Curtiss‐Wright V. United States (1936).Using authority granted by a congressional joint resolution in May 1934, President Roosevelt embargoed all U.S. arms shipments to Paraguay and Bolivia in an effort to end their military conflict. In January 1935, the Justice Department indicted the Curtiss‐Wright Corporation for selling machine guns in violation of the embargo. The company countered that the resolution was an unconstitutional delegation of power giving the executive uncontrolled discretion to make policy.

In 1936, the Supreme Court upheld the resolution and the president's action. Justice George Sutherland's opinion held that in foreign affairs, unlike domestic affairs, Congress had authority to delegate broad power to the executive. Moreover, Sutherland claimed, the president exercised inherent, extraconstitutional powers derived from international law and practice—to promote national interest and survival. This sweeping assertion of presidential supremacy in international affairs came, paradoxically, at a time when the Court sought to limit executive power in the domestic arena. Sutherland's opinion is often cited to support the president's authority, as commander in chief, to commit U.S. armed forces to combat without Congressional authorization. However, in Reid v. Covert (1956), Justice Hugo Black's majority opinion suggested that all power, domestic and foreign, must flow from the Constitution. Black's opinion vitiated the argument for inherent executive authority in foreign affairs.
[See also Commander in Chief, President as; Supreme Court, War, and the Military.]

Bibliography

Clinton Rossiter , The Supreme Court and the Commander in Chief, 1951.
Edward Keynes , Undeclared War: Twilight Zone of Constitutional Power, repr. 1991.

Edward Keynes