Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. et al. v. Sawyer (343 U.S. 579)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 2, 1952 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 343 U.S. 579 · 72 S. Ct. 863
- Decided
- June 2, 1952
- Term
- October Term 1951
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Black
- Issue area
- Miscellaneous
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Unspecifiable
Opinion excerpt
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…
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