long may have been its previous
conception, it nevertheless sprung forth suddenly from the parent brain,
a Minerva in the full panoply of _war_. The President was bound to meet
it in the shape it presented itself, without waiting for Congress to
baptize it with a name; and no name given to it by him or them could
change the fact. * * * Whether the President in fulfilling his duties,
as Commander in Chief, in suppressing an insurrection, has met with such
armed hostile resistance, and a civil war of such alarming proportions
as will compel him to accord to them the character of belligerents, is a
question to be decided _by him_, and this Court must be governed by the
decisions and acts of the political department of the Government to
which this power was entrusted. 'He must determine what degree of force
the crisis demands.' The proclamation of blockade is itself official and
conclusive evidence to the Court that a state of war existed which
demanded and authorized a recourse to such a measure, under the
circumstances peculiar to the case."[53]

IMPACT OF THE PRIZE CASES ON WORLD WARS I AND II

In brief, the powers claimable for the President under the Commander in
Chief clause at a time of wide-spread insurrection were equated with his
powers under the clause at a time when the United States is engaged in a
formally declared foreign war; and--impliedly--vice versa. And since
Lincoln performed various acts especially in the early months of the
Civil War which, like increasing the Army and Navy, admittedly fell
within the constitutional province of Congress, it seems to have been
assumed during World War I and World War II that the Commander in
Chiefship carries with it the power to exercise like powers practically
at discretion; and not merely in wartime but even at a time when war
becomes a strong possibility. Nor was any attention given the fact that
Lincoln had asked Congress to ratify and confirm his acts, which
Congress promptly did,[54] with the exception of his suspension of the
_habeas corpus_ privilege which was regarded by many as attributable to
the President in the situation then existing, by virtue of his duty to
take care that the laws be faithfully executed.[55] Nor is this the only
respect in which war or the approach of war operates to enlarge the
scope of power which is claimable by the President as Commander in Chief
in wartime.[56] For at such time the maxim that Congress may not
delegate its powe