Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-2/section-2/clause-1
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 00:22:05+00:00

Document:
Clause 1. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Office, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
Surprisingly little discussion of the Commander-in-Chief Clause is found in the Convention or in the ratifying debates. From the evidence available, it appears that the Framers vested the duty in the President because experience in the Continental Congress had disclosed the inexpediency of vesting command in a group and because the lesson of English history was that danger lurked in vesting command in a person separate from the responsible political leaders.132 But the principal concern here is the nature of the power granted by the clause.
Impact of the Prize Cases on World Wars I and II.
Constitutional Status of Presidential Agencies.
Evacuation of the West Coast Japanese.
On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued an executive order, “by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy,” providing, as a safeguard against subversion and sabotage, power for his military commanders to designate areas from which “any person” could be excluded or removed and to set up facilities for such persons elsewhere.152 Pursuant to this order, more than 112,000 residents of the Western states, all of Japanese descent and more than two out of every three of whom were natural-born citizens, were removed from their homes and herded into temporary camps and later into “relocation centers” in several states.
Presidential Government of Labor Regulations.
Sanctions were also occasionally employed by statutory agencies, such as OPA, to supplement the penal provisions of the Emergency Price Control Act of January 30, 1942.162 In Steuart & Bro. v. Bowles,163 the Supreme Court had the opportunity to regularize this type of executive emergency legislation. Here, a retail dealer in fuel oil was charged with having violated a rationing order of OPA by obtaining large quantities of oil from its supplier without surrendering ration coupons, by delivering many thousands of gallons of fuel oil without requiring ration coupons, and so on, and was prohibited by the agency from receiving oil for resale or transfer for the ensuing year. The offender conceded the validity of the rationing order in support of which the suspension order was issued but challenged the validity of the latter as imposing a penalty that Congress had not enacted and asked the district court to enjoin it.
The end of active hostilities did not ter- minate either the emergency or the Federal Government’s response to it. President Truman proclaimed the termination of hostilities on December 31, 1946,166 and, in July 1947, Congress enacted a joint resolution that repealed a great variety of wartime statutes and set termination dates for others.167 Signing the resolution, the President said that the emergencies declared in 1939 and 1940 continued to exist and that it was “not possible at this time to provide for terminating all war and emergency powers.”168 The hot war was giving way to the Cold War.
Congress thereafter enacted a new Housing and Rent Act to continue the controls begun in 1942169 and continued the military draft.170 With the outbreak of the Korean War, legislation was enacted establishing general presidential control over the economy again,171 and by executive order the President created agencies to exercise the power.172 The Court continued to assume the existence of a state of wartime emergency prior to Korea, but with misgivings. In Woods v. Cloyd W. Miller Co.,173 the Court held constitutional the new rent control law on the ground that cessation of hostilities did not end the government’s war power, but that the power continued to remedy the evil arising out of the emergency. Yet, Justice Douglas noted for the Court, “We recognize the force of the argument that the effects of war under modern conditions may be felt in the economy for years and years, and that if the war power can be used in days of peace to treat all the wounds which war inflicts on our society, it may not only swallow up all other powers of Congress but largely obliterate the Ninth and Tenth Amendments as well. There are no such implications in today’s decision.”174 Justice Jackson, though concurring, noted that he found the war power “the most dangerous one to free government in the whole catalogue of powers” and cautioned that its exercise “be scrutinized with care.”175 And, in Ludecke v. Watkins,176 four dissenting Justices were prepared to hold that the presumption in the statute under review of continued war with Germany was “a pure fiction” and not to be used.
Reaction after World War II did not persist, but soon ran its course, and the necessities, real and perceived, of the United States’ role as world power and chief guarantor of the peace operated to expand the powers of the President and to diminish congressional powers in the foreign relations arena. President Truman did not seek congressional authorization before sending troops to Korea, and subsequent Presidents similarly acted on their own in putting troops into many foreign countries, including the Dominican Republic, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, and the Persian Gulf, and most notably Indochina.183 Eventually, public opposition precipitated another constitutional debate whether the President had the authority to commit troops to foreign combat without the approval of Congress, a debate that went on inconclusively between Congress and Executive184 and one which the courts were content generally to consign to the exclusive consideration of those two bodies. The substance of the debate concerns many facets of the President’s powers and responsibilities, including his obligations to protect the lives and property of United States citizens abroad, to execute the treaty obligations of the Nation, to further the national security interests of the Nation, and to deal with aggression and threats of aggression as they confront him. Defying neat summarization, the considerations nevertheless merit at least an historical survey and an attempted categorization of the arguments.
