade restrictions, and the conclusion of treaties. And those decisions require action by the Senate or the whole Congress.

In practice, then, the President's recognition determination is just one part of a political process that may require Congress to make laws. The President's exclusive recognition power encompasses the authority to acknowledge, in a formal sense, the legitimacy of other states and governments, including their territorial bounds. Albeit limited, the exclusive recognition power is essential to the conduct of Presidential duties. The formal act of recognition is an executive power that Congress may not qualify. If the President is to be effective in negotiations over a formal recognition determination, it must be evident to his counterparts abroad that he speaks for the Nation on that precise question.

*2088A clear rule that the formal power to recognize a foreign government subsists in the President therefore serves a necessary purpose in diplomatic relations. All this, of course, underscores that Congress has an important role in other aspects of foreign policy, and the President may be bound by any number of laws Congress enacts. In this way ambition counters ambition, ensuring that the democratic will of the people is observed and respected in foreign affairs as in the domestic realm. See The Federalist No. 51, p. 322 (J. Madison).

B

No single precedent resolves the question whether the President has exclusive recognition authority and, if so, how far that power extends. In part that is because, until today, the political branches have resolved their disputes over questions of recognition. The relevant cases, though providing important instruction, address the division of recognition power between the Federal Government and the States, see, e.g.,Pink,315 U.S. 203, 62 S.Ct. 552, 86 L.Ed. 796, or between the courts and the political branches, see, e.g., Banco Nacional de Cuba,376 U.S., at 410, 84 S.Ct. 923-not between the President and Congress. As the parties acknowledge, some isolated statements in those cases lend support to the position that Congress has a role in the recognition process. In the end, however, a fair reading of the cases shows that the President's role in the recognition process is both central and exclusive.

During the administration of President Van Buren, in a case involving a dispute over the status of the Falkland Islands, the Court noted that "when the executive branch of the government" assumes "a fact in regard to the sovereignty of any island or country, it is conclusive on the judicial department." Williams,13 Pet., at 420. Once the President has made his determination, it "is enough to know, that in the exercise of his constitutional functions, he has decided the question. Having done this under the responsibilities which belong to him, it is obligatory on the people and government of the Union." Ibid.

Later, during the 1930's and 1940's, the Court addressed issues surrounding President Roosevelt's decision to recognize the Soviet Government of Russia. In United States v. Belmont, 301 U.S. 324, 57 S.Ct. 758, 81 L.Ed. 1134 (1937), and Pink,315 U.S. 203, 62 S.Ct. 552, 86 L.Ed. 796, New York state courts declined to give full effect to the terms of executive agreements the President had concluded in negotiations over recognition of the Soviet regime. In particular the state courts, based on New York public policy, did not treat assets that had been seized by the Soviet Government as property of Russia and declined to turn those assets over to the United States. The Court stated that it "may not be doubted" that "recognition, establishment of diplomatic relations, ... and agreements with respect thereto" are "within the competence of the President." Belmont,301 U.S., at 330, 57 S.Ct. 758. In these matters, "the Executive ha[s] authority to speak as the sole organ of th [e] government." Ibid.The Court added that the President's authority "is not limited to a determination of the government to be recognized. It includes the power to determine the policy which is to govern the question of recognition." Pink, supra,at 229, 62 S.Ct. 552; see also Guaranty Trust Co.,304 U.S., at 137-138, 58 S.Ct. 785(The "political department['s] ... action in recognizing a foreign government and in receiving its diplomatic representatives is conclusive on all domestic courts"). Thus, *2089New York state courts were required to respect the executive agreements.

It is true, of course, that Belmontand Pinkare not direct holdings that the recognition power is exclusive. Those cases considered the validity of executive agreements, not the initial act of recognition. The President's determination in those cases did not contradict an Act of Congress. And the primary issue was whether the executive agreements could supersede state law. Still, the language in Pinkand Belmont,which confirms the President's competence to determine questions of recognition, is strong support for the conclusion that it is for the President alone to determine which foreign governments are legitimate.

Banco Nacional de Cubacontains even stronger statements regarding the President's authority over recognition. There, the status of Cuba's Government and its acts as a sovereign were at issue. As the Court explained, "Political recognition is exclusively a function of the Executive." 376 U.S., at 410, 84 S.Ct. 923. Because the Executive had recognized the Cuban Government, the Court held that it should be treated as sovereign and could benefit from the "act of state" doctrine. See also Baker v. Carr,369 U.S. 186, 213, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962)("[I]t is the executive that determines a person's status as representative of a foreign government"); National City Bank of N.Y.,348 U.S., at 358, 75 S.Ct. 423("The status of the Republic of China in our courts is a matter for determination by the Executive and is outside the competence of this Court"). As these cases illustrate, the Court has long considered recognition to be the exclusive prerogative of the Executive.

The Secretary now urges the Court to define the executive power over foreign relations in even broader terms. He contends that under the Court's precedent the President has "exclusive authority to conduct diplomatic relations," along with "the bulk of foreign-affairs powers." Brief for Respondent 18, 16. In support of his submission that the President has broad, undefined powers over foreign affairs, the Secretary quotes United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp.,which described the President as "the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations." 299 U.S., at 320, 57 S.Ct. 216. This Court declines to acknowledge that unbounded power. A formulation broader than the rule that the President alone determines what nations to formally recognize as legitimate-and that he consequently controls his statements on matters of recognition-presents different issues and is unnecessary to the resolution of this case.

The Curtiss-Wrightcase does not extend so far as the Secretary suggests. In Curtiss-Wright,the Court considered whether a congressional delegation of power to the President was constitutional. Congress had passed a joint resolution giving the President the discretion to prohibit arms sales to certain militant powers in South America. The resolution provided criminal penalties for violation of those orders. Id.,at 311-312, 57 S.Ct. 216. The Court held that the delegation was constitutional, reasoning that Congress may grant the President substantial authority and discretion in the field of foreign affairs. Id.,at 315-329, 57 S.Ct. 216. Describing why such broad delegation may be appropriate, the opinion stated:

"In this vast external realm, with its important, complicated, delicate and manifold problems, the President alone has the power to speak or listen as a representative of the nation. He makestreaties with the advice and consent of the Senate; but he alone negotiates. Into *2090the field of negotiation the Senate cannot intrude; and Congress itself is powerless to invade it. As Marshall said in his great argument of March 7, 1800, in the House of Representatives, 'The President is the sole organ of the nation in its external relations, and its sole representative with foreign nations.' [10 Annals of Cong.] 613." Id.,at 319, 57 S.Ct. 216.

This description of the President's exclusive power was not necessary to the holding of Curtiss-Wright-which, after all, dealt with congressionally authorized action, not a unilateral Presidential determination. Indeed, Curtiss-Wrightdid not hold that the President is free from Congress' lawmaking power in the field of international relations. The President does have a unique role in communicating with foreign governments, as then-Congressman John Marshall acknowledged. See 10 Annals of Cong. 613 (1800) (cited in Curtiss-Wright, supra,at 319, 57 S.Ct. 216). But whether the realm is foreign or domestic, it is still the Legislative Branch, not the Executive Branch, that makes the law.

In a world that is ever more compressed and interdependent, it is essential the congressional role in foreign affairs be understood and respected. For it is Congress that makes laws, and in countless ways its laws will and should shape the Nation's course. The Executive is not free from the ordinary controls and checks of Congress merely because foreign affairs are at issue. See, e.g., Medellín v. Texas,552 U.S. 491, 523-532, 128 S.Ct. 1346, 170 L.Ed.2d 190 (2008); Youngstown,343 U.S., at 589, 72 S.Ct. 863; Little v. Barreme,2 Cranch 170, 177-179, 2 L.Ed. 243 (1804); Glennon, Two Views of Presidential Foreign Affairs Power: Little v. Barremeor Curtiss-Wright? 13 Yale J. Int'l L. 5, 19-20 (1988); cf. Dames & Moore v. Regan,453 U.S. 654, 680-681, 101 S.Ct. 2972, 69 L.Ed.2d 918 (1981). It is not for the President alone to determine the whole content of the Nation's foreign policy.

That said, judicial precedent and historical practice teach that it is for the President alone to make the specific decision of what foreign power he will recognize as legitimate, both for the Nation as a whole and for the purpose of making his own position clear within the context of recognition in discussions and negotiations with foreign nations. Recognition is an act with immediate and powerful significance for international relations, so the President's position must be clear. Congress cannot require him to contradict his own statement regarding a determination of formal recognition.

Zivotofsky's contrary arguments are unconvincing. The decisions he relies upon are largely inapposite. This Court's cases do not hold that the recognition power is shared. Jones v. United States,137 U.S. 202, 11 S.Ct. 80, 34 L.Ed. 691 (1890), and Boumediene v. Bush,553 U.S. 723, 128 S.Ct. 2229, 171 L.Ed.2d 41 (2008), each addressed the status of territories controlled or acquired by the United States-not whether a province ought to be recognized as part of a foreign country. See also Vermilya-Brown Co. v. Connell,335 U.S. 377, 380, 69 S.Ct. 140, 93 L.Ed. 76 (1948)("[D]etermination of [American] sovereignty over an area is for the legislative and executive departments"). And no one disputes that Congress has a role in determining the status of United States territories. See U.S. Const., Art. IV, § 3, cl. 2(Congress may "dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States"). Other cases describing a shared power address the recognition of Indian tribes-which is, similarly, a distinct issue from the recognition *2091of foreign countries. See Cherokee Nation v. Georgia,5 Pet. 1, 8 L.Ed. 25 (1831).

To be sure, the Court has mentioned both of the political branches in discussing international recognition, but it has done so primarily in affirming that the Judiciary is not responsible for recognizing foreign nations. See Oetjen,246 U.S., at 302, 38 S.Ct. 309(" 'Who is the sovereign, de jureor de facto,of a territory is not a judicial, but is a political question, the determination of which by the legislative and executive departments of any government conclusively binds the judges' " (quoting Jones, supra,at 212, 11 S.Ct. 80)); United States v. Palmer,3 Wheat. 610, 643, 4 L.Ed. 471 (1818)("[T]he courts of the union must view [a] newly constituted government as it is viewed by the legislative and executive departments of the government of the United States"). This is consistent with the fact that Congress, in the ordinary course, does support the President's recognition policy, for instance by confirming an ambassador to the recognized foreign government. Those cases do not cast doubt on the view that the Executive Branch determines whether the United States will recognize foreign states and governments and their territorial bounds.

C

Having examined the Constitution's text and this Court's precedent, it is appropriate to turn to accepted understandings and practice. In separation-of-powers cases this Court has often "put significant weight upon historical practice." NLRB v. Noel Canning,573 U.S. ----, ----, 134 S.Ct. 2550, 2559, 189 L.Ed.2d 538 (2014)(emphasis deleted). Here, history is not all on one side, but on balance it provides strong support for the conclusion that the recognition power is the President's alone. As Zivotofsky argues, certain historical incidents can be interpreted to support the position that recognition is a shared power. But the weight of historical evidence supports the opposite view, which is that the formal determination of recognition is a power to be exercised only by the President.

The briefs of the parties and amici,which have been of considerable assistance to the Court, give a more complete account of the relevant history, as do the works of scholars in this field. See, e.g., Brief for Respondent 26-39; Brief for Petitioner 34-57; Brief for American Jewish Committee as Amicus Curiae6-24; J. Goebel, The Recognition Policy of the United States 97-170 (1915) (Goebel); 1 Moore §§ 28-58, 74-164; Reinstein, Is the President's Recognition Power Exclusive? 86 Temp. L. Rev. 1, 3-50 (2013). But even a brief survey of the major historical examples, with an emphasis on those said to favor Zivotofsky, establishes no more than that some Presidents have chosen to cooperate with Congress, not that Congress itself has exercised the recognition power.

From the first Administration forward, the President has claimed unilateral authority to recognize foreign sovereigns. For the most part, Congress has acquiesced in the Executive's exercise of the recognition power. On occasion, the President has chosen, as may often be prudent, to consult and coordinate with Congress. As Judge Tatel noted in this case, however, "the most striking thing" about the history of recognition "is what is absent from it: a situation like this one," where Congress has enacted a statute contrary to the President's formal and considered statement concerning recognition. 725 F.3d, at 221(concurring opinion).

The first debate over the recognition power arose in 1793, after France had been torn by revolution. See Prakash & Ramsey, *2092The Executive Power over Foreign Affairs, 111 Yale L.J. 231, 312 (2001). Once the Revolutionary Government was established, Secretary of State Jefferson and President Washington, without consulting Congress, authorized the American Ambassador to resume relations with the new regime. See Letter to Gouverneur Morris (Mar. 12, 1793), in 25 Papers of Thomas Jefferson 367, 367-368 (J. Catanzariti ed. 1992); Goebel 99-104. Soon thereafter, the new French Government proposed to send an ambassador, Citizen Genet, to the United States. See id.,at 105. Members of the President's Cabinet agreed that receiving Genet would be a binding and public act of recognition. See Opinion on the Treaties with France (Apr. 28, 1793), in 25 Papers of Thomas Jefferson, at 608, 612 ("The reception of the Minister at all ... is an ackno[w]le [d]gement of the legitimacy of their government"); see also Letter from A. Hamilton to G. Washington (Cabinet Paper) (Apr. 1793), in 4 Works of Alexander Hamilton 369, 369-396 (H. Lodge ed. 1904). They decided, however, both that Genet should be received and that consultation with Congress was not necessary. See T. Jefferson, Anas (Apr. 18, 1793), in 1 Writings of Thomas Jefferson 226, 227 (P. Ford ed. 1892); Cabinet Opinion on Washington's Questions on Neutrality and the Alliance with France (Apr. 19, 1793), in 25 Papers of Thomas Jefferson, at 570. Congress expressed no disagreement with this position, and Genet's reception marked the Nation's first act of recognition-one made by the President alone. See Prakash, supra,at 312-313.

