Custom research paper on Does the Supreme Court of the United States influence America’s foreign policy

The respective powers of the political branches during and in relation to war have not been addressed by the Supreme Court in many decades and on some issues the Court’s latest words appear in aged cases, still authoritative but likely to be revisited. In 1814, the Supreme Court (by Chief Justice Marshall) held that President could not confiscate the property of alien enemies in time of war without authorization from Congress, and that a Congressional declaration of war alone did not constitute such authorization. In issue was the President’s power as Commander in Chief during war, not his foreign affairs powers, the property was seized in the United States, there were no relations with enemy and relations with other nations were not involved. Marshall wrote long before Lincoln established virtual Presidential autonomy in war and before other aggrandizements of Presidential power, later during the Civil War; the Supreme Court in effect rejected much of what Marshall had written when it up held seizure of vessels pursuant to Lincoln’s blockade. A principal theme of Marshall’s opinion, moreover, was that war between nations did not ordinarily engage their civilian nationals and the private property of such nationals. Since that era, nations have learned total war, and have recognized the importance to the conduct of such war of new kind of property controlled by new kinds of aliens, particularly large alien companies, in the two World Wars; Congress authorized comprehensive confiscations of enemy property. If, then, a war-time President some future day proceeded to seize alien enemy properties without Congressional authorization, it is unlikely that the courts would interfere, and surely they would not write as Marshal did about the narrow limits of Presidential war-power. The Supreme Court might again reject, however, what Marshall in fact rejected – the seizure of a private vessel by a local U.S. attorney claiming the mantle of Executive authority but apparently acting without Presidential decree or authentic Presidential decision.

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In 1851, the Supreme Court (by Chief Justice Taney) held that the President, as Commander in Chief, could temporarily occupy and control conquered territory, but that only a treaty or an act of Congress could annex it to the United States. Taney, too, spoke of Presidential war-power still in its infancy, of a subordinate President and a dominant Congress. In twentieth century, the President’s powers as Commander in Chief in declared wars have known few constitutional limits and Supreme Court did not find any on his power in occupied territory.  The President’s matured foreign affairs powers, too, might well give him authority to claim for the United States what the forces he commands had conquered. But the power to determine the permanent constitutional status of acquired territory, with its far-reaching irreversible consequences, might still be for Congress alone, to govern territory and admit new states. (Article IV, sec.3) Unhappiness about the Vietnam War led Congress to seek remedies for what some thought to be the constitutional problems the war had revealed. In 1973, Congress transformed the field of constitutional controversy between President and Congress by enacting the War Powers Resolution. With that Resolution, chronic uncertainties as to the President’s constitutional “war powers” became entangled with new questions of hierarchy between concurrent Presidential and Congressional powers in “the twilight zone”. Henceforth, any action by the President that came with the terms of that resolution was action not under alleged Presidential authority when Congress was silent, but rather Presidential action which Congress has prohibited, limited, regulated.