United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp.

The Court declined to decide whether this degree of discretion would be valid in a statute dealing solely with internal affairs. The resolution was directed instead at a foreign conflict and at the Nation's international relations. That distinction, the Court held, is constitutionally significant.

Justice Sutherland reasoned that the federal government's foreign-affairs powers differ in origin and character from its domestic powers. Domestic federal authority is generally drawn from enumerated constitutional grants, but external sovereignty passed from the British Crown to the United States collectively at independence and remained with the national government. The Court described powers over war, peace, diplomacy, and international relations as inherent attributes of national sovereignty, subject to applicable constitutional limits.

The President also occupies a distinctive institutional role in foreign relations. As the Nation's representative in dealings with foreign governments, the President has access to diplomatic agents, confidential information, and the advantages of secrecy and speed. Congress therefore may need to give the President flexibility to determine whether, when, and how a foreign-affairs measure should operate.

Longstanding congressional practice reinforced the conclusion. From the early Republic onward, Congress had repeatedly authorized Presidents to impose, suspend, modify, or lift embargoes and other foreign-commerce restrictions based on broad judgments about national interest, foreign conditions, and public safety. This unbroken history was powerful practical evidence that the challenged delegation was constitutional.

Accordingly, Congress could authorize the President to find whether an arms embargo might advance peace, to issue a proclamation activating the prohibition, to prescribe exceptions and limitations, and to determine when the prohibition should cease operating.

The Criminal Appeals Act authorized an appeal because the district court had sustained a demurrer on the ground that the statute underlying the indictment was invalid. The Court rejected the government's narrower view that review was confined to the particular ground on which the district court ruled against it.

If the district court had sustained the demurrer without specifying a reason, every ground challenging the statute's validity would necessarily have been before the Supreme Court. The fact that the district court identified one ground and rejected the others did not prevent the defendants from relying on those rejected grounds to defend the judgment.

The proclamation stated that the President had found an arms embargo might contribute to peace between Bolivia and Paraguay, that he had consulted other American republics, and that he had received the cooperation of the governments he considered necessary. Those recitals followed the statutory conditions closely.

The defendants argued that the proclamation did not expressly identify an American republic whose cooperation had been secured. The Court found that objection insubstantial. Read as a whole, the proclamation's reference to consultations with American republics and assurances of cooperation from governments deemed necessary fairly included the required cooperation.

The Joint Resolution remained a law enacted by Congress, although it lay dormant until the President's findings and proclamation created the circumstances for its operation. The President could activate or deactivate its prospective application under the authority Congress supplied, but could not repeal the resolution itself.

The revoking proclamation did not purport to repeal the resolution and expressly preserved penalties, forfeitures, and liabilities already incurred. Its effect was to remove the future condition that made the statutory prohibition operative, not to nullify offenses committed during the period when the prohibition applied.

The Court distinguished a law's expiration or repeal from a statute that regulates conduct during a defined period. Even though the embargo no longer governed future sales after revocation, it continued to supply the rule of decision for sales alleged to have occurred while the original proclamation was in force.