The recognition power again became relevant when yet another revolution took place-this time, in South America, as several colonies rose against Spain. In 1818, Speaker of the House Henry Clay announced he "intended moving the recognition of Buenos Ayres and probably of Chile." Goebel 121. Clay thus sought to appropriate money " '[f]or one year's salary' " for " 'a Minister' " to present-day Argentina. 32 Annals of Cong. 1500 (1818). President Monroe, however, did not share that view. Although Clay gave "one of the most remarkable speeches of his career," his proposed bill was defeated. Goebel 123; 32 Annals of Cong. 1655. That action has been attributed, in part, to the fact that Congress agreed the recognition power rested solely with the President. Goebel 124; see, e.g., 32 Annals of Cong. 1570 (statement of Rep. Alexander Smyth) ("[T]he acknowledgment of the independence of a new Power is an exercise of Executive authority; consequently, for Congress to direct the Executive how he shall exercise this power, is an act of usurpation"). Four years later, after the President had decided to recognize the South American republics, Congress did pass a resolution, on his request, appropriating funds for "such missions to the independent nations on the American continent, as the President of the United States may deem proper." Act of May 4, 1822, ch. 52, 3 Stat. 678.

A decade later, President Jackson faced a recognition crisis over Texas. In 1835, Texas rebelled against Mexico and formed its own government. See Goebel 144-147. But the President feared that recognizing the new government could ignite a war. See A. Jackson, To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States (Dec. 21, 1836), in 3 Messages and Papers of the Presidents 265, 266-267 (J. Richardson ed. 1899). After Congress urged him to recognize Texas, see Cong. Globe, 24th Cong., 1st Sess., 453 (1836); H.R.Rep. No. 854, 24th Cong., 1st Sess. (1836), the President delivered a message to the Legislature. He concluded there had not been a "deliberate inquiry" into whether the President or Congress possessed the recognition power. See A. Jackson, in 3 Messages *2093and Papers of the Presidents, at 267. He stated, however, "on the ground of expediency, I am disposed to concur" with Congress' preference regarding Texas. Ibid. In response Congress appropriated funds for a "diplomatic agent to be sent to the Republic of Texas, whenever the President of the United States ... shall deem it expedient to appoint such minister." Act of Mar. 3, 1837, 5 Stat. 170. Thus, although he cooperated with Congress, the President was left to execute the formal act of recognition.

President Lincoln, too, sought to coordinate with Congress when he requested support for his recognition of Liberia and Haiti. In his first annual message to Congress he said he could see no reason "why we should persevere longer in withholding our recognition of the independence and sovereignty of Hayti and Liberia." Lincoln's First Annual Message to Congress (Dec. 3, 1861), in 6 Messages and Papers of the Presidents 44, 47. Nonetheless, he was "[u]nwilling" to "inaugurate a novel policy in regard to them without the approbation of Congress." Ibid.In response Congress concurred in the President's recognition determination and enacted a law appropriating funds to appoint diplomatic representatives to the two countries-leaving, as usual, the actual dispatch of ambassadors and formal statement of recognition to the President. Act of June 5, 1862, 12 Stat. 421.

Three decades later, the branches again were able to reach an accord, this time with regard to Cuba. In 1898, an insurgency against the Spanish colonial government was raging in Cuba. President McKinley determined to ask Congress for authorization to send armed forces to Cuba to help quell the violence. See 31 Cong. Rec. 3699-3702 (1898). Although McKinley thought Spain was to blame for the strife, he opposed recognizing either Cuba or its insurgent government. Id.,at 3701. At first, the House proposed a resolution consistent with McKinley's wishes. Id.,at 3810. The Senate countered with a resolution that authorized the use of force but that did recognize both Cuban independence and the insurgent government. Id.,at 3993. When the Senate's version reached the House, the House again rejected the language recognizing Cuban independence. Id.,at 4017. The resolution went to Conference, which, after debate, reached a compromise. See Reinstein, 86 Temp. L. Rev., at 40-41. The final resolution stated "the people of the Island of Cuba are, and of right ought to be, free and independent," but made no mention of recognizing a new Cuban Government. Act of Apr. 20, 1898, 30 Stat. 738. Accepting the compromise, the President signed the joint resolution. See Reinstein, 86 Temp. L. Rev., at 41.

For the next 80 years, "[P]residents consistently recognized new states and governments without any serious opposition from, or activity in, Congress." Ibid.; see 2 Whiteman §§ 6-60, at 133-242 (detailing over 50 recognition decisions made by the Executive). The next debate over recognition did not occur until the late 1970's. It concerned China.

President Carter recognized the People's Republic of China (PRC) as the government of China, and derecognized the Republic of China, located on Taiwan. See S. Kan, Cong. Research Serv., China/Taiwan: Evolution of the "One China" Policy-Key Statements from Washington, Beijing, and Taipei 1, 10 (Oct. 10, 2014). As to the status of Taiwan, the President "acknowledge[d] the Chinese position" that "Taiwan is part of China," id.,at 39(text of U.S.-PRC Joint Communique on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations (Jan. 1, 1979)), but he did not accept that claim. The President proposed a new law *2094defining how the United States would conduct business with Taiwan. See Hearings on Taiwan Legislation before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 96th Cong., 1st Sess., 2-6 (1979) (statement of Warren Christopher, Deputy Secretary of State). After extensive revisions, Congress passed, and the President signed, the Taiwan Relations Act, 93 Stat. 14 (1979) (codified as amended at 22 U.S.C. §§ 3301-3316). The Act (in a simplified summary) treated Taiwan as if it were a legally distinct entity from China-an entity with which the United States intended to maintain strong ties. See, e.g.,§§ 3301, 3303(a), (b)(1), (b)(7).

Throughout the legislative process, however, no one raised a serious question regarding the President's exclusive authority to recognize the PRC-or to decline to grant formal recognition to Taiwan. See, e.g., 125 Cong. Rec. 6709 (1979) (statement of Sen. Jacob Javits) ("Neither bill [proposed by either Chamber] sought to reestablish official relations between the United States and the Republic of China on Taiwan; Congress ... does not have the authority to do that even if it wanted to do so"). Rather, Congress accepted the President's recognition determination as a completed, lawful act; and it proceeded to outline the trade and policy provisions that, in its judgment, were appropriate in light of that decision.

This history confirms the Court's conclusion in the instant case that the power to recognize or decline to recognize a foreign state and its territorial bounds resides in the President alone. For the most part, Congress has respected the Executive's policies and positions as to formal recognition. At times, Congress itself has defended the President's constitutional prerogative. Over the last 100 years, there has been scarcely any debate over the President's power to recognize foreign states. In this respect the Legislature, in the narrow context of recognition, on balance has acknowledged the importance of speaking "with one voice." Crosby,530 U.S., at 381, 120 S.Ct. 2288. The weight of historical evidence indicates Congress has accepted that the power to recognize foreign states and governments and their territorial bounds is exclusive to the Presidency.

III

As the power to recognize foreign states resides in the President alone, the question becomes whether § 214(d) infringes on the Executive's consistent decision to withhold recognition with respect to Jerusalem. See Nixon v. Administrator of General Services,433 U.S. 425, 443, 97 S.Ct. 2777, 53 L.Ed.2d 867 (1977)(action unlawful when it "prevents the Executive Branch from accomplishing its constitutionally assigned functions").

Section 214(d) requires that, in a passport or consular report of birth abroad, "the Secretary shall, upon the request of the citizen or the citizen's legal guardian, record the place of birth as Israel" for a "United States citizen born in the city of Jerusalem." 116 Stat. 1366. That is, § 214(d) requires the President, through the Secretary, to identify citizens born in Jerusalem who so request as being born in Israel. But according to the President, those citizens were not born in Israel. As a matter of United States policy, neither Israel nor any other country is acknowledged as having sovereignty over Jerusalem. In this way, § 214(d) "directly contradicts" the "carefully calibrated and longstanding Executive branch policy of neutrality toward Jerusalem." 725 F.3d, at 217, 216.

If the power over recognition is to mean anything, it must mean that the President not only makes the initial, formal recognition determination but also *2095that he may maintain that determination in his and his agent's statements. This conclusion is a matter of both common sense and necessity. If Congress could command the President to state a recognition position inconsistent with his own, Congress could override the President's recognition determination. Under international law, recognition may be effected by "written or oral declaration of the recognizing state." 1 Moore § 27, at 73. In addition an act of recognition must "leave no doubt as to the intention to grant it." 1 Oppenheim's International Law § 50, at 169. Thus, if Congress could alter the President's statements on matters of recognition or force him to contradict them, Congress in effect would exercise the recognition power.

As Justice Jackson wrote in Youngstown,when a Presidential power is "exclusive," it "disabl[es] the Congress from acting upon the subject." 343 U.S., at 637-638, 72 S.Ct. 863(concurring opinion). Here, the subject is quite narrow: The Executive's exclusive power extends no further than his formal recognition determination. But as to that determination, Congress may not enact a law that directly contradicts it. This is not to say Congress may not express its disagreement with the President in myriad ways. For example, it may enact an embargo, decline to confirm an ambassador, or even declare war. But none of these acts would alter the President's recognition decision.

If Congress may not pass a law, speaking in its own voice, that effects formal recognition, then it follows that it may not force the President himself to contradict his earlier statement. That congressional command would not only prevent the Nation from speaking with one voice but also prevent the Executive itself from doing so in conducting foreign relations.

Although the statement required by § 214(d) would not itself constitute a formal act of recognition, it is a mandate that the Executive contradict his prior recognition determination in an official document issued by the Secretary of State. See Urtetiqui v. D'Arcy,9 Pet. 692, 699, 9 L.Ed. 276 (1835)(a passport "from its nature and object, is addressed to foreign powers" and "is to be considered ... in the character of a political document"). As a result, it is unconstitutional. This is all the more clear in light of the longstanding treatment of a passport's place-of-birth section as an official executive statement implicating recognition. See 725 F.3d, at 224(Tatel, J., concurring). The Secretary's position on this point has been consistent: He will not place information in the place-of-birth section of a passport that contradicts the President's recognition policy. See 7 FAM § 1383. If a citizen objects to the country listed as sovereign over his place of birth, then the Secretary will accommodate him by listing the city or town of birth rather than the country. See id.,§ 1383.6. But the Secretary will not list a sovereign that contradicts the President's recognition policy in a passport. Thus, the Secretary will not list "Israel" in a passport as the country containing Jerusalem.

The flaw in § 214(d) is further underscored by the undoubted fact that the purpose of the statute was to infringe on the recognition power-a power the Court now holds is the sole prerogative of the President. The statute is titled "United States Policy with Respect to Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel." § 214, 116 Stat. 1365. The House Conference Report proclaimed that § 214 "contains four provisions related to the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital." H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 107-671, p. 123(2002), 2002 U.S.C.C.A.N. 869. And, indeed, observers interpreted § 214 as altering United States policy regarding *2096Jerusalem-which led to protests across the region. See supra, at 2082 - 2083. From the face of § 214, from the legislative history, and from its reception, it is clear that Congress wanted to express its displeasure with the President's policy by, among other things, commanding the Executive to contradict his own, earlier stated position on Jerusalem. This Congress may not do.

It is true, as Zivotofsky notes, that Congress has substantial authority over passports. See Haig v. Agee,453 U.S. 280, 101 S.Ct. 2766, 69 L.Ed.2d 640 (1981); Zemel v. Rusk,381 U.S. 1, 85 S.Ct. 1271, 14 L.Ed.2d 179 (1965); Kent v. Dulles,357 U.S. 116, 78 S.Ct. 1113, 2 L.Ed.2d 1204 (1958). The Court does not question the power of Congress to enact passport legislation of wide scope. In Kent v. Dulles,for example, the Court held that if a person's " 'liberty' " to travel "is to be regulated" through a passport, "it must be pursuant to the law-making functions of the Congress." See id., at 129, 78 S.Ct. 1113. Later cases, such as Zemel v. Ruskand Haig v. Agee,also proceeded on the assumption that Congress must authorize the grounds on which passports may be approved or denied. See Zemel, supra,at 7-13, 85 S.Ct. 1271; Haig, supra,at 289-306, 101 S.Ct. 2766. This is consistent with the extensive lawmaking power the Constitution vests in Congress over the Nation's foreign affairs.

The problem with § 214(d), however, lies in how Congress exercised its authority over passports. It was an improper act for Congress to "aggrandiz[e] its power at the expense of another branch" by requiring the President to contradict an earlier recognition determination in an official document issued by the Executive Branch. Freytag v. Commissioner,501 U.S. 868, 878, 111 S.Ct. 2631, 115 L.Ed.2d 764 (1991). To allow Congress to control the President's communication in the context of a formal recognition determination is to allow Congress to exercise that exclusive power itself. As a result, the statute is unconstitutional.

* * *

In holding § 214(d) invalid the Court does not question the substantial powers of Congress over foreign affairs in general or passports in particular. This case is confined solely to the exclusive power of the President to control recognition determinations, including formal statements by the Executive Branch acknowledging the legitimacy of a state or government and its territorial bounds. Congress cannot command the President to contradict an earlier recognition determination in the issuance of passports.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is

Affirmed.

Justice BREYER, concurring.

I continue to believe that this case presents a political question inappropriate for judicial resolution. See Zivotofsky v. Clinton,566 U.S. ----, ----, 132 S.Ct. 1421, 182 L.Ed.2d 423 (2012)(BREYER, J., dissenting). But because precedent precludes resolving this case on political question grounds, see id.,at ----, 132 S.Ct., at 1424-1425(majority opinion), I join the Court's opinion.

