Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. V. Sawyer - Proceedings Before The Court

Proceedings Before The Court

The Court set the matter for oral argument on May 12, 1952, less than ten days later. The government's brief opened with an attack on Judge Pine's application of equitable principles to the facts before him, but devoted much of its 175 pages to the historical records of governmental seizure of private property during wartime, from the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 through Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and seizure of telegraph and railroad lines to the government's seizure of industrial properties in the First and Second World Wars.

The steel industry's brief focused instead on the lack of statutory authority for this seizure, emphasizing Congress' decision when enacting the Taft-Hartley Act to give the President the power to seek an injunction against strikes that might affect the national economy instead. It denied that the President had any power to seize private property without express legislative authorization, noting that Truman himself had asked for such legislative authority when the United Mine Workers of America went out on strike in 1950.

The Court set aside five hours for oral argument by the parties, while allowing the Steelworkers and the railroad unions to speak as amicus curiae. Before an overflow crowd, John W. Davis argued for the steel companies that the President had no powers to make laws or, more particularly, to seize property without Congressional authorization. He explained away his own actions when he had defended the government's seizure of property while he had been Solicitor General in the Wilson administration and urged the justices to look beyond the transitory labor dispute before them to the constitutional principles at stake, closing with Thomas Jefferson's words, slightly misquoted, "In questions of power let no more be said of confidence in man but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution". Justice Frankfurter was the only Justice to interrupt Davis with a question, and only one, during his argument.

Truman's Solicitor General Philip B. Perlman had a rockier argument, as the Justices pressed him with questions on many of the points he made. Justice Jackson took pains to distinguish the facts concerning the seizure of the North American Aviation Company in 1941 which he had overseen as Attorney General at the time. Justice Douglas commented that if Perlman were correct as to the scope of the President's powers, then there was no need for Congress. When Perlman attempted to close on a rousing note, reminding the Justices that this was wartime, Justices Jackson and Frankfurter immediately contradicted him, noting that Congress had not declared war.

Goldberg, speaking for the Steelworkers, addressed whether the Taft-Hartley Act would have allowed for injunctive relief in these circumstances. The attorneys for the railroad brotherhoods, who were parties to a similar action coming up for review, addressed the President's inherent powers. Davis then gave his rebuttal, using only a few minutes of the hour he had reserved.

Even despite the Court's evident lack of sympathy for the broad claims of inherent power made by the government, Truman and many other observers expected the Court to uphold his authority to act in the absence of express statutory authorization. Many commentators predicted that the Court would avoid the constitutional question, while others stressed the background that all of the Justices had in the New Deal and Fair Deal, when the powers of the Presidency had expanded greatly, and the past support of Justices such as Black, Reed, Frankfurter, and Douglas for the expansive application of the President's war powers.

As it turns out, most of those predictions were wrong. While Justice Burton harbored fears at one point that he might be the only Justice to vote against the government's position, he was encouraged by his private conversations with other Justices. In the end, the Court voted by six to three to affirm the District Court's injunction barring the President from seizing the steel plants.