không biết hồi xưa có đi học không nữa mà không hiểu ǵ lịch sữ của chính nuớc mỹ . bây giời lại tuyên bố tào lao đây . năm 1952, Harry Truman đă bị supreme court khoá tay không cho dùng national emergency calls trong giai đọan chíến tranh với bắc triều tiên
Seizure! Truman Takes the Steel Mills
On June 24, 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea. The United Nations Council called on all U.N. members to help repel the invasion. Under his authority as commander in chief of the armed forces, President Harry S. Truman ordered American troops to help defend the beleaguered South Koreans. Believing that the Korean War would end quickly, Truman did not ask Congress for a formal declaration of war. However, in November of 1950, when China sent its soldiers to support the North Koreans, the war entered a new and uncertain phase. Again, Truman decided not to request a declaration of war from Congress. Instead, exercising his executive powers, he proclaimed a "limited" national emergency.
In the spring of 1952, while American combat troops were mired in the mud of Korea, the United States faced a major steel strike at home. On April 8, with the strike imminent, President Truman ordered his secretary of commerce to seize all the nation’s steel mills. Truman believed strongly that the steel industry had to keep operating if a "national catastrophe" was to be averted.
The power of the president has often expanded during wartime. In some instances, presidents have acted without any direct authority from either Congress or the Constitution. But just how much power should a president be allowed to have when the nation is at war, especially during an undeclared war? Did President Truman go too far by seizing the entire American steel industry?
On April 29, only weeks after President Truman issued his executive order, U.S. District Court Judge David A. Pine ruled that the steel mill seizures were "illegal and without authority of law." He ordered the mills returned to the owners. Truman was shocked that precedents of earlier presidents, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, failed to convince the judge that his executive order was valid. Pending an appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court, the government got a delay of Judge Pine’s order, keeping the steel mills temporarily under the control of the government. A constitutional crisis loomed: What if the Supreme Court ruled against Truman, but he insisted on keeping the steel mills in government hands anyway?
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments concerning the steel seizure case on May 12 and 13. The crucial issue to be decided by the nine justices was whether the president had the legal power under the Constitution to seize the steel mills.
Solicitor General Philip B. Perlman, representing the government, first argued that the circumstances of the war required that the steel mills remain in operation. He claimed that a steel industry strike would endanger America’s national safety and the lives of American soldiers. He admitted that the Constitution did not specifically grant the president the power to seize private property. Nevertheless, Perlman maintained the president could legally do this in a national emergency under his executive power and powers as commander in chief of the military.
The steel companies were represented by John W. Davis, the Democratic candidate for president in 1924. Davis told the justices that the president did not have the power to seize private property without authorization from Congress. Davis further argued that Congress had provided President Truman with another way to settle the steel dispute: the Taft-Hartley Act. Moreover, in passing this law, Congress had deliberately rejected the idea of seizure. When the president issued his executive order seizing the steel mills, Davis told the justices, he was, in effect, making law, which only Congress has the power to do under the Constitution.
On June 2, 1952, the Supreme Court, by a 6–3 margin, ruled that President Truman’s seizure order was unconstitutional (Youngstown, Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579). Justice Hugo Black, writing the majority opinion, concluded: "The Founders of this Nation entrusted the lawmaking power to the Congress alone in both good and bad times." Justices Black and Douglas took the position that under no circumstances could a president alone constitutionally "make laws" as Truman had attempted to do with his executive order. The other four justices making up the majority did not go so far. Evidently, they believed that the national emergency in the spring of 1952 was not severe enough to justify the government takeover of privately owned steel companies. However, these justices implied that under more extreme circumstances, such an action by a president may be constitutional.
The steel companies, most of Congress, and probably a majority of the American people welcomed the Supreme Court decision. The New York Times editorialized, "Under this opinion the trend toward and indefinite expansion of the Chief Executive’s authority is deliberately checked." Even the steelworkers felt relieved; they could now finally go on strike.
President Truman took the decision as a personal blow. He was particularly upset because five of the Supreme Court justices had been appointed by Franklin Roosevelt, while the remaining four were his own appointees. "I don’t see how a court made up of so-called ‘Liberals’ could do what that court did to me," he later said.
Only a few hours after the Supreme Court issued its ruling, President Truman ordered Secretary of Commerce Sawyer to return control of the steel companies to the owners. Truman tried once more to prevent a steel strike, this time by asking Congress for authority to seize the mills. Congress ignored his request, and the strike began. About 600,000 striking steelworkers shut down the steel industry in the United States for more than seven weeks.
As it turned out, the strike did not seriously hinder the war effort. Steel inventories proved adequate to meet defense needs, at least for a while.
President Truman again refused to use the Taft-Hartley Act to interfere with the steel strike. "The Court and the Congress got us into the fix we’re now in," he said. "Let Congress do something about getting us out of it." Truman did bring the leader of the union and the president of U.S. Steel to Washington to pressure them for a settlement. On July 24, the union agreed to a 21.5 cent-an-hour wage and fringe benefit increase while the government permitted the steel companies to raise their prices by $5.65 a ton.
President Truman was outraged by the $5.65 figure, but he approved it to get an agreement and an end to the strike. Bitter over what he considered blackmail by the steel industry, Truman later wrote in his Memoirs, "If we wanted steel—we wanted it very badly—it would have to be on the industry’s terms." He never forgave the steel mill owners or the Supreme Court.
Source:
http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-right...eel-mills.html
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