Justice THOMAS, concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part.

Our Constitution allocates the powers of the Federal Government over foreign affairs in two ways. First, it expressly identifies certain foreign affairs powers and vests them in particular branches, either individually or jointly. Second, it vests the residual foreign affairs powers of the Federal Government-i.e., those not specifically enumerated in the Constitution-in the *2097President by way of Article II's Vesting Clause.

Section 214(d) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2003, ignores that constitutional allocation of power insofar as it directs the President, contrary to his wishes, to list "Israel" as the place of birth of Jerusalem-born citizens on their passports. The President has long regulated passports under his residual foreign affairs power, and this portion of § 214(d) does not fall within any of Congress' enumerated powers.

By contrast, § 214(d) poses no such problem insofar as it regulates consular reports of birth abroad. Unlike passports, these reports were developed to effectuate the naturalization laws, and they continue to serve the role of identifying persons who need not be naturalized to obtain U.S. citizenship. The regulation of these reports does not fall within the President's foreign affairs powers, but within Congress' enumerated powers under the Naturalization and Necessary and Proper Clauses.

Rather than adhere to the Constitution's division of powers, the Court relies on a distortion of the President's recognition power to hold both of these parts of § 214(d) unconstitutional. Because I cannot join this faulty analysis, I concur only in the portion of the Court's judgment holding § 214(d) unconstitutional as applied to passports. I respectfully dissent from the remainder of the Court's judgment.

I

A

The Constitution specifies a number of foreign affairs powers and divides them between the political branches. Among others, Article I allocates to Congress the powers "[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations," "[t]o establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization," "[t]o define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations," and "[t]o declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water." Art. I, § 8. For his part, the President has certain express powers relating to foreign affairs, including the powers, "by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate," to "appoint Ambassadors," and "to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur." Art. II, § 2. He is also assigned certain duties with respect to foreign affairs, including serving as "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States," ibid.,and "receiv[ing] Ambassadors and other public Ministers," Art. II, § 3.

These specific allocations, however, cannot account for the entirety of the foreign affairs powers exercised by the Federal Government. Neither of the political branches is expressly authorized, for instance, to communicate with foreign ministers, to issue passports, or to repel sudden attacks. Yet the President has engaged in such conduct, with the support of Congress, since the earliest days of the Republic. Prakash & Ramsey, The Executive Power Over Foreign Affairs, 111 Yale L.J. 231, 298-346 (2001)(Prakash & Ramsey).

The President's longstanding practice of exercising unenumerated foreign affairs powers reflects a constitutional directive that "the President ha[s] primary responsibility-along with the necessary power-to protect the national security and to conduct the Nation's foreign relations." Hamdi v. Rumsfeld,542 U.S. 507, 580, 124 S.Ct. 2633, 159 L.Ed.2d 578 (2004)(THOMAS, J., dissenting). Specifically, the Vesting Clause of Article II provides that "[t]he executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States." Art.

*2098II, § 1. This Clause is notably different from the Vesting Clause of Article I, which provides only that "[a]ll legislative Powers herein grantedshall be vested in a Congress of the United States," Art. I, § 1 (emphasis added). By omitting the words "herein granted" in Article II, the Constitution indicates that the "executive Power" vested in the President is not confined to those powers expressly identified in the document. Instead, it includes all powers originally understood as falling within the "executive Power" of the Federal Government.

B

Founding-era evidence reveals that the "executive Power" included the foreign affairs powers of a sovereign State. See Prakash & Ramsey 253. John Locke's 17th-century writings laid the groundwork for this understanding of executive power. Locke described foreign affairs powers-including the powers of "war and peace, leagues and alliances, and all the transactions with all persons and communities without the commonwealth"-as "federative" power. Second Treatise of Civil Government § 146, p. 73 (J. Gough ed. 1947). He defined the "executive" power as "comprehending the execution of the municipal laws of the society within itself upon all that are parts of it."Id., § 147, at 73. Importantly, however, Locke explained that the federative and executive powers must be lodged together, lest "disorder and ruin" erupt from the division of the "force of the public." Id.,§ 148, at 73-74.

Subsequent thinkers began to refer to both of these powers as aspects of "executive power." William Blackstone, for example, described the executive power in England as including foreign affairs powers, such as the "power of sending embassadors to foreign states, and receiving embassadors at home"; making "treaties, leagues, and alliances with foreign states and princes"; "making war and peace"; and "issu[ing] letters of marque and reprisal." 1 Commentaries on the Laws of England 245, 249, 250, 242-252 (1765) (Blackstone). Baron de Montesquieu similarly described executive power as including the power to "mak[e] peace or war, sen[d] or receiv[e] embassies, establis[h] the public security, and provid[e] against invasions." The Spirit of the Laws bk. XI, ch. 6, p. 151 (O. Piest ed., T. Nugent transl. 1949). In fact, "most writers of [Montesquieu's] tim[e] w[ere] inclined to think of the executive branch of government as being concerned nearly entirely with foreign affairs." W. Gwyn, The Meaning of the Separation of Powers 103 (1965).

That understanding of executive power prevailed in America. Following independence, Congress assumed control over foreign affairs under the Articles of Confederation. See, e.g., Articles of Confederation, Art. IX, cl. 1. At that time, many understood that control to be an exercise of executive power. See Prakash & Ramsey 272, 275-278. Letters among Members of the Continental Congress, for instance, repeatedly referred to the Department of Foreign Affairs, established under the control of the Continental Congress, as an "Executive departmen[t]" and to its officers as " 'Executives or Ministers.' " Id.,at 276, and nn. 194-196. Similarly, the Essex Result of 1778-an influential report on the proposed Constitution for Massachusetts-described executive power as including both "external" and "internal" powers: The external executive power "comprehends war, peace, the sending and receiving ambassadors, and whatever concerns the transactions of the state with any other independent state," while the internal executive power "is employed in the peace, security and protection of the subject and his property."

*2099Essex Result, in The Popular Sources of Political Authority: Documents on the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, pp. 324, 337 (O. Handlin & M. Handlin eds. 1966).

This view of executive power was widespread at the time of the framing of the Constitution. Thomas Rutherforth's Institutes of Natural Law-a treatise routinely cited by the Founders, McDowell, The Limits of Natural Law: Thomas Rutherforth and the American Legal Tradition, 37 Am. J. Juris. 57, 59, and n. 10 (1992)-explained that "external executive power" includes "not only what is properly called military power, but the power likewise of making war or peace, the power of engaging in alliances for an encrease of strength, ... the power of entering into treaties, and of making leagues to restore peace ... and the power of adjusting the rights of a nation in respect of navigation, trade, etc.," 2 Institutes of Natural Law 55-56, 54-61 (1756). During the ratification debates, James Wilson likewise referred to the "executive powers of government" as including the external powers of a nation. 2 J. Elliot, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 500-502 (1863). And Alexander Hamilton, writing as Publius, asserted that "[t]he actual conduct of foreign negotiations," "the arrangement of the army and navy, the directions of the operations of war ... and other matters of a like nature" are "executive details" that "fal[l] peculiarly within the province of the executive department." The Federalist No. 72, pp. 435-436 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961).

Given this pervasive view of executive power, it is unsurprising that those who ratified the Constitution understood the "executive Power" vested by Article II to include those foreign affairs powers not otherwise allocated in the Constitution. James Iredell, for example, told the North Carolina ratifying convention that, under the new Constitution, the President would "regulate all intercourse with foreign powers" and act as the "primary agent" of the United States, though no specific allocation of foreign affairs powers in the document so provided. 4 Elliot, supra,at 127, 128. And Alexander Hamilton presumed as much when he argued that the "[e]nergy" created in the Constitution's Executive would be "essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks," even though no specific allocation of foreign affairs powers provided for the Executive to repel such assaults. See The Federalist No. 70, p. 423. These statements confirm that the "executive Power" vested in the President by Article II includes the residual foreign affairs powers of the Federal Government not otherwise allocated by the Constitution.1

C

Early practice of the founding generation also supports this understanding of the "executive Power." Upon taking office, President Washington assumed the role of chief diplomat; began to direct the Secretary of Foreign Affairs who, under the Articles of Confederation, had reported to the Congress; and established the foreign policy of the United States. Prakash & Ramsey 296-297. At the same time, he respected Congress' prerogatives to declare war, regulate foreign commerce, and appropriate funds. Id.,at 296.

For its part, Congress recognized a broad Presidential role in foreign affairs.

*2100Id.,at 297-298. It created an "Executive department" called the "Department of Foreign Affairs," with a Secretary wholly subordinate to the President. An Act for Establishing an Executive Department, to be denominated the Department of Foreign Affairs, 1 Stat. 28. The enabling Act provided that the Secretary was to "perform and execute such duties as shall from time to time be enjoined on or intrusted to him by the President," including those "relative to correspondences, commissions or instructions to or with public ministers or consuls, from the United States, or to negotiations with public ministers from foreign states or princes, or to memorials or other applications from foreign public ministers or other foreigners, or to such other matters respecting foreign affairs." § 1, id.,at 29. By referring to those duties as those "the President of the United States shall assign to the said department," ibid.,the Act presumed the President inherently possessed power to engage in those tasks.

Subsequent interactions between President Washington and Congress indicated that the parties involved believed the Constitution vested the President with authority to regulate dealings with foreign nations. In his first State of the Union Address, President Washington told Congress that "[t]he interests of the United States require, that our intercourse with other nations should be facilitated by such provisions as will enable me to fulfil my duty in that respect." First Annual Message (Jan. 8, 1790), in George Washington: A Collection 467, 468 (W. Allen ed. 1988). To that end, he asked for compensation for employees and a fund designated for "defraying the expenses incident to the conduct of our foreign affairs." Ibid.Congress responded by passing "An Act providing the means of intercourse between the United States and foreign nations." Ch. 22, 1 Stat. 128.

During the congressional debate over that bill, the President sought an opinion from Thomas Jefferson-at that time, Secretary of State-about the scope of the Senate's power in this area. Jefferson responded that "[t]he transaction of business with foreign nations is executive altogether." Opinion on the Powers of the Senate (Apr. 24, 1790), in 5 Writings of Thomas Jefferson 161 (P. Ford ed. 1895). As such, Jefferson concluded that it properly belonged "to the head" of the executive department, "except as to such portions of it as are specially submitted to the senate." Ibid.According to Washington's diaries, he received similar advice from John Jay and James Madison about "the propriety of consulting the Senate on the places to which it would be necessary to send persons in the Diplomatic line, and Consuls." 6 The Diaries of George Washington 68 (D. Jackson & D. Twohig eds. 1979). All agreed that the Senate lacked a "Constitutional right to interfere with either, & that it might be impolitic to draw it into a precedent their powers extending no farther than to an approbation or disapprobation of the person nominated by the President all the rest being Executive and vested in the President by the Constitution." Ibid.

Washington followed this advice. He corresponded directly with U.S. ministers, moved them among countries, and removed them from their positions at will. Prakash & Ramsey 308-309. He also corresponded with foreign leaders, representing that his role as the " 'supreme executive authority' " authorized him to receive and respond to their letters on behalf of the United States. Id.,at 317. When foreign ministers addressed their communications to Congress, he informed them of their error. Id.,at 321.

Washington's control over foreign affairs extended beyond communications with other *2101governments. When confronted with the question whether to recognize the French Republic as the lawful government of France, he received the French Republic's emissary without the involvement of Congress. Id.,at 312. When he later concluded that the emissary had acted inappropriately, he again acted without the involvement of Congress to ask the French executive to recall him. Id.,at 314-315. Washington also declared neutrality on behalf of the United States during the war between England and France in 1793, see Proclamation of Neutrality (Apr. 22, 1793), an action Hamilton pseudonymously defended as a proper exercise of the power vested in the President by the "general grant" of executive power in the Vesting Clause. Pacificus No. 1 (June 29, 1793), Letters of Pacificus and Helvidius 10 (1845); id.,at 3. For its part, Congress applauded the President's decision. 4 Annals of Cong. 18, 138 (1793).

In short, the practices of the Washington administration and First Congress confirm that Article II's Vesting Clause was originally understood to include a grant of residual foreign affairs power to the Executive.

II

The statutory provision at issue implicates the President's residual foreign affairs power. Section 214(d) instructs the Secretary of State, upon request of a citizen born in Jerusalem (or that citizen's legal guardian), to list that citizen's place of birth as Israel on his passport and consular report of birth abroad, even though it is the undisputed position of the United States that Jerusalem is not a part of Israel. The President argues that this provision violates his foreign affairs powers generally and his recognition power specifically. Zivotofsky rejoins that Congress passed § 214(d) pursuant to its enumerated powers and its action must therefore take precedence.

Neither has it quite right. The President is not constitutionally compelled to implement § 214(d) as it applies to passports because passport regulation falls squarely within his residual foreign affairs power and Zivotofsky has identified no source of congressional power to require the President to list Israel as the place of birth for a citizen born in Jerusalem on that citizen's passport. Section 214(d) can, however, be constitutionally applied to consular reports of birth abroad because those documents do not fall within the President's foreign affairs authority but do fall within Congress' enumerated powers over naturalization.2

A

1

In the Anglo-American legal tradition, passports have consistently been issued and controlled by the body exercising executive power-in England, by the King; in the colonies, by the Continental Congress; and in the United States, by President *2102Washington and every President since.

