Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952)

In April 1952, with the Korean War under way and a nationwide steel strike about to begin, Harry Truman ordered Commerce Secretary Charles Sawyer to seize and operate the country's steel mills, arguing that a shutdown would endanger troops abroad. No statute authorized the seizure, and Congress had rejected giving the President such power when it passed the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. The steel companies sued.

On June 2, 1952, the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 that the seizure was unconstitutional. Justice Hugo Black's majority opinion held that the President's power must come from either a statute or the Constitution, and that the commander-in-chief power did not extend to seizing private property at home to settle a labor dispute, which was a lawmaking act reserved to Congress. Truman returned the mills, and the strike followed.

The most influential opinion was Justice Robert Jackson's concurrence. Presidential power, he wrote, is at its maximum when the President acts with Congress's express or implied authorization, in a zone of twilight when Congress has been silent, and at its lowest ebb when the President acts against Congress's will. Courts have used Jackson's three categories ever since, in cases on military commissions, treaties, foreign recognition, and emergency powers, making it the standard framework for testing executive action.