United States v. Curtiss-Wright

Table of Contents

United States v. Curtiss-Wright
Overview
Context
About the Author
Explanation and Analysis of the Document
Audience
Impact
Document Text

  Your institution does not have access to this content. For questions, please ask your librarian.

Abstract

The U.S. Supreme Court’s pathbreaking opinion in United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation in 1936 remains the most frequently cited case in the annals of the nation’s foreign-affairs jurisprudence and is one of the principal pillars of presidential domination of American foreign policy. The issue in the case was whether Congress, in passing a joint resolution in May of 1934 to grant the president power to place an embargo on the export of munitions or arms under certain conditions, had delegated, or transferred, too much of its legislative authority to the president. The Court upheld the statute against the claim that it was an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power. But in his opinion for the Court, Justice George Sutherland soared beyond the narrow issue and unleashed an expansive interpretation of executive power.

Book contents