Historically, "passports were classed with those documents known as safe conducts or letters of protection, by which the person of an enemy might be rendered safe and inviolable." G. Hunt, U.S. Dept. of State, The American Passport: Its History 3 (1898). Letters of safe conduct and passports performed different functions in England, but both grew out of the King's prerogative to regulate the "nation's intercourse with foreign nations," see 1 Blackstone 251-253. The King issued letters of safe conduct during times of war, id.,at 252, whereas passports were heirs to a tradition of requiring the King's license to depart the country, see, e.g.,Richard II, Feb. 26, 1383, 2 Calendar of Close Rolls, pp. 281-282 (1920); 1 E. Turner, The Privy Council of England in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 1603-1784, p. 151 (1927); see also K. Diplock, Passports and Protection in International Law, in 32 The Grotius Society, Transactions for the Year 1946, Problems of Public and Private International Law 42, 44 (1947).

Both safe conducts and passports were in use at the time of the founding. Passports were given "for greater security" "on ordinary occasions [to] persons who meet with no special interference in going and coming," whereas "safe-conduct[s]" were "given to persons who could not otherwise enter with safety the dominions of the sovereign granting it." 3 E. de Vattel, The Law of Nations § 265, p. 331 (1758 ed. C. Fenwick transl. 1916) (emphasis deleted). Both were issued by the person exercising the external sovereign power of a state. See id.,§§ 162, 275, at 69, 332. In the absence of a separate executive branch of government, the Continental Congress issued passports during the American Revolution, see, e.g., Resolution (May 9, 1776), in 4 Journals of the Continental Congress 340-341; Resolution (May 24, 1776), in id.,at 385; as did the Congress under the Articles of Confederation, see, e.g., 25 id.,at 859 (Jan. 24, 1783) (discussing its authority to issue passports under the war power).

After the ratification of the Constitution, President Washington immediately took responsibility for issuing passports. Hunt, supra,at 3. Although " '[p]ast practice does not, by itself, create power,' " "a governmental practice [that] has been open, widespread, and unchallenged since the early days of the Republic ... should guide our interpretation of an ambiguous constitutional provision." NLRB v. Noel Canning,573 U.S. ----, ----, 134 S.Ct. 2550, 2594, 189 L.Ed.2d 538 (2014)(SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment) (alteration in original; some internal quotation marks omitted). The history of the President's passport regulation in this country is one such practice. From the ratification until the end of the Civil War, the President issued passports without any authorization from Congress. As the Department of State later remarked, "In the absence of any law upon the subject, the issuing of passports to Americans going abroad naturally fell to the Department of State, as one of its manifestly proper functions." Hunt, supra,at 37. To that end, the Secretary's authority was "entirely discretionary." Urtetiqui v. D'Arcy,9 Pet. 692, 699, 9 L.Ed. 276 (1835). Congress acted in support of that authority by criminalizing the "violat[ion] [of] any safe-conduct or passport duly obtained and issued under the authority of the United States." An Act for the Punishment of certain Crimes against the United States, § 28, 1 Stat. 118.3Congress only purported to authorize *2103the President to issue such passports in 1856 and, even under that statute, it provided that passports should be issued "under such rules as the President shall designate and prescribe for and on behalf of the United States." An Act to regulate the Diplomatic and Consular Systems of the United States, § 23, 11 Stat. 60. The President has continued to designate and prescribe the rules for passports ever since.

2

That the President has the power to regulate passports under his residual foreign affairs powers does not, however, end the matter, for Congress has repeatedly legislated on the subject of passports. These laws have always been narrow in scope. For example, Congress enacted laws prohibiting the issuance of passports to noncitizens, id.,at 61, created an exception to that rule for "persons liable to military duty," Act of Mar. 3, 1863, § 23, 12 Stat. 754, and then eliminated that exception, Act of May 30, 1866, ch. 102, 14 Stat. 54. It passed laws regulating the fees that the State Department should impose for issuance of the passports. Act of May 16, 1932, ch. 187, 47 Stat. 157; Act of June 4, 1920, § 1, 41 Stat. 750; Act of June 15, 1917, ch. 30, Title IX, § 1, 40 Stat. 227; Act of Aug. 18, 1856, § 23, 11 Stat. 60; Act of Mar. 1, 1855, § 12, 10 Stat. 624. It also enacted legislation addressing the duration for which passports may remain valid. § 116, 96 Stat. 279; Pub.L. 90-428, 82 Stat. 446; Pub.L. 86-267, 73 Stat. 552; Act of July 3, 1926, 44 Stat. 887. And it passed laws imposing criminal penalties for false statements made when applying for passports, along with misuse of passports and counterfeiting or forgery of them. Act of June 25, 1948, 62 Stat. 771; Act of Mar. 28, 1940, § 7, 54 Stat. 80; 40 Stat. 227.4

As with any congressional action, however, such legislation is constitutionally permissible only insofar as it is promulgated pursuant to one of Congress' enumerated powers. I must therefore address whether Congress had constitutional authority to enact § 214(d)'s regulation of passports.

a

Zivotofsky and congressional amiciidentify three potential sources of congressional power to enact the portion of § 214(d) dealing with passports. Zivotofsky first argues that it falls within Congress' power "to regulate the issuance and content of United States passports." Brief for Petitioner 17. The U.S. Senate, as amicus curiae,likewise contends that it can be justified under Congress' "plenary authority over passports," which it derives from the penumbras of its powers " '[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations' " and " '[t]o establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.' " Brief for United States Senate 3 (quoting U.S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cls. 3, 4). None of these arguments withstands scrutiny.

The Constitution contains no Passport Clause, nor does it explicitly vest Congress with "plenary authority over passports." Because our Government is one of enumerated powers, "Congress has no power to act unless the Constitution authorizes it to do so." United States v. Comstock,560 U.S. 126, 159, 130 S.Ct. 1949, 176 L.Ed.2d 878 (2010)(THOMAS, J., dissenting). And "[t]he Constitution plainly sets forth the 'few and defined' powers that Congress *2104may exercise." Ibid.A "passport power" is not one of them.

Section 214(d)'s passport directive fares no better under those powers actually included in Article I. To start, it does not fall within the power "[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations." "At the time the original Constitution was ratified, 'commerce' consisted of selling, buying, and bartering, as well as transporting for these purposes." United States v. Lopez,514 U.S. 549, 585, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995)(THOMAS, J., concurring). The listing of the place of birth of an applicant-whether born in Jerusalem or not-does not involve selling, buying, bartering, or transporting for those purposes. Cf. United States v. Morrison,529 U.S. 598, 613, 120 S.Ct. 1740, 146 L.Ed.2d 658 (2000)("[O]ur cases have upheld Commerce Clause regulation of intrastate activity [under the power to regulate commerce among the several States] only where that activity is economic in nature").

True, a passport is frequently used by persons who may intend to engage in commerce abroad, but that use is insufficient to bring § 214(d)'s passport directive within the scope of this power. The specific conduct at issue here-the listing of the birthplace of a U.S. citizen born in Jerusalem on a passport by the President-is not a commercial activity. Any commercial activities subsequently undertaken by the bearer of a passport are yet further removed from that regulation.

The power "[t]o establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization" is similarly unavailing. At the founding, the word "naturalization" meant "[t]he act of investing aliens with the privileges of native subjects." 2 S. Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language 1293 (4th ed. 1773); see also T. Dyche & W. Pardon, A New General English Dictionary (1771) ("the making a foreigner or alien, a denizen or freeman of any kingdom or city, and so becoming, as it were, both a subject and a native of a king or country, that by nature he did not belong to"). A passport has never been issued as part of the naturalization process. It is-and has always been-a "travel document," Dept. of State, 7 Foreign Affairs Manual (or FAM) § 1311(b) (2013), issued for the same purpose it has always served: a request from one sovereign to another for the protection of the bearer. See supra, at 2101 - 2103.

b

For similar reasons, the Necessary and Proper Clause gives Congress no authority here. That Clause provides, "The Congress shall have Power ... [t]o make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." U.S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 18. As an initial matter, "Congress lacks authority to legislate [under this provision] if the objective is anything other than 'carrying into Execution' one or more of the Federal Government's enumerated powers." Comstock, supra,at 161, 130 S.Ct. 1949(THOMAS, J., dissenting). The "end [must] be legitimate" under our constitutional structure. McCulloch v. Maryland,4 Wheat. 316, 421, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819).

But even if the objective of a law is carrying into execution one of the Federal Government's enumerated powers, the law must be both necessary and proper to that objective. The "Clause is not a warrant to Congress to enact any law that bears some conceivable connection to the exercise of an enumerated power." Gonzales v. Raich,545 U.S. 1, 60, 125 S.Ct. 2195, 162 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005)(THOMAS, J., dissenting). Instead, "there must be a necessary and proper fit between the 'means' (the *2105federal law) and the 'end' (the enumerated power or powers) it is designed to serve." Comstock, supra,at 160, 130 S.Ct. 1949(THOMAS, J., dissenting). The "means" chosen by Congress "will be deemed 'necessary' if they are 'appropriate' and 'plainly adapted' to the exercise of an enumerated power, and 'proper' if they are not otherwise 'prohibited' by the Constitution and not '[in]consistent' with its 'letter and spirit.' " Id.,at 160-161, 130 S.Ct. 1949(alteration in original).

The argument that § 214(d), as applied to passports, could be an exercise of Congress' power to carry into execution its foreign commerce or naturalization powers falters because this aspect of § 214(d) is directed at neither of the ends served by these powers. Although at a high level of generality, a passport could be related to foreign commerce and naturalization, that attenuated relationship is insufficient. The law in question must be "directly link[ed]" to the enumerated power. Id.,at 169, n. 8, 130 S.Ct. 1949. As applied to passports, § 214(d) fails that test because it does not " 'carr[y] into Execution' " Congress' foreign commerce or naturalization powers. Id., at 160, 130 S.Ct. 1949. At most, it bears a tertiary relationship to an activity Congress is permitted to regulate: It directs the President's formulation of a document, which, in turn, may be used to facilitate travel, which, in turn, may facilitate foreign commerce. And the distinctive history of the passport as a travel rather than citizenship document makes its connection to naturalization even more tenuous.

Nor can this aspect of § 214(d) be justified as an exercise of Congress' power to enact laws to carry into execution the President's residual foreign affairs powers. Simply put, § 214(d)'s passport directive is not a "proper" means of carrying this power into execution.

To be "proper," a law must fall within the peculiar competence of Congress under the Constitution. Though "proper" was susceptible of several definitions at the time of the founding, only two are plausible candidates for use in the Necessary and Proper Clause-(1) "[f]it; accommodated; adapted; suitable; qualified" and (2) "[p]eculiar; not belonging to more; not common." See 2 Johnson, supra, at 1537. Because the former would render the word "necessary" superfluous, McCulloch, supra,at 413, and we ordinarily attempt to give effect "to each word of the Constitution," Knowlton v. Moore,178 U.S. 41, 87, 20 S.Ct. 747, 44 L.Ed. 969 (1900), the latter is the more plausible. That is particularly true because the Constitution elsewhere uses the term "proper" by itself, Art. I, § 9, Art. II, §§ 2, 3; the term "necessary" by itself, Art. I, § 7; Art. V; and the term "necessary" as part of the phrase "necessary and expedient," Art. II, § 3. Thus, the best interpretation of "proper" is that a law must fall within the peculiar jurisdiction of Congress.

Our constitutional structure imposes three key limitations on that jurisdiction: It must conform to (1) the allocation of authority within the Federal Government, (2) the allocation of power between the Federal Government and the States, and (3) the protections for retained individual rights under the Constitution. See Lawson & Granger, The "Proper" Scope of Federal Power: A Jurisdictional Interpretation of the Sweeping Clause, 43 Duke L.J. 267, 291, 297 (1993). In other words, to be "proper," a law "must be consistent with principles of separation of powers, principles of federalism, and individual rights." Id.,at 297.

Commentators during the ratification debates treated "proper" as having this meaning. Writing as Publius, Hamilton posed the question who would "judge ...

*2106the necessityand proprietyof the laws to be passed for executing the powers of the Union" and responded that "[t]he propriety of a law, in a constitutional light, must always be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded." The Federalist, No. 33, pp. 203-204. For example, a law that "exceeded [Congress'] jurisdiction" and invaded the authority of the States would not meet that standard. Id.,at 204. Similarly, an "impartial citizen" wrote in a Virginia newspaper that, even if the governmental powers could not "be executed without the aid of a law, granting commercial monopolies, inflicting unusual punishments, creating new crimes, or commanding any unconstitutional act," thus making the law necessary to the execution of a power, "such a law would be manifestly not proper," and not "warranted by this clause, without absolutely departing from the usual acceptation of words." An Impartial Citizen V, Petersburg Va. Gazette, Feb. 28, 1788, in 8 Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution 428, 431 (J. Kaminski & G. Saladino eds. 1988) (emphasis deleted).

Early interpretations of the Clause following ratification largely confirm that view. Lawson & Granger, supra,at 298-308. During debate on the Bank of the United States in the First Congress, for example, Representative Ames declared that the correct construction of the Necessary and Proper Clause "promotes the good of the society, and the ends for which the Government was adopted, without impairing the rights of any man, or the powers of any State." 2 Annals of Cong. 1906 (1791). During the Second Congress, Representative Niles railed against a bill that would have authorized federal mail carriers to transport passengers for hire in order to reduce the cost of the mails. He said that such a law would not be "proper" to the power to establish post offices and post roads because some States had "an exclusive right of carrying passengers for hire" and an interpretation of the word "proper" that would allow the bill would render "as nugatory, all [the States'] deliberations on the Constitution" and effectively vest Congress with "general authority to legislate on every subject." 3 id.,at 308-310(1792) (emphasis deleted). Each of these comments presumed that the word "proper" imposed a jurisdictional limit on congressional activity.

This evidence makes sense in light of the Framers' efforts to ensure a separation of powers, reinforced by checks and balances, as "practical and real protectio[n] for individual liberty in the new Constitution." Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Assn.,575 U.S. ----, ----, 135 S.Ct. 1199, 1216, 191 L.Ed.2d 186 (2015)(THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment). If Congress could rely on the Necessary and Proper Clause to exercise power expressly allocated to the other branches or to prevent the exercise of such power by other branches, it could undermine the constitutional allocation of powers.