The Historic Use of Force Abroad.
The Theory of Presidential Power.
Opponents of such expanded presidential powers have contended, however, that the authority to initiate war was not divided between the Executive and Congress but was vested exclusively in Congress. The President had the duty and the power to repeal sudden attacks and act in other emergencies, and in his role as Commander in Chief he was empowered to direct the armed forces for any purpose specified by Congress.193 Though Congress asserted itself in some respects, it never really managed to confront the President’s power with any sort of effective limitation, until recently.
The Power of Congress to Control the President’s Discretion.
Over the President’s veto, Congress enacted the War Pow- ers Resolution,194 designed to redistribute the war powers between the President and Congress. Although ambiguous in some respects, the Resolution appears to define restrictively the President’s powers, to require him to report fully to Congress upon the introduction of troops into foreign areas, to specify a maximum time limitation on the engagement of hostilities absent affirmative congressional action, and to provide a means for Congress to require cessation of hostilities in advance of the time set.
By contrast, President George W. Bush sought a resolution from Congress in 2002 to approve the eventual invasion of Iraq before seeking a U.N. Security Council resolution, all the while denying that express authorization from Congress, or for that matter, the U.N. Security Council, was necessary to renew hostilities in Iraq. Prior to adjourning for its midterm elections, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq Resolution of 2002,203 which it styled as “specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.” On signing the measure, the President noted that he had sought “an additional resolution of support” from Congress, and expressed appreciation for receiving that support, but stated, “my request for it did not, and my signing this resolution does not, constitute any change in the long-standing positions of the executive branch on either the President’s constitutional authority to use force to deter, prevent, or respond to aggression or other threats to U.S. interests or on the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution.”204 In the Bush administration’s view, the primary benefit of receiving authorization from Congress seems to have been the message of political unity it conveyed to the rest of the world rather than the fulfillment of any constitutional requirements.
The President is the ultimate tribunal for the enforcement of the rules and regulations that Congress adopts for the government of the forces, and that are enforced through courts-martial.215 Indeed, until 1830, courts-martial were convened solely on the President’s authority as Commander in Chief.216 Such rules and regulations are, moreover, it seems, subject in wartime to his amendment at discretion.217 Similarly, the power of Congress to “make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces” (Art. I, § 8, cl. 14) did not prevent President Lincoln from promulgating, in April, 1863, a code of rules to govern the conduct in the field of the armies of the United States, which was prepared at his instance by a commission headed by Francis Lieber and which later became the basis of all similar codifications both here and abroad.218 One important power that the President lacks is that of choosing his subordinates, whose grades and qualifications are determined by Congress and whose appointment is ordinarily made by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, though undoubtedly Congress could if it wished vest their appointment in “the President alone.”219 Also, the President’s power to dismiss an officer from the service, once unlimited, is today confined by statute in time of peace to dismissal “in pursuance of the sentence of a general court-martial or in mitigation thereof.”220 But the provision is not regarded by the Court as preventing the President from displacing an officer of the Army or Navy by appointing with the advice and consent of the Senate another person in his place.221 The President’s power of dismissal in time of war Congress has never attempted to limit.
The Commander-in-Chief a Civilian Officer.
Two theories of martial law are reflected in decisions of the Supreme Court. The first, which stems from the Petition of Right, 1628, provides that the common law knows no such thing as martial law;223 that is to say, martial law is not established by official authority of any sort, but arises from the nature of things, being the law of paramount necessity, leaving the civil courts to be the final judges of necessity.224 By the second theory, martial law can be validly and constitutionally established by supreme political authority in wartime. In the early years of the Supreme Court, the American judiciary embraced the latter theory as it held in Luther v. Borden225 that state declarations of martial law were conclusive and therefore not subject to judicial review.226 In this case, the Court found that the Rhode Island legislature had been within its rights in resorting to the rights and usages of war in combating insurrection in that state. The decision in the Prize Cases,227 although not dealing directly with the subject of martial law, gave national scope to the same general principle in 1863.
