Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 509

524US2

Unit: $U93

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464

CLINTON v. CITY OF NEW YORK

Opinion of Scalia, J.

him to “cancel”—prevent from “having legal force or ef-
fect”—certain parts of duly enacted statutes.

Article I, § 7, of the Constitution obviously prevents the
President from canceling a law that Congress has not author-
ized him to cancel. Such action cannot possibly be consid-
ered part of his execution of the law, and if it is legislative
action, as the Court observes, “ ‘repeal of statutes, no less
than enactment, must conform with Art. I.’ ” Ante, at 438,
quoting from INS v. Chadha, 462 U. S. 919, 954 (1983). But
that is not this case.
It was certainly arguable, as an origi-
nal matter, that Art. I, § 7, also prevents the President from
canceling a law which itself authorizes the President to can-
cel it. But as the Court acknowledges, that argument has
long since been made and rejected.
In 1809, Congress
passed a law authorizing the President to cancel trade re-
strictions against Great Britain and France if either revoked
edicts directed at the United States. Act of Mar. 1, 1809,
§ 11, 2 Stat. 528.
Joseph Story regarded the conferral of
that authority as entirely unremarkable in The Orono, 18
F. Cas. 830 (No. 10,585) (CCD Mass. 1812). The Tariff Act
of 1890 authorized the President to “suspend, by proclama-
tion to that effect” certain of its provisions if he determined
that other countries were imposing “reciprocally unequal and
unreasonable” duties. Act of Oct. 1, 1890, § 3, 26 Stat. 612.
This Court upheld the constitutionality of that Act in Field
v. Clark, 143 U. S. 649 (1892), reciting the history since 1798
of statutes conferring upon the President the power to, inter
alia, “discontinue the prohibitions and restraints hereby
enacted and declared,” id., at 684, “suspend the operation of
the aforesaid act,” id., at 685, and “declare the provisions of
this act to be inoperative,” id., at 688.

As much as the Court goes on about Art. I, § 7, therefore,
that provision does not demand the result the Court reaches.
It no more categorically prohibits the Executive reduction
of congressional dispositions in the course of implementing
statutes that authorize such reduction, than it categorically