That the evidence thus points to a definition of "proper" that protects the separation of powers does not fully explain the way that the "proper" requirement operates when Congress seeks to facilitate the exercise of a power allocated to another branch. I can see two potential mechanisms, either or both of which may accurately reflect the original understanding of the Clause. First, a law could be "improper" if it purports to direct another branch's exercise of its power. See Calabresi & Prakash, The President's Power to Execute the Laws, 104 Yale L.J. 541, 591 (1994)("[T]he Clause ... does [not] allow Congress to tell constitutionally empowered actors how they can implement their exclusive powers"). Second, a law could be "improper" if it takes one of those actions andthe branch to which the power *2107is allocated objects to the action. See Prakash & Ramsey 255-256 ("Congress has the general power to legislate in support of the President's foreign policy goals. But ... [s]ince it is derivative of the President's power, it must be exercised in coordination with, and not in opposition to, the President").

I need not resolve that question today, as the application of § 214(d) to passports would be improper under either approach. The President has made a determination that the "place of birth" on a passport should list the country of present sovereignty. 7 FAM, § 1300, App. D, § 1330 (2014). And the President has determined that no country is presently exercising sovereignty over the area of Jerusalem. Thus, the President has provided that passports for persons born in Jerusalem should list "Jerusalem" as the place of birth in the passport. Id.,§ 1360(f). Section 214(d) directs the President to exercise his power to issue and regulate the content of passports in a particular way, and the President has objected to that direction. Under either potential mechanism for evaluating the propriety of a law under the separation-of-powers limitation, this law would be improper.5

c

In support of his argument that the President must enforce § 214(d), Zivotofsky relies heavily on a similar statute addressing the place of birth designation for persons born in Taiwan. See Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1994 and 1995, § 132, 108 Stat. 395. That statute provided, "For purposes of the registration of birth or certification of nationality of a United States citizen born in Taiwan, the Secretary of State shall permit the place of birth to be recorded as Taiwan." Ibid.The President has adopted that practice.

The President's decision to adopt that practice, however, says nothing about the constitutionality of the Taiwan provision in the first place. The constitutional allocation of powers "does not depend on the views of individual Presidents, nor on whether the encroached upon branch approves the encroachment." Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd.,561 U.S. 477, 497, 130 S.Ct. 3138, 177 L.Ed.2d 706 (2010)(citation and internal quotation marks omitted).6And the argument from Presidential acquiescence here is particularly weak, given that the Taiwan statute is consistent with the President's longstanding policy on Taiwan. At the time Congress enacted the statute, the Foreign Affairs Manual permitted consular officials to list "the city or area of birth" on a passport "[w]here the birthplace of the applicant is located in territory disputed by another country," 7 FAM § 1383.5-2 (1987), and to list "the city or town, rather than the country" of an applicant's birth "when there are objections to the listing shown on the birthplace guide," id.,§ 1383.6. Because the President otherwise treats Taiwan as a geographical area within the People's Republic of China, listing Taiwan as the place of birth did not directly conflict with the President's prevailing practices. Section *2108214(d) does so conflict, as it requires the President to list citizens born in Jerusalem as born in "Israel," even though the Foreign Affairs Manual has long prohibited that action.

d

Justice SCALIA would locate Congress' power to enact the passport directive of § 214(d) in Congress' power under the Necessary and Proper Clause to bring into effect its enumerated power over naturalization. Post, at 2117 - 2118 (dissenting opinion). As an initial matter, he asserts that "[t]he naturalization power ... enables Congress to furnish the people it makes citizens with papers verifying their citizenship," post,at 2117, yet offers no support for this interpretation of a clause that, by its terms, grants Congress only the "Power ... To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization," U.S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 4. He then concludes that, if Congress can grant such documents, "it may also require these [documents] to record his birthplace as 'Israel' " pursuant to its power under the Necessary and Proper Clause, post,at 2117. But this theory does not account for the President's power to act in this area, nor does it confront difficult questions about the application of the Necessary and Proper Clause in the case of conflict among the branches.

Justice SCALIA disapproves of my "assertion of broad, unenumerated 'residual powers' in the President," post,at 2126, but offers no response to my interpretation of the words "executive Power" in the Constitution. Instead, he claims that I have argued for "Presidential primacy over passports" and then rejects that position based on two postratification English statutes, the early practice of nonfederal actors issuing passports in this country, and the same congressional statutes that I have already discussed, most of which were enacted after the Civil War. Post,at 2124 - 2125; supra,at 2103, and n. 4. But I do not argue that the President possesses primary power over passports. I need not argue that. I argue only that Congress did not act according to any of the powers granted to it in the Constitution and, in such circumstances, the question of primacy does not arise.

In any event, the historical evidence cited in Justice SCALIA's dissent does not conflict with my analysis of the President's power in this area. The two postratification English statutes implicitly acknowledged that passports are issued by executive officers in the exercise of executive power, see 38 Geo. III, ch. 50, § 8, in 41 Eng. Stat. at Large 684; 33 Geo. III, ch. 4, § 8, in 39 Eng. Stat. at Large 12, and the practice of executive officials in the States of this country confirms that relationship. In addition, neither piece of historical evidence speaks to the scope of Congress' power to regulate passports under our federal system. Justice SCALIA's final piece of historical support-the increased congressional regulation of passports following the Civil War-is perhaps more on point from an institutional perspective, but still does not resolve the issue. Those regulations were, as I have already described, narrow in scope and continued to leave primary regulation of the content of passports to the President. To draw an inference from these "late-arising historical practices that are ambiguous at best"-and that might conflict with the original meaning of the "executive Power" and the "proper" requirement in the Necessary and Proper Clause-is a dubious way to undertake constitutional analysis. See Noel Canning,573 U.S., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 2592(SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment).

Even more dubious, however, is the cursory treatment of the Necessary and Proper Clause in Justice SCALIA's dissent.

*2109He asserts that, in acting pursuant to that Clause, "Congress ... may not transcend boundaries upon legislative authority stated or implied elsewhere in the Constitution." Post, at 2117. But he offers no explanation for what those implied limits might be or how they would operate. Does he, for example, agree that the word "proper" requires Congress to act in a manner " 'consistent with principles of separation of powers, principles of federalism, and individual rights' "? Supra,at 2105 (quoting Lawson & Grainger, 43 Duke L. J., at 297).If so, then why does he find that requirement satisfied in this case? Is it because he views the President as having no constitutional authority to act in this area? Or is it because he views Congress' directive to the President as consistent with the separation of powers, irrespective of the President's authority? If the latter, is that because he perceives no separation-of-powers limitations on Congress when it acts to carry into execution one of its enumerated powers, as opposed to the enumerated powers of anotherbranch? And if that is the case, what textual, structural, or historical evidence exists for that interpretation? Justice SCALIA's dissent raises more questions than it answers.

Justice SCALIA's dissent doesat least answer how, in his view, the Constitution would resolve a conflict between the political branches, each acting pursuant to the powers granted them under the Constitution. He believes that congressional power should trump in any such conflict. Post,at 2125. I see nothing in the Constitution that clearly mandates that solution to a difficult separation-of-powers question, and I need not opine on it. I find no power under which Congress could lawfully have enacted the passport directive of § 214(d), apart from its power under the Necessary and Proper Clause to carry into effect the President's powers. And I have offered textual and historical support for my conclusion that the Clause does not include the power to direct the President's exercise of his passport power.

Finally, Justice SCALIA faults me for failing to consider a number of potential sources of congressional power for § 214(d) not argued by any of the parties, ranging from the Fourteenth Amendment; to the Migration or Importation Clause, Art. I, § 9, cl. 1; to the Territories Clause, Art. IV, § 3, cl. 2. Post, at 2123 - 2124. But no one-not even Justice SCALIA-has seriously contended that those provisions would afford a basis for the passport provision of § 214(d).

In the end, Justice SCALIA characterizes my interpretation of the executive power, the naturalization power, and the Necessary and Proper Clause as producing "a presidency more reminiscent of George III than George Washington." Post,at 2126. But he offers no competing interpretation of either the Article II Vesting Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause. And his decision about the Constitution's resolution of conflict among the branches could itself be criticized as creating a supreme legislative body more reminiscent of the Parliament in England than the Congress in America.

* * *

Because the President has residual foreign affairs authority to regulate passports and because there appears to be no congressional power that justifies § 214(d)'s application to passports, Zivotofsky's challenge to the Executive's designation of his place of birth on his passport must fail.

B

Although the consular report of birth abroad shares some features with a passport, it is historically associated with naturalization, not foreign affairs. In order to *2110establish a "uniform Rule of Naturalization," Congress must be able to identify the categories of persons who are eligible for naturalization, along with the rules for that process. Congress thus has always regulated the "acquisition of citizenship by being born abroad of American parents ... in the exercise of the power conferred by the Constitution to establish a uniform rule of naturalization." United States v. Wong Kim Ark,169 U.S. 649, 688, 18 S.Ct. 456, 42 L.Ed. 890 (1898); see also Miller v. Albright,523 U.S. 420, 456, 118 S.Ct. 1428, 140 L.Ed.2d 575 (1998)(SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment) (recognizing that "Congress has the power to set the requirements for acquisition of citizenship by persons not born within the territory of the United States"). It has determined that children born abroad to U.S. parents, subject to some exceptions, are natural-born citizens who do not need to go through the naturalization process. 8 U.S.C. §§ 1401(c), (d), (g).

The consular report of birth abroad is well suited to carrying into execution the power conferred on Congress in the Naturalization Clause. The report developed in response to Congress' requirement that children born abroad to U.S. citizens register with the consulate or lose their citizenship. And it continues to certify the acquisition of U.S. citizenship at birth by a person born abroad to a U.S. citizen. See 22 U.S.C. § 2705(2).

Although such persons have possessed a statutory right to citizenship at birth for much of this country's history,7the process by which that citizenship is evidenced has varied over time. Under the 1870 consular regulations, for instance, children born abroad to U.S. citizens were issued no certificates. If they applied for a U.S. passport, then they were issued one "qualified by the obligations and duties" that attached to those citizens by virtue of their residence in a foreign nation. Regulations Prescribed For The Use Of The Consular Service of the United States App. No. IV, p. 288 (1870); see also id.,§ 109, at 38-39. Congress acted in 1907 to require children residing abroad to register with their local consulate at the age of 18. Act of Mar. 2, 1907, § 6, 34 Stat. 1229. Because of the importance of this registration requirement, consular officials began to issue reports to citizens confirming their registration. See generally National Archives, General Records of the Dept. of State, Record Group 59, Passport Office, Decimal File, 1910-1949.

In 1919, the Department of State acted to standardize the consular registration of children born abroad. Report of Birth of Children to American Citizens Residing Abroad, General Instruction No. 652. It urged consulates to impress upon U.S. citizens abroad the need to record the birth of their children within two years. Id.,at 2. To encourage that effort, the Department permitted consular officials to issue reports attesting that the parents of U.S. citizens born abroad had presented sufficient evidence of citizenship for their children.Ibid.

The 1960's brought additional regulations of consular reports of birth abroad, 31 Fed.Reg. 13538 (1966), which continue in a substantially similar form to this day. See 22 CFR §§ 50.5, 50.7 (2014). As currently issued, the consular report of birth *2111abroad includes the applicant's name, sex, place of birth, date of birth, and parents. It has had the "same force and effect as proof of United States citizenship as [a] certificat[e] of naturalization" since 1982. § 117, 96 Stat. 279.

Thus, although registration is no longer required to maintain birthright citizenship, the consular report of birth abroad remains the primary means by which children born abroad may obtain official acknowledgement of their citizenship. See 22 CFR § 51.43. Once acknowledged as U.S. citizens, they need not pursue the naturalization process to obtain the rights and privileges of citizenship in this country. Regulation of the report is thus "appropriate" and "plainly adapted" to the exercise of the naturalization power. See Comstock,560 U.S., at 161, 130 S.Ct. 1949(THOMAS, J., dissenting).

By contrast, regulation of the report bears no relationship to the President's residual foreign affairs power. It has no historical pedigree uniquely associated with the President, contains no communication directed at a foreign power, and is primarily used for domestic purposes. To the extent that a citizen born abroad seeks a document to use as evidence of his citizenship abroad, he must obtain a passport. See generally 7 FAM § 1311.

Because regulation of the consular report of birth abroad is justified as an exercise of Congress' powers under the Naturalization and Necessary and Proper Clauses and does not fall within the President's foreign affairs powers, § 214(d)'s treatment of that document is constitutional.8

III

The majority does not perform this analysis, but instead relies on a variation of the recognition power. That power is among the foreign affairs powers vested in the President by Article II's Vesting Clause, as is confirmed by Article II's express assignment to the President of the duty of receiving foreign Ambassadors, Art. II, § 3. But I cannot join the majority's analysis because no act of recognition is implicated here.9

Under international law, "recognition of a state signifies acceptance of its position within the international community and the possession by it of the full range of rights and obligations which are the normal attributes of statehood." 1 Oppenheim's International Law § 47, 158 (R. Jennings & A. Watts eds., 9th ed. 1992) (footnote omitted) (Oppenheim).10It can *2112be accomplished expressly or implicitly, but the key is to discern a clear intention on the part of one state to recognize another. Id.,§ 50, at 169. Important consequences are understood to flow from one state's recognition of another: The new state, for instance, acquires the capacity to engage in diplomatic relations, including the negotiation of treaties, with the recognizing state. Id.,§ 47, at 158. The new state is also entitled to sue in, invoke sovereign immunity from, and demand acceptance of official acts in the courts of the recognizing state. Ibid.; see also I. Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law 95-96 (7th ed. 2008).

