by John Marshall Harlan

“ No man should be required to hunt through the journals of a legislature to determine whether a statute, properly certified by the spealer of the house and the president of the senate and approved by the governor, is a statute or not. ”

“ To what extent do precedents in legislation sustain the validity of the section under consideration, so far as it makes the suspension of certain provisions and the going into operation of other provisions of an act of congress depend upon the action of the president based upon the occurrence of subsequent events, or the ascertainment by him of certain facts, to be made known by his proclamation? ”

“ If we find that congress has frequently, from the organization of the government to the present time, conferred upon the president powers, with reference to trade and commerce, like those conferred by the third section of the act of October 1, 1890, that fact is entitled to great weight in determining the question before us. ”

“ While some of these precedents are stronger than others, in their application to the case before us, they all show that, in the judgment of the legislative branch of the government, it is often desirable, if not essential, for the protection of the interests of our people against the unfriendly or discriminating regulations established by foreign governments, in the interest of their people, to invest the president with large discretion in matters arising out of the execution of statutes relating to trade and commerce with other nations. ”

“ Every suit before every court, where the validity of a statute may be called in question as affecting the right of a litigant, will be in the nature of an appeal or writ of error or bill of review for errors apparent on the face of the legislative records, and the journals must be explored to determine if some contradiction does not exist between the journals and the bill signed by the presiding officers of the two houses. ”

“ There are many things upon which wise and useful legislation must depend which cannot be known to the law-making power, and must therefore be a subject of inquiry and determination outside of the halls of legislation.'
What has been said is equally applicable to the objection that the third section of the act invests the president with treaty-making power. ”

“ Unless it be impossible to avoid it, a general revenue statute should never be declared inoperative in all its parts because a particular part relating to a distinct subject may be invalid. A different rule might be disastrous to the financial operations of the government, and produce the utmost confusion in the business of the entire country. ”

“ One relates to the imposition of duties upon imported articles; the other, to the appropriation of money from the treasury for bounties on articles produced in this country. While, in a general sense, both may be said to be parts of a system, neither the words nor the general scope of the act justifies the belief that congress intended they should operate as a whole, and not separately for the purpose of accomplishing the objects for which they were respectively designed. ”

“ It suggests a deliberate conspiracy to which the presiding officers, the committees on enrolled bills, and the clerks of the two houses must necessarily be parties, all acting with a common purpose to defeat an expression of the popular will in the mode prescribed by the constitution. ”