“Where peace exists the laws of peace must prevail. What we do maintain is, that when the nation is involved in war, and some portions of the country are invaded, and all are exposed to invasion, it is within the power of Congress to determine in what states or districts such great and imminent public danger exists as justifies the authorization of military tribunals for the trial of crimes and offences against the discipline or security of the army or against the public safety.”230 In short, only Congress can authorize the substitution of military tribunals for civil tribunals for the trial of offenses; and Congress can do so only in wartime.
The question of the constitutional status of martial law was raised again in World War II by the proclamation of Governor Poindexter of Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, suspending the writ of habeas corpus and conferring on the local commanding General of the Army all his own powers as governor and also “all of the powers normally exercised by the judicial officers . . . of this territory . . . during the present emergency and until the danger of invasion is removed.” Two days later the Governor’s action was approved by President Roosevelt. The regime which the proclamation set up continued with certain abatements until October 24, 1944.
Articles of War: The Nazi Saboteurs.
In 1942 eight youths, seven Germans and one an American, all of whom had received training in sabotage in Berlin, were brought to this country aboard two German submarines and put ashore, one group on the Florida coast, the other on Long Island, with the idea that they would proceed forthwith to practice their art on American factories, military equipment, and installations. Making their way inland, the saboteurs were soon picked up by the FBI, some in New York, others in Chicago, and turned over to the Provost Marshal of the District of Columbia. On July 2, the President appointed a military commission to try them for violation of the laws of war, to wit: for not wearing fixed emblems to indicate their combatant status. In the midst of the trial, the accused petitioned the Supreme Court and the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for leave to bring habeas corpus proceedings. Their argument embraced the contentions: (1) that the offense charged against them was not known to the laws of the United States; (2) that it was not one arising in the land and naval forces; and (3) that the tribunal trying them had not been constituted in accordance with the requirements of the Articles of War.
The first argument the Court met as follows: The act of Congress in providing for the trial before military tribunals of offenses against the law of war is sufficiently definite, although Congress has not undertaken to codify or mark the precise boundaries of the law of war, or to enumerate or define by statute all the acts which that law condemns. “. . . [T]hose who during time of war pass surreptitiously from enemy territory into . . . [that of the United States], discarding their uniforms upon entry, for the commission of hostile acts involving destruction of life or property, have the status of unlawful combatants punishable as such by military commission.”240 The second argument it disposed of by showing that petitioners’ case was of a kind that was never deemed to be within the terms of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, citing in confirmation of this position the trial of Major Andre.241 The third contention the Court overruled by declining to draw the line between the powers of Congress and the President in the premises,242 thereby, in effect, attributing to the President the right to amend the Articles of War in a case of the kind before the Court ad libitum.
Articles of War: World War II Crimes.
Articles of War: Response to the Attacks of September 11, 2001.
In response to Rasul, Congress amended the habeas statute to eliminate all federal habeas jurisdiction over detainees, whether its basis was statutory or constitutional.255 This amendment was challenged in Boumediene v. Bush,256 as a violation of the Suspension Clause.257 Although the historical record did not contain significant common-law applications of the writ to foreign nationals who were apprehended and detained overseas, the Court did not find this conclusive in evaluating whether habeas applied in this case.258 Emphasizing a “functional” approach to the issue,259 the Court considered (1) the citizenship and status of the detainee and the adequacy of the process through which the status determination was made; (2) the nature of the sites where apprehension and detention took place; and (3) any practical obstacles inherent in resolving the prisoner’s entitlement to the writ. As in Rasul, the Court distinguished previous case law, noting that the instant detainees disputed their enemy status, that their ability to dispute their status had been limited, that they were held in a location (Guantanamo Bay, Cuba) under the de facto jurisdiction of the United States, and that complying with the demands of habeas petitions would not interfere with the government’s military mission. Thus, the Court concluded that the Suspension Clause was in full effect regarding these detainees.
Martial Law and Domestic Disorder.
Offenses Against the United States: Contempt of Court.
Effects of a Pardon: Ex parte Garland.
Limits to the Efficacy of a Pardon.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 8
 v. 
 v.