sident's action, said: 'Congress, unquestionably, may prescribe the
mode, and Congress may devolve on others the whole execution of the
contract; but, till this be done, it seems the duty of the Executive
department to execute the contract by any means it possesses.'"[427] In
1848 Congress enacted a statute governing this subject which confers
upon the courts, both State and Federal, the duty of handling
extradition cases.[428]

The first Neutrality Proclamation was issued by President Washington in
1793 without congressional authorization.[429] The following year
Congress enacted the first neutrality statute,[430] and since then
proclamations of neutrality have been based on an act of Congress
governing the matter. The President may, in the absence of legislation
by Congress, control the landing of foreign cables in the United States
and the passage of foreign troops through American territory, and has
done so repeatedly.[431] Likewise, until Congress acts, he may govern
conquered territory[432] and, "in the absence of attempts by Congress to
limit his power," may set up military commissions in territory occupied
by the armed forces of the United States.[433] He may determine, in a
way to bind the courts, whether a treaty is still in force as law of the
land, although again the final power in the field rests with
Congress.[434] One of the President's most ordinary powers and duties is
that of ordering the prosecution of supposed offenders against the laws
of the United States. Yet Congress may do the same thing.[435] On
September 22, 1862, President Lincoln issued a proclamation suspending
the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus throughout the Union in
certain classes of cases. By an act passed March 3, 1863, Congress
ratified this action of the President and at the same time brought the
whole subject of military arrests in the United States under legal
control.[436] Conversely, when President Wilson failed in March 1917 to
obtain Congress's consent to his arming American merchant vessels with
defensive arms, he went ahead and did it anyway, "fortified not only by
the known sentiments of the majority in Congress but also by the advice
of his Secretary of State and Attorney General."[437]

On the specific matter of property seizures, Justice Frankfurter's
concurring opinion in the Youngstown Case is accompanied by appendices
containing a synoptic analysis of legislation authorizing seizures of
industrial property an