When Courts Kill Executive Orders: New at Reason

In 1952 President Harry Truman signed an executive order nationalizing the majority of the nation’s privately owned steel mills. How did Truman justify this sweeping exercise of presidential authority? How else? He raised the specter of national security and invoked his “inherent powers” as commander in chief. Thankfully, explains Senior Editor Damon Root, the U.S. Supreme Court took a different view. A little less than two months after Truman signed the order, the Supreme Court stopped the overreaching executive dead in his tracks.

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