I, Herbert Hoover, President of the United States of America, under the authority conferred upon me by the act of March 3, 1917, entitled "An act to provide a temporary government for the West Indian Islands, acquired by the United States from Denmark by the convention entered into between said countries on the fourth day of August, nineteen hundred and sixteen, and ratified by the Senate of the United States on the seventh day of September, nineteen hundred and sixteen, and for other purposes" (39 Stat. 1132), and by virtue of all other powers thereto me enabling, do hereby place the administration of the government of the Virgin Islands, including expenditures and the appointment of personnel, under the supervision of the Secretary of the Interior, subject to the entrance upon duty of a civil governor, and direct that the unexpended balance of the appropriation "Temporary government for the West Indian Islands for the fiscal year 1931," included in the Navy Appropriation Act, shall be transferred, effective on the entrance upon duty of the civil governor, to the Department of the Interior. Further, the Secretary of the Interior shall contract for the employment of and fix salaries of those persons employed in the government of the Virgin Islands of the United States whose positions and salaries are not specified in the annual budgets of the two Colonial Councils, and he may, where necessary, contract to furnish to such persons, or to any other appointees to positions in the islands, free transportation from the port of departure in the United States, including meals on the steamer, but no compensation or expenses for the journey to the port. Under the authority recited herein I do hereby order and direct that all naval officers, nurses, enlisted men, and clerical employees of the Department of the Navy now assigned to the executive departments of the municipal governments shall remain in their present positions until relieved by civil employees with the approval of the Secretaries of the Navy and Interior, but they shall be relieved not later than six months from the date of entrance upon duty of the civil governor. The requirement that the governor of said islands shall report to the President through the Secretary of the Navy, according to the instructions of the President in letter dated October 12, 1922, is hereby revoked, and the governor shall hereafter report to the President through the Secretary of the Interior. HERBERT HOOVER The White House, February 27, 1931.
Executive Order 5566 ⚖️✨ Zone 2: Zone of Twilight Constitutional Neutral (+0.02)
📜 Art. II §2: Commander-in-Chief Supervisory Authority
Executive Order 5566—Placing the Government of the Virgin Islands Under the Supervision of the Department of the Interior
Executive Brief • At a Glance
⏱️ 2 min read (413 words) •
● In Effect
🎯 Primary Mandate
I, Herbert Hoover, President of the United States of America, under the authority conferred upon me by the act of March 3, 1917, entitled "An act to provide a temporary government for the West Indian Islands, acquired by the United States from Denmark by the convention entered into between said countries on the fourth day of August, nineteen hundred and sixteen, and ratified by the Senate of the United States on the seventh day of September, nineteen hundred and sixteen, and for other purposes" (39 Stat. 1132), and by virtue of all other powers thereto me enabling, do hereby place the administration of the government of the Virgin Islands, including expenditures and the appointment of personnel, under the supervision of the Secretary of…
⚖️ Constitutional Footing
⚖️✨ Zone 2: Zone of Twilight
Concurrent Authority / Congressional Silence
📜 Art. II §2: Commander-in-Chief Supervisory Authority
🏛️ Scope & Affected Sectors
Armed Forces & Military Establishments Sovereign State Governments & Localities Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants
Plain-English Translation & Framers' Constitutional Analysis
Early Statesman synthesis distilling legal jargon into practical meaning, statutory anchors, and structural constitutional impacts.
Signed by President Herbert Hoover on February 27, 1931, this order concerns Placing the Government of the Virgin Islands Under the Supervision of the Department of the Interior. I, Herbert Hoover, President of the United States of America, under the authority conferred upon me by the act of March 3, 1917, entitled "An act to provide a temporary government for the West Indian Islands, acquired by the United States from Denmark by the convention entered into between said countries on the fourth day of August, nineteen hundred and sixteen, and ratified by the Senate of the United States on…
Constitutional Assessment: Scrutinized through Article II, Section 2, this action exercises the President's constitutional role as Commander in Chief. Early Framers recognized broad executive discretion in commanding military forces during conflict, provided it remains bounded by congressional declarations and respects civilian domestic courts.
