We tried fighting wars by committee once upon a time. That worked so poorly that the Constitution was written to include the designation of the president as "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."
FDR took that to mean that his presidential powers as C-in-C extended
to anything that had anything at all to do with the conduct of the war. No, I'm not talking about internment of Japanese Americans, but rather his executive orders seizing control of factories and breaking strikes to ensure the uninterrupted flow of war materiel. The order issued in January of 1942 reads in part, "...the national interest demands that there shall be no interruption of any work which contributes to the effective prosecution of the war; and Whereas as a result of a conference of representatives of labor and industry which met at the call of the President on December 17, 1941, it has been agreed that for the duration of the war there shall be no strikes or lockouts, and that all labor disputes shall be settled by peaceful means, and that a National War Labor Board be established for a peaceful adjustment of such disputes."
Who knew FDR was a Fascist?
Oh, and Thomas Jefferson sent the Marines to invade Tripoli and strike the Barbary Corsairs without consulting Congress at all.
Commenting by HaloScan