Changes in territory generally do not affect the status of a state as an international person. Oppenheim § 57, at 204-205. France, for example, "has over the centuries retained its identity although it acquired, lost and regained parts of its territory, changed its dynasty, was a kingdom, a republic, an empire, again a kingdom, again a republic, again an empire, and is now once more a republic."Ibid."Even such loss of territory as occasions the reduction of a major power to a lesser status does not affect the state as an international person." Id.,§ 57, at 205. Changes that wouldaffect the status as an international person include the union of two separate international persons or a partial loss of independence. Id.,§ 58, at 206.

Assuming for the sake of argument that listing a non-recognized foreign sovereign as a citizen's place of birth on a U.S. passport could have the effect of recognizing that sovereign under international law, no such recognition would occur under the circumstances presented here. The United States has recognized Israel as a foreign sovereign since May 14, 1948. Statement by the President Announcing the Recognition of the State of Israel, Public Papers of the Presidents, Harry S. Truman, p. 258 (1964). That the United States has subsequently declined to acknowledge Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem has not changed its recognition of Israel as a sovereign state. And even if the United States were to acknowledge Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem, that action would not change its recognition of Israel as a sovereign state. That is because the United States has already afforded Israel the rights and responsibilities attendant to its status as a sovereign State. Taking a different position on the Jerusalem question will have no effect on that recognition.11

Perhaps recognizing that a formal recognition is not implicated here, the majority reasons that, if the Executive's exclusive recognition power "is to mean anything, it must mean that the President not only makes the initial, formal recognition determination but also that he may maintain that determination in his and his agent's statements." Ante,at 2094 - 2095. By "alter[ing] the President's statements on matters of recognition or forc [ing] him to contradict them," the majority reasons, "Congress in effect would exercise the recognition power." Ante,at 2095. This argument stretches the recognition power beyond all recognition. Listing a Jerusalem-born citizen's place of birth as "Israel" cannot amount to recognition because the United States already recognizes Israel as an international person. Rather than adopt a novel definition of the recognition *2113power, the majority should have looked to other foreign affairs powers in the Constitution to resolve this dispute.

* * *

Adhering to the Constitution's allocation of powers leads me to reach a different conclusion in this case from my colleagues: Section 214(d) can be constitutionally applied to consular reports of birth abroad, but not passports. I therefore respectfully concur in the judgment in part and dissent in part.

Chief Justice ROBERTS, with whom Justice ALITOjoins, dissenting.

Today's decision is a first: Never before has this Court accepted a President's direct defiance of an Act of Congress in the field of foreign affairs. We have instead stressed that the President's power reaches "its lowest ebb" when he contravenes the express will of Congress, "for what is at stake is the equilibrium established by our constitutional system." Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer,343 U.S. 579, 637-638, 72 S.Ct. 863, 96 L.Ed. 1153 (1952)(Jackson, J., concurring).

Justice SCALIA's principal dissent, which I join in full, refutes the majority's unprecedented holding in detail. I write separately to underscore the stark nature of the Court's error on a basic question of separation of powers.

The first principles in this area are firmly established. The Constitution allocates some foreign policy powers to the Executive, grants some to the Legislature, and enjoins the President to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Art. II, § 3. The Executive may disregard "the expressed or implied will of Congress" only if the Constitution grants him a power "at once so conclusive and preclusive" as to "disabl[e] the Congress from acting upon the subject." Youngstown,343 U.S., at 637-638, 72 S.Ct. 863(Jackson, J., concurring).

Assertions of exclusive and preclusive power leave the Executive "in the least favorable of possible constitutional postures," and such claims have been "scrutinized with caution" throughout this Court's history. Id.,at 640, 638, 72 S.Ct. 863; see Dames & Moore v. Regan,453 U.S. 654, 668-669, 101 S.Ct. 2972, 69 L.Ed.2d 918 (1981). For our first 225 years, no President prevailed when contradicting a statute in the field of foreign affairs. See Medellín v. Texas,552 U.S. 491, 524-532, 128 S.Ct. 1346, 170 L.Ed.2d 190 (2008); Hamdan v. Rumsfeld,548 U.S. 557, 590-595, 613-625, 126 S.Ct. 2749, 165 L.Ed.2d 723 (2006); Youngstown,343 U.S., at 587-589, 72 S.Ct. 863(majority opinion); Little v. Barreme,2 Cranch 170, 177-179, 2 L.Ed. 243 (1804).

In this case, the President claims the exclusive and preclusive power to recognize foreign sovereigns. The Court devotes much of its analysis to accepting the Executive's contention. Ante,at 2083 - 2095. I have serious doubts about that position. The majority places great weight on the Reception Clause, which directs that the Executive "shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers." Art. II, § 3. But that provision, framed as an obligation rather than an authorization, appears alongside the dutiesimposed on the President by Article II, Section 3, not the powersgranted to him by Article II, Section 2. Indeed, the People ratified the Constitution with Alexander Hamilton's assurance that executive reception of ambassadors "is more a matter of dignity than of authority" and "will be without consequence in the administration of the government." The Federalist No. 69, p. 420 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961). In short, at the time of the founding, "there was no reason to view the reception clause as a source of discretionary *2114authority for the president." Adler, The President's Recognition Power: Ministerial or Discretionary? 25 Presidential Studies Q. 267, 269 (1995).

The majority's other asserted textual bases are even more tenuous. The President does have power to make treaties and appoint ambassadors. Art. II, § 2. But those authorities are sharedwith Congress, ibid.,so they hardly support an inference that the recognition power is exclusive.

Precedent and history lend no more weight to the Court's position. The majority cites dicta suggesting an exclusive executive recognition power, but acknowledges contrary dicta suggesting that the power is shared. See, e.g.,United States v. Palmer,3 Wheat. 610, 643, 4 L.Ed. 471 (1818)("the courts of the union must view [a] newly constituted government as it is viewed by the legislative and executive departmentsof the government of the United States" (emphasis added)). When the best you can muster is conflicting dicta, precedent can hardly be said to support your side.

As for history, the majority admits that it too points in both directions. Some Presidents have claimed an exclusive recognition power, but others have expressed uncertainty about whether such preclusive authority exists. Those in the skeptical camp include Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, leaders not generally known for their cramped conceptions of Presidential power. Congress has also asserted its authority over recognition determinations at numerous points in history. The majority therefore falls short of demonstrating that "Congress has accepted" the President's exclusive recognition power. Ante,at 2094 - 2096. In any event, we have held that congressional acquiescence is only "pertinent" when the President acts in the absence of express congressional authorization, not when he asserts power to disregard a statute, as the Executive does here. Medellín,552 U.S., at 528, 128 S.Ct. 1346; see Dames & Moore,453 U.S., at 678-679, 101 S.Ct. 2972.

In sum, although the President has authority over recognition, I am not convinced that the Constitution provides the "conclusive and preclusive" power required to justify defiance of an express legislative mandate. Youngstown,343 U.S., at 638, 72 S.Ct. 863(Jackson, J., concurring). As the leading scholar on this issue has concluded, the "text, original understanding, post-ratification history, and structure of the Constitution do not support the ... expansive claim that this executive power is plenary." Reinstein, Is the President's Recognition Power Exclusive? 86 Temp. L. Rev. 1, 60 (2013).

But even if the President does have exclusive recognition power, he still cannot prevail in this case, because the statute at issue does not implicate recognition. See Zivotofsky v. Clinton,566 U.S. ----, ----, 132 S.Ct. 1421, 1424-1425, 182 L.Ed.2d 423 (2012)(ALITO, J., concurring in judgment); post,at 2119 - 2121 (SCALIA, J., dissenting). The relevant provision, § 214(d), simply gives an American citizen born in Jerusalem the option to designate his place of birth as Israel "[f]or purposes of" passports and other documents. Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2003, 116 Stat. 1366. The State Department itself has explained that "identification"-not recognition-"is the principal reason that U.S. passports require 'place of birth.' " App. 42. Congress has not disputed the Executive's assurances that § 214(d) does not alter the longstanding United States position on Jerusalem. And the annals of diplomatic history record no examples of official recognition accomplished via optional passport designation.

*2115The majority acknowledges both that the "Executive's exclusive power extends no further than his formal recognition determination" and that § 214(d) does "not itself constitute a formal act of recognition." Ante,at 2095. Taken together, these statements come close to a confession of error. The majority attempts to reconcile its position by reconceiving § 214(d) as a "mandate that the Executive contradict his prior recognition determination in an official document issued by the Secretary of State." Ante,at 2095. But as just noted, neither Congress nor the Executive Branch regards § 214(d) as a recognition determination, so it is hard to see how the statute could contradict any such determination.

At most, the majority worries that there may be a perceivedcontradiction based on a mistakenunderstanding of the effect of § 214(d), insisting that some "observers interpreted § 214 as altering United States policy regarding Jerusalem." Ante,at 2095 - 2096. To afford controlling weight to such impressions, however, is essentially to subject a duly enacted statute to an international heckler's veto.

Moreover, expanding the President's purportedly exclusive recognition power to include authority to avoid potential misunderstandings of legislative enactments proves far too much. Congress could validly exercise its enumerated powers in countless ways that would create more severe perceived contradictions with Presidential recognition decisions than does § 214(d). If, for example, the President recognized a particular country in opposition to Congress's wishes, Congress could declare war or impose a trade embargo on that country. A neutral observer might well conclude that these legislative actions had, to put it mildly, created a perceived contradiction with the President's recognition decision. And yet each of them would undoubtedly be constitutional. See ante,at 2095. So too would statements by nonlegislative actors that might be seen to contradict the President's recognition positions, such as the declaration in a political party platform that "Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel." Landler, Pushed by Obama, Democrats Alter Platform Over Jerusalem, N.Y. Times, Sept. 6, 2012, p. A14.

Ultimately, the only power that could support the President's position is the one the majority purports to reject: the "exclusive authority to conduct diplomatic relations." Brief for Respondent 18. The Government offers a single citation for this allegedly exclusive power: United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp.,299 U.S. 304, 319-320, 57 S.Ct. 216, 81 L.Ed. 255 (1936). But as the majority rightly acknowledges, Curtiss-Wrightdid not involve a claim that the Executive could contravene a statute; it held only that he could act pursuant to a legislative delegation. Ante,at 2089 - 2090.

The expansive language in Curtiss-Wrightcasting the President as the "sole organ" of the Nation in foreign affairs certainly has attraction for members of the Executive Branch. The Solicitor General invokes the case no fewer than ten times in his brief. Brief for Respondent 9, 10, 18, 19, 23, 24, 53, 54. But our precedents have never accepted such a sweeping understanding of executive power. See Hamdan,548 U.S., at 591-592, 126 S.Ct. 2749; Dames & Moore,453 U.S., at 661-662, 101 S.Ct. 2972; Youngstown,343 U.S., at 587, 72 S.Ct. 863(majority opinion); id.,at 635, n. 2, 101 S.Ct. 2972(Jackson, J., concurring); cf. Little,2 Cranch, at 179(Marshall, C.J.) ("I confess the first bias of my mind was very strong in favour of ... the executive ... [b]ut I have been convinced that I was mistaken.").

*2116Just a few Terms ago, this Court rejected the President's argument that a broad foreign relations power allowed him to override a state court decision that contradicted U.S. international law obligations. Medellín,552 U.S., at 523-532, 128 S.Ct. 1346. If the President's so-called general foreign relations authority does not permit him to countermand a State's lawful action, it surely does not authorize him to disregard an express statutory directive enacted by Congress, which-unlike the States-has extensive foreign relations powers of its own. Unfortunately, despite its protest to the contrary, the majority today allows the Executive to do just that.

Resolving the status of Jerusalem may be vexing, but resolving this case is not. Whatever recognition power the President may have, exclusive or otherwise, is not implicated by § 214(d). It has not been necessary over the past 225 years to definitively resolve a dispute between Congress and the President over the recognition power. Perhaps we could have waited another 225 years. But instead the majority strains to reach the question based on the mere possibility that observers overseas might misperceive the significance of the birthplace designation at issue in this case. And in the process, the Court takes the perilous step-for the first time in our history-of allowing the President to defy an Act of Congress in the field of foreign affairs.

I respectfully dissent.

Justice SCALIA, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and Justice ALITO join, dissenting.

Before this country declared independence, the law of England entrusted the King with the exclusive care of his kingdom's foreign affairs. The royal prerogative included the "sole power of sending ambassadors to foreign states, and receiving them at home," the sole authority to "make treaties, leagues, and alliances with foreign states and princes," "the sole prerogative of making war and peace," and the "sole power of raising and regulating fleets and armies." 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *253, *257, *262. The People of the United States had other ideas when they organized our Government. They considered a sound structure of balanced powers essential to the preservation of just government, and international relations formed no exception to that principle.

The People therefore adopted a Constitution that divides responsibility for the Nation's foreign concerns between the legislative and executive departments. The Constitution gave the President the "executive Power," authority to send and responsibility to receive ambassadors, power to make treaties, and command of the Army and Navy-though they qualified some of these powers by requiring consent of the Senate. Art. II, §§ 1-3. At the same time, they gave Congress powers over war, foreign commerce, naturalization, and more. Art. I, § 8. "Fully eleven of the powers that Article I, § 8 grants Congress deal in some way with foreign affairs." L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law, § 5-18, p. 965.

This case arises out of a dispute between the Executive and Legislative Branches about whether the United States should treat Jerusalem as a part of Israel. The Constitution contemplates that the political branches will make policy about the territorial claims of foreign nations the same way they make policy about other international matters: The President will exercise his powers on the basis of his views, Congress its powers on the basis of its views. That is just what has happened here.