Key Directives & Operative Actions
▪
I, Herbert Hoover, President of the United States of America, under the authority conferred upon me by the act of March 3, 1917, entitled "An act to provide a temporary government for the West Indian Islands, acquired by the United States from Denmark by the convention entered into between said countries on the fourth day of August, nineteen hundred and sixteen, and ratified by the Senate of the United States on the seventh day of September, nineteen hundred and sixteen, and for other purposes" (39 Stat. 1132), and by virtue of all other powers thereto me enabling, do hereby place the administration of the government of the Virgin Islands, including expenditures and the appointment of personnel, under the supervision of the Secretary of…
▪
Further, the Secretary of the Interior shall contract for the employment of and fix salaries of those persons employed in the government of the Virgin Islands of the United States whose positions and salaries are not specified in the annual budgets of the two Colonial Councils, and he may, where necessary, contract to furnish to such persons, or to any other appointees to positions in the islands, free transportation from the port of departure in the United States, including meals on the steamer, but no compensation or expenses for the journey to the port.
▪
Under the authority recited herein I do hereby order and direct that all naval officers, nurses, enlisted men, and clerical employees of the Department of the Navy now assigned to the executive departments of the municipal governments shall remain in their present positions until relieved by civil employees with the approval of the Secretaries of the Navy and Interior, but they shall be relieved not later than six months from the date of entrance upon duty of the civil governor.
▪
The requirement that the governor of said islands shall report to the President through the Secretary of the Navy, according to the instructions of the President in letter dated October 12, 1922, is hereby revoked, and the governor shall hereafter report to the President through the Secretary of the Interior.
Constitutional & Societal Entities Impacted
🏛️ Armed Forces & Military Establishments
🏛️ Sovereign State Governments & Localities
🏛️ Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants
Policy Areas & Topics
🏛️
The Framers' Constitutional Council
1787 PrismEvaluating this order against the constitutional debates of 1787 and the limits of Article II executive power.
⚖️✨ Zone 2 (Zone of Twilight)
§
"When the President acts in absence of either a congressional grant or denial of authority, he can only rely upon his own independent powers, but there is a zone of twilight in which he and Congress may have concurrent authority."
— Justice Robert H. Jackson, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952) Concurrent Authority / Congressional Silence
JM
James Madison
Separation of Powers & Legislative Primacy
"Power is of an encroaching nature, and it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it." — Federalist No. 48 (1788)
Madison would view this order with watchful scrutiny. Operating in the 'Zone of Twilight' where Congress is silent, each such directive establishes an administrative precedent that steadily expands the executive perimeter at the expense of legislative primacy.
Madisonian Stance: Vigilant / Cautionary
AH
Alexander Hamilton
The Energetic Executive & Unified Command
"The direction of war implies the direction of the common strength; and the power of directing and employing the common strength must be under the direction of the single hand of the Executive." — Federalist No. 74 (1788)
Hamilton would forcefully champion executive discretion here. For foreign entanglements, commerce defense, and national security, deliberative assemblies are too slow and faction-ridden. A unified, energetic Executive exercising swift command is precisely what the Philadelphia Convention intended for national preservation.
Hamiltonian Stance: Strong Prerogative Support
GM
George Mason
Bill of Rights, Due Process & 10th Amendment
"The president will be surrounded by flatterers and sycophants... and the great powers of the executive will gradually absorb the liberties of the people." — Cato IV (Anti-Federalist, 1787)
The Anti-Federalist prism advises continuous democratic vigilance. Even routine administrative directives aggregate centralized federal power away from town halls and state assemblies toward a distant executive apparatus.
Anti-Federalist Stance: Eternal Vigilance Required
📐
Five Measurable "Constitutional Friction" