United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp.

• Curtiss-Wright was charged with conspiring to sell fifteen machine guns to Bolivia, which was engaged in an armed conflict. This violated a Joint Resolution of Congress and a proclamation issued by President Roosevelt.
• Congress' Joint Resolution authorized the President, "to prohibit the sale of arms if he found that such a prohibition would contribute to the establishment of peace in the region."
• Roosevelt had put into place export restrictions on Curtiss-Wright and other American manufacturers whose products were primarily of a military nature or had potential military use under the doctrine of national security.
• Curtiss-Wright argued that it had not specifically been named in any statutory laws passed by US Congress, which had instead given the President broad discretionary authority.
• Curtiss-Wright argued that the commerce involved was not interstate commerce which the US Constitution specifically gives Congress the right to regulate, but international commerce, and in any event, the regulation was being made not by Congress but by the President.
• Article I Section 8(3) specifically says that Congress has the power to regulate "commerce with foreign nations."
• The 'Wright' of Curtiss-Wright was one of the Wright Brothers.
• The Trial Court held that the Joint Resolution was an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the President.
• The US Supreme Court reversed and upheld the ban on arms sales.
• The Supreme Court found that while the Constitution may not explicitly say that all ability to conduct foreign policy on behalf of the nation is vested in the President, that it is nonetheless given implicitly and by the fact that the Executive, by its very nature, is empowered to conduct foreign affairs in a way which Congress cannot and should not.
• The Supreme Court distinguished the President's authority in the area of domestic affairs from that of foreign affairs.
• Justice Sutherland talked about the concept of sovereignty, which they Court basically said went from the King of England to the President of the US after the Revolutionary War.  "The President is the sole organ of the nation."
• Justice Sutherland felt that the US must speak with a single authoritative voice in foreign affairs.  There can't be a bunch of second-guessing and a chorus of independent voices from Congress and the States.
• The Supreme Court agreed that the President was allowed much room to operate in executing the Joint Resolution; it found no constitutional violation.
• Because the Joint Resolution came from Congress, it wasn't a case of the President making the law, but just executing a law made by Congress.
• Making important distinctions between internal and foreign affairs, Justice Sutherland argued that because "the President alone has the power to speak or listen as a representative of the nation," Congress may provide the President with a special degree of discretion in external matters which would not be afforded domestically."
• The basic ruling here is that when Congress authorizes it, the President gains the power to make laws via executive order that he wouldn't normally have.
• United States v. Curtiss-Wright has been used to argue that the President can do whatever he wants in the international matters (see Hamdi v. Rumsfeld for example).  But that's a misreading of the ruling.  In this case, Congress authorized the ban and set the penalties.  It wasn't generated by the President from whole cloth.  All that was delegated to the President was the determination of when and where the ban should come into effect.