Emergency Powers

The Constitution does not expressly grant the President additional war powers or other powers in times of national emergency.  However, many scholars think that the Framers implied these powers because the structural design of the Executive Branch enables it to act faster than the Legislative Branch.  Because the Constitution remains silent on the issue, the courts cannot grant the Executive Branch these powers when it tries to wield them.  The courts will only recognize a right of the Executive Branch to use emergency powers if Congress has granted such powers to the President. 


President Franklin Delano Roosevelt similarly invoked emergency powers when he issued Executive Order 9066 directing that all Japanese Americans residing on the West Coast be placed into internment camps during World War II.  Because Congress had already declared war, the U.S. Supreme Court found Congress to have recognized an ongoing emergency.  Consequently, the President by issuing the order had acted in accordance with Congress's expressed intent, which was to respond to the emergency of war.  For this reason, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Executive Order 9066 in Korematsu v. United States as a constitutional exercise of Presidential Commander in Chief and emergency powers.  323 U.S. 214 (1944). 


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Louis Fisher, Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President 249-272 (2007). 


Federal Material


U.S. Constitution


Federal Judicial Decisions

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