I

The political branches of our Government agree on the real-world fact that *2117Israel controls the city of Jerusalem. See Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, 109 Stat. 398; Brief for Respondent 3. They disagree, however, about how official documents should record the birthplace of an American citizen born in Jerusalem. The Executive does not accept any state's claim to sovereignty over Jerusalem, and it maintains that the birthplace designation "Israel" would clash with this stance of neutrality. But the National Legislature has enacted a statute that provides: "For purposes of the registration of birth, certification of nationality, or issuance of a passport of a United States citizen born in the city of Jerusalem, the Secretary [of State] shall, upon the request of the citizen or the citizen's legal guardian, record the place of birth as Israel." Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2003, § 214(d), 116 Stat. 1366. Menachem Zivotofsky's parents seek enforcement of this statutory right in the issuance of their son's passport and consular report of birth abroad. They regard their son's birthplace as a part of Israel and insist as "a matter of conscience" that his Israeli nativity "not be erased" from his identity documents. App. 26.

Before turning to Presidential power under Article II, I think it well to establish the statute's basis in congressional power under Article I. Congress's power to "establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization," Art. I, § 8, cl. 4, enables it to grant American citizenship to someone born abroad. United States v. Wong Kim Ark,169 U.S. 649, 702-703, 18 S.Ct. 456, 42 L.Ed. 890 (1898). The naturalization power also enables Congress to furnish the people it makes citizens with papers verifying their citizenship-say a consular report of birth abroad (which certifies citizenship of an American born outside the United States) or a passport (which certifies citizenship for purposes of international travel). As the Necessary and Proper Clause confirms, every congressional power "carries with it all those incidental powers which are necessary to its complete and effectual execution." Cohens v. Virginia,6 Wheat. 264, 429, 5 L.Ed. 257 (1821). Even on a miserly understanding of Congress's incidental authority, Congress may make grants of citizenship "effectual" by providing for the issuance of certificates authenticating them.

One would think that if Congress may grant Zivotofsky a passport and a birth report, it may also require these papers to record his birthplace as "Israel." The birthplace specification promotes the document's citizenship-authenticating function by identifying the bearer, distinguishing people with similar names but different birthplaces from each other, helping authorities uncover identity fraud, and facilitating retrieval of the Government's citizenship records. See App. 70. To be sure, recording Zivotofsky's birthplace as "Jerusalem" rather than "Israel" would fulfill these objectives, but when faced with alternative ways to carry its powers into execution, Congress has the "discretion" to choose the one it deems "most beneficial to the people." McCulloch v. Maryland,4 Wheat. 316, 421, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819). It thus has the right to decide that recording birthplaces as "Israel" makes for better foreign policy. Or that regardless of international politics, a passport or birth report should respect its bearer's conscientious belief that Jerusalem belongs to Israel.

No doubt congressional discretion in executing legislative powers has its limits; Congress's chosen approach must be not only "necessary" to carrying its powers into execution, but also "proper." Congress thus may not transcend boundaries upon legislative authority stated or implied elsewhere in the Constitution. But as we shall see, § 214(d) does not transgress any such restriction.

*2118II

The Court frames this case as a debate about recognition. Recognition is a sovereign's official acceptance of a status under international law. A sovereign might recognize a foreign entity as a state, a regime as the other state's government, a place as part of the other state's territory, rebel forces in the other state as a belligerent power, and so on. 2 M. Whiteman, Digest of International Law § 1 (1963) (hereinafter Whiteman). President Truman recognized Israel as a state in 1948, but Presidents have consistently declined to recognize Jerusalem as a part of Israel's (or any other state's) sovereign territory.

The Court holds that the Constitution makes the President alone responsible for recognition and that § 214(d) invades this exclusive power. I agree that the Constitution empowersthe President to extend recognition on behalf of the United States, but I find it a much harder question whether it makes that power exclusive. The Court tells us that "the weight of historical evidence" supports exclusive executive authority over "the formal determination of recognition." Ante,at 2091. But even with its attention confined to formal recognition, the Court is forced to admit that "history is not all on one side." Ibid.To take a stark example, Congress legislated in 1934 to grant independence to the Philippines, which were then an American colony. 48 Stat. 456. In the course of doing so, Congress directed the President to "recognize the independence of the Philippine Islands as a separate and self-governing nation" and to "acknowledge the authority and control over the same of the government instituted by the people thereof." § 10, id.,at 463. Constitutional? And if Congress may control recognition when exercising its power "to dispose of ... the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States," Art. IV, § 3, cl. 2, why not when exercising other enumerated powers? Neither text nor history nor precedent yields a clear answer to these questions. Fortunately, I have no need to confront these matters today-nor does the Court-because § 214(d) plainly does not concern recognition.

Recognition is more than an announcement of a policy. Like the ratification of an international agreement or the termination of a treaty, it is a formal legal act with effects under international law. It signifies acceptance of an international status, and it makes a commitment to continued acceptance of that status and respect for any attendant rights. See, e.g., Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, Art. 6, Dec. 26, 1933, 49 Stat. 3100, T.S. No. 881. "Its legal effect is to create an estoppel. By granting recognition, [states] debar themselves from challenging in future whatever they have previously acknowledged." 1 G. Schwarzenberger, International Law 127 (3d ed. 1957). In order to extend recognition, a state must perform an act that unequivocally manifests that intention. Whiteman § 3. That act can consist of an express conferral of recognition, or one of a handful of acts that by international custom imply recognition-chiefly, entering into a bilateral treaty, and sending or receiving an ambassador. Ibid.

To know all this is to realize at once that § 214(d) has nothing to do with recognition. Section 214(d) does not require the Secretary to make a formal declaration about Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem. And nobody suggests that international custom infers acceptance of sovereignty from the birthplace designation on a passport or birth report, as it does from bilateral treaties or exchanges of ambassadors. Recognition would preclude the United States (as a matter of international law)

*2119from later contesting Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. But making a notation in a passport or birth report does not encumber the Republic with any international obligations. It leaves the Nation free (so far as international law is concerned) to change its mind in the future. That would be true even if the statute required all passports to list "Israel." But in fact it requires only those passports to list "Israel" for which the citizen (or his guardian) requests "Israel"; all the rest, under the Secretary's policy, list "Jerusalem." It is utterly impossible for this deference to private requests to constitute an act that unequivocally manifests an intention to grant recognition.

Section 214(d) performs a more prosaic function than extending recognition. Just as foreign countries care about what our Government has to say about their borders, so too American citizens often care about what our Government has to say about their identities. Cf. Bowen v. Roy,476 U.S. 693, 106 S.Ct. 2147, 90 L.Ed.2d 735 (1986). The State Department does not grant or deny recognition in order to accommodate these individuals, but it does make exceptions to its rules about how it records birthplaces. Although normal protocol requires specifying the bearer's country of birth in his passport, Dept. of State, 7 Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM) § 1300, App. D, § 1330(a) (2014), the State Department will, if the bearer protests, specify the city of birth instead-so that an Irish nationalist may have his birthplace recorded as "Belfast" rather than "United Kingdom," id.,§ 1380(a). And although normal protocol requires specifying the country with presentsovereignty over the bearer's place of birth, id.,§ 1330(b), a special exception allows a bearer born before 1948 in what was then Palestine to have his birthplace listed as "Palestine," id.,§ 1360(g).Section 214(d) requires the State Department to make a further accommodation. Even though the Department normally refuses to specify a country that lacks recognized sovereignty over the bearer's birthplace, it must suspend that policy upon the request of an American citizen born in Jerusalem. Granting a request to specify "Israel" rather than "Jerusalem" does not recognize Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem, just as granting a request to specify "Belfast" rather than "United Kingdom" does not derecognize the United Kingdom's sovereignty over Northern Ireland.

The best indication that § 214(d) does not concern recognition comes from the State Department's policies concerning Taiwan. According to the Solicitor General, the United States "acknowledges the Chinese position" that Taiwan is a part of China, but "does not take a position" of its own on that issue. Brief for Respondent 51-52. Even so, the State Department has for a long time recorded the birthplace of a citizen born in Taiwan as "China." It indeed insistedon doing so until Congress passed a law (on which § 214(d) was modeled) giving citizens the option to have their birthplaces recorded as "Taiwan." See § 132, 108 Stat. 395, as amended by § 1(r), 108 Stat. 4302. The Solicitor General explains that the designation "China" "involves a geographic description, not an assertion that Taiwan is ... part of sovereign China." Brief for Respondent 51-52. Quite so. Section 214(d) likewise calls for nothing beyond a "geographic description"; it does not require the Executive even to assert, never mind formally recognize, that Jerusalem is a part of sovereign Israel. Since birthplace specifications in citizenship documents are matters within Congress's control, Congress may treat Jerusalem as a part of Israel when regulating the recording of birthplaces, even if the President does not do so when extending recognition. Section 214(d), by the way, *2120expressly directs the Secretary to "record the place of birth as Israel" "[f]or purposes ofthe registration of birth, certification of nationality, or issuance of a passport." (Emphasis added.) And the law bears the caption, "Record of Place of Birth as Israel for Passport Purposes." (Emphasis added.) Finding recognition in this provision is rather like finding admission to the Union in a provision that treats American Samoa as a State for purposes of a federal highway safety program, 23 U.S.C. § 401.

III

The Court complains that § 214(d) requires the Secretary of State to issue official documents implying that Jerusalem is a part of Israel; that it appears in a section of the statute bearing the title "United States Policy with Respect to Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel"; and that foreign "observers interpreted [it] as altering United States policy regarding Jerusalem." Ante,at 2115. But these features do not show that § 214(d) recognizes Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem. They show only that the law displays symbolic support for Israel's territorial claim. That symbolism may have tremendous significance as a matter of international diplomacy, but it makes no difference as a matter of constitutional law.

Even if the Constitution gives the President sole power to extend recognition, it does not give him sole power to make all decisions relating to foreign disputes over sovereignty. To the contrary, a fair reading of Article I allows Congress to decide for itself how its laws should handle these controversies. Read naturally, power to "regulate Commerce with foreign Nations," § 8, cl. 3, includes power to regulate imports from Gibraltar as British goods or as Spanish goods. Read naturally, power to "regulate the Value ... of foreign Coin," § 8, cl. 5, includes power to honor (or not) currency issued by Taiwan. And so on for the other enumerated powers. These are not airy hypotheticals. A trade statute from 1800, for example, provided that "the whole of the island of Hispaniola"-whose status was then in controversy-"shall for purposes of [the] act be considered as a dependency of the French Republic." § 7, 2 Stat. 10. In 1938, Congress allowed admission of the Vatican City's public records in federal courts, decades before the United States extended formal recognition. ch. 682, 52 Stat. 1163; Whiteman § 68. The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 grants Taiwan capacity to sue and be sued, even though the United States does not recognize it as a state. 22 U.S.C. § 3303(b)(7). Section 214(d) continues in the same tradition.

The Constitution likewise does not give the President exclusive power to determine which claims to statehood and territory "are legitimate in the eyes of the United States," ante,at 2086. Congress may express its own views about these matters by declaring war, restricting trade, denying foreign aid, and much else besides. To take just one example, in 1991, Congress responded to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait by enacting a resolution authorizing use of military force. 105 Stat. 3. No doubt the resolution reflected Congress's views about the legitimacy of Iraq's territorial claim. The preamble referred to Iraq's "illegal occupation" and stated that "the international community has demanded ... that Kuwait's independence and legitimate government be restored." Ibid.These statements are far more categorical than the caption "United States Policy with Respect to Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel." Does it follow that the authorization of the use of military force invaded the President's exclusive powers? Or that it would have done so had the *2121President recognized Iraqi sovereignty over Kuwait?

History does not even support an exclusive Presidential power to make what the Court calls "formal statements" about "the legitimacy of a state or government and its territorial bounds," ante,at 2096. For a long time, the Houses of Congress have made formal statements announcing their own positions on these issues, again without provoking constitutional objections. A recent resolution expressed the House of Representatives' "strong support for the legitimate, democratically-elected Government of Lebanon" and condemned an "illegitimate" and "unjustifiable" insurrection by "the terrorist group Hizballah." H. Res. 1194, 110th Cong, 2d Sess., 1, 4 (2008). An earlier enactment declared "the sense of the Congress that ... Tibet ... is an occupied country under the established principles of international law" and that "Tibet's true representatives are the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government in exile." § 355, 105 Stat. 713 (1991). After Texas won independence from Mexico, the Senate resolved that "the State of Texas having established and maintained an independent Government, ... it is expedient and proper ... that the independent political existence of the said State be acknowledged by the Government of the United States." Cong. Globe, 24th Cong., 2d Sess., 83 (1837); see id.,at 270.

In the final analysis, the Constitution may well deny Congress power to recognize-the power to make an international commitment accepting a foreign entity as a state, a regime as its government, a place as a part of its territory, and so on. But whatever else § 214(d) may do, it plainly does not make (or require the President to make) a commitment accepting Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem.

IV

The Court does not try to argue that § 214(d) extends recognition; nor does it try to argue that the President holds the exclusive power to make all nonrecognition decisions relating to the status of Jerusalem. As just shown, these arguments would be impossible to make with a straight face.

The Court instead announces a rule that is blatantly gerrymandered to the facts of this case. It concludes that, in addition to the exclusive power to make the "formal recognition determination," the President holds an ancillary exclusive power "to control ... formal statements by the Executive Branch acknowledging the legitimacy of a state or government and its territorial bounds." Ante,at 2096. It follows, the Court explains, that Congress may not "requir[e] the President to contradict an earlier recognition determination in an official document issued by the Executive Branch." Ibid.So requiring imports from Jerusalem to be taxed like goods from Israel is fine, but requiring Customs to issue an official invoice to that effect is not? Nonsense.

Recognition is a type of legal act, not a type of statement. It is a leap worthy of the Mad Hatter to go from exclusive authority over making legal commitments about sovereignty to exclusive authority over making statements or issuing documents about national borders. The Court may as well jump from power over issuing declaratory judgments to a monopoly on writing law-review articles.

No consistent or coherent theory supports the Court's decision. At times, the Court seems concerned with the possibility of congressional interference with the President's ability to extend or withhold legal recognition. The Court concedes, as it must, that the notation required by § 214(d) "would not itself constitute a formal *2122act of recognition." Ante, at 2095. It still frets, however, that Congress couldtry to regulate the President's "statements" in a way that "override[s] the President's recognition determination." Ibid.But "[t]he circumstance, that ... [a] power may be abused, is no answer. All powers may be abused." 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 921, p. 386 (1833). What matters is whether thislaw interferes with the President's ability to withhold recognition. It would be comical to claim that it does. The Court identifies no reason to believe that the United States-or indeed any other country-uses the place-of-birth field in passports and birth reports as a forum for performing the act of recognition. That is why nobody thinks the United States withdraws recognition from Canada when it accommodates a Quebec nationalist's request to have his birthplace recorded as "Montreal."

To the extent doubts linger about whether the United States recognizes Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem, § 214(d) leaves the President free to dispel them by issuing a disclaimer of intent to recognize. A disclaimer always suffices to prevent an act from effecting recognition. Restatement (Second) of Foreign Relations Law of the United States § 104(1) (1962). Recall that an earlier law grants citizens born in Taiwan the right to have their birthplaces recorded as "Taiwan." The State Department has complied with the law, but states in its Foreign Affairs Manual: "The United States does not officially recognize Taiwan as a 'state' or 'country,' although passport issuing officers may enter 'Taiwan' as a place of birth." 7 FAM § 1300, App. D, § 1340(d)(6). Nothing stops a similar disclaimer here.

At other times, the Court seems concerned with Congress's failure to give effect to a recognition decision that the President has already made. The Court protests, for instance, that § 214(d) "directly contradicts" the President's refusal to recognize Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem. Ante,at 2095. But even if the Constitution empowers the President alone to extend recognition, it nowhere obliges Congress to align its laws with the President's recognition decisions. Because the President and Congress are "perfectly co-ordinate by the terms of their common commission," The Federalist No. 49, p. 314 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (Madison), the President's use of the recognition power does not constrain Congress's use of its legislative powers.

Congress has legislated without regard to recognition for a long time and in a range of settings. For example, responding in 1817 and 1818 to revolutions in Latin America, Congress amended federal neutrality laws-which originally prohibited private military action for or against recognizedstates-to prohibit private hostilities against unrecognizedstates too. ch. 58, 3 Stat. 370; ch. 88, 3 Stat. 447; see The Three Friends,166 U.S. 1, 52-59, 17 S.Ct. 495, 41 L.Ed. 897 (1897). Legislation from 90 years ago provided for the revision of national immigration quotas upon one country's surrender of territory to another, even if "the transfer ... has not been recognized by the United States." § 12(c), 43 Stat. 161 (1924). Federal law today prohibits murdering a foreign government's officials, 18 U.S.C. § 1116, counterfeiting a foreign government's bonds, § 478, and using American vessels to smuggle goods in violation of a foreign government's laws, § 546-all "irrespective of recognition by the United States," §§ 11, 1116. Just as Congress may legislate independently of recognition in all of those areas, so too may it legislate independently of recognition when regulating the recording of birthplaces.

*2123The Court elsewhere objects that § 214(d) interferes with the autonomy and unity of the Executive Branch, setting the branch against itself. The Court suggests, for instance, that the law prevents the President from maintaining his neutrality about Jerusalem in "his and his agent's statements." Ante,at 2095. That is of no constitutional significance. As just shown, Congress has power to legislate without regard to recognition, and where Congress has the power to legislate, the President has a duty to "take Care" that its legislation "be faithfully executed," Art. II, § 3. It is likewise "the duty of the secretary of state to conform to the law"; where Congress imposes a responsibility on him, "he is so far the officer of the law; is amenable to the laws for his conduct; and cannot at his discretion sport away the vested rights of others." Marbury v. Madison,1 Cranch 137, 158, 166, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803). The Executive's involvement in carrying out this law does not affect its constitutionality; the Executive carries out every law.

The Court's error could be made more apparent by applying its reasoning to the President's power "to make Treaties," Art. II, § 2, cl. 2. There is no question that Congress may, if it wishes, pass laws that openly flout treaties made by the President. Head Money Cases,112 U.S. 580, 597, 5 S.Ct. 247, 28 L.Ed. 798 (1884). Would anyone have dreamt that the President may refuse to carry out such laws-or, to bring the point closer to home, refuse to execute federal courts' judgments under such laws-so that the Executive may "speak with one voice" about the country's international obligations? To ask is to answer. Today's holding puts the implied power to recognize territorial claims (which the Court infers from the power to recognize states, which it infers from the responsibility to receive ambassadors) on a higher footing than the express power to make treaties. And this, even though the Federalist describes the making of treaties as a "delicate and important prerogative," but the reception of ambassadors as "more a matter of dignity than of authority," "a circumstance which will be without consequence in the administration of the government." The Federalist No. 69, p. 420 (Hamilton).

In the end, the Court's decision does not rest on text or history or precedent. It instead comes down to "functional considerations"-principally the Court's perception that the Nation "must speak with one voice" about the status of Jerusalem. Ante,at 2086 (ellipsis and internal quotation marks omitted). The vices of this mode of analysis go beyond mere lack of footing in the Constitution. Functionalism of the sort the Court practices today will systematicallyfavor the unitary President over the plural Congress in disputes involving foreign affairs. It is possible that this approach will make for more effective foreign policy, perhaps as effective as that of a monarchy. It is certain that, in the long run, it will erode the structure of separated powers that the People established for the protection of their liberty.

V

Justice THOMAS's concurrence deems § 214(d) constitutional to the extent it regulates birth reports, but unconstitutional to the extent it regulates passports. Ante,at 2101 - 2102 (opinion concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). The concurrence finds no congressional power that would extend to the issuance or contents of passports. Including the power to regulate foreign commerce-even though passports facilitate the transportation of passengers, "a part of our commerce with foreign nations," Henderson v. Mayor of New York,92 U.S. 259, 270, 23 L.Ed. 543 (1876). Including the power over naturalization-even though passports issued to *2124citizens, like birth reports, "have the same force and effect as proof of United States citizenship as certificates of naturalization," 22 U.S.C. § 2705. Including the power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee that "[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States ... are citizens of the United States"-even though a passport provides evidence of citizenship and so helps enforce this guarantee abroad. Including the power to exclude persons from the territory of the United States, see Art. I, § 9, cl. 1-even though passports are the principal means of identifying citizens entitled to entry. Including the powers under which Congress has restricted the ability of various people to leave the country (fugitives from justice, for example, see 18 U.S.C. § 1073)-even though passports are the principal means of controlling exit. Including the power to "make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States," Art. IV, § 3, cl. 2-even though "[a] passport remains at all times the property of the United States," 7 FAM § 1317 (2013). The concurrence's stingy interpretation of the enumerated powers forgets that the Constitution does not "partake of the prolixity of a legal code," that "only its great outlines [are] marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects [left to] be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves." McCulloch,4 Wheat., at 407. It forgets, in other words, "that it is a constitutionwe are expounding." Ibid.

Defending Presidential primacy over passports, the concurrence says that the royal prerogative in England included the power to issue and control travel documents akin to the modern passport. Ante,at 2085 - 2086. Perhaps so, but that power was assuredly not exclusive. The Aliens Act 1793, for example, enacted almost contemporaneously with our Constitution, required an alien traveling within England to obtain "a passport from [a] mayor or ... [a] justice of [the] peace," "in which passport shall be expressed the name and rank, occupation or description, of such alien." 33 Geo. III, ch. 4, § 8, in 39 Eng. Stat. at Large 12. The Aliens Act 1798 prohibited aliens from leaving the country without "a passport ... first obtained from one of his Majesty's principal secretaries of state," and instructed customs officers to mark, sign, and date passports before allowing their bearers to depart. 38 Geo. III, ch. 50, § 8, in 41 Eng. Stat. at Large 684. These and similar laws discredit any claim that, in the "Anglo-American legal tradition," travel documents have "consistently been issued and controlledby the body exercising executive power," ante,at 2101 (emphasis added).

Returning to this side of the Atlantic, the concurrence says that passports have a "historical pedigree uniquely associated with the President." Ante,at 2111. This statement overlooks the reality that, until Congress restricted the issuance of passports to the State Department in 1856, "passports were also issued by governors, mayors, and even ... notaries public." Assn. of the Bar of the City of New York, Special Committee to Study Passport Procedures, Freedom to Travel 6 (1958). To be sure, early Presidents granted passports without express congressional authorization. Ante,at 2086 - 2087. But this point establishes Presidential authority over passports in the face of congressional silence,not Presidential authority in the face of congressional opposition. Early in the Republic's history, Congress made it a crime for a consul to "grant a passport or other paper certifying that any alien, knowing him or her to be such, is a citizen of the United States." § 8, 2 Stat. 205 (1803). Closer to the Civil War, Congress *2125expressly authorized the granting of passports, regulated passport fees, and prohibited the issuance of passports to foreign citizens. § 23, 11Stat. 60-61 (1856). Since then, Congress has made laws about eligibility to receive passports, the duration for which passports remain valid, and even the type of paper used to manufacture passports. 22 U.S.C. §§ 212, 217a; § 617(b), 102 Stat. 1755. (The concurrence makes no attempt to explain how these laws were supported by congressional powers other than those it rejects in the present case.) This Court has held that the President may not curtail a citizen's travel by withholding a passport, except on grounds approved by Congress. Kent v. Dulles,357 U.S. 116, 129, 78 S.Ct. 1113, 2 L.Ed.2d 1204 (1958). History and precedent thus refute any suggestion that the Constitution disables Congress from regulating the President's issuance and formulation of passports.

The concurrence adds that a passport "contains [a] communication directed at a foreign power." Ante,at 2111. The "communication" in question is a message that traditionally appears in each passport (though no statute, to my knowledge, expressly requires its inclusion): "The Secretary of State of the United States of America hereby requests all whom it may concern to permit the citizen/national of the United States named herein to pass without delay or hindrance and in case of need to give all lawful aid and protection." App. 22. I leave it to the reader to judge whether a request to "all whom it may concern" qualifies as a "communication directed at a foreign power." Even if it does, its presence does not affect § 214(d)'s constitutionality. Requesting protection is only a "subordinate" function of a passport. Kent, supra,at 129, 78 S.Ct. 1113. This subordinate function has never been thought to invalidate other laws regulating the contents of passports; why then would it invalidate this one?

That brings me, in analytic crescendo, to the concurrence's suggestion that even ifCongress's enumerated powers otherwise encompass § 214(d), and even ifthe President's power to regulate the contents of passports is not exclusive, the law might stillviolate the Constitution, because it "conflict[s]" with the President's passport policy. Ante,at 2093. It turns the Constitution upside-down to suggest that in areas of shared authority, it is the executive policy that preempts the law, rather than the other way around. Congress maymake laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the President's powers, Art. I, § 8, cl. 18, but the President must"take Care" that Congress's legislation "be faithfully executed," Art. II, § 3. And Acts of Congress made in pursuance of the Constitution are the "supreme Law of the Land"; acts of the President (apart from treaties) are not. Art. VI, cl. 2. That is why Chief Justice Marshall was right to think that a law prohibiting the seizure of foreign ships trumped a military order requiring it. Little v. Barreme,2 Cranch 170, 178-179, 2 L.Ed. 243 (1804). It is why Justice Jackson was right to think that a President who "takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress" may "rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter." Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer,343 U.S. 579, 637, 72 S.Ct. 863, 96 L.Ed. 1153 (1952)(concurring opinion) (emphasis added). And it is why Justice THOMAS is wrong to think that even if § 214(d) operates in a field of shared authority the President might still prevail.

Whereas the Court's analysis threatens congressional power over foreign affairs with gradual erosion, the concurrence's approach *2126shatters it in one stroke. The combination of (a) the concurrence's assertion of broad, unenumerated "residual powers" in the President, see ante,at 2081 - 2085; (b) its parsimonious interpretation of Congress's enumerated powers, see ante,at 2087 - 2090; and (c) its even more parsimonious interpretation of Congress's authority to enact laws "necessary and proper for carrying into Execution" the President's executive powers, see ante,at 2089 - 2091; produces (d) a presidency more reminiscent of George III than George Washington.

* * *

International disputes about statehood and territory are neither rare nor obscure. Leading foreign debates during the 19th century concerned how the United States should respond to revolutions in Latin America, Texas, Mexico, Hawaii, Cuba. During the 20th century, attitudes toward Communist governments in Russia and China became conspicuous subjects of agitation. Disagreements about Taiwan, Kashmir, and Crimea remain prominent today. A President empowered to decide all questions relating to these matters, immune from laws embodying congressional disagreement with his position, would have uncontrolled mastery of a vast share of the Nation's foreign affairs.

That is not the chief magistrate under which the American People agreed to live when they adopted the national charter. They believed that "[t]he accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, ... may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." The Federalist No. 47, p. 301 (Madison). For this reason, they did not entrust either the President or Congress with sole power to adopt uncontradictable policies about anysubject-foreign-sovereignty disputes included. They instead gave each political department its own powers, and with that the freedom to contradict the other's policies. Under the Constitution they approved, Congress may require Zivotofsky's passport and birth report to record his birthplace as Israel, even if that requirement clashes with the President's preference for neutrality about the status of Jerusalem.

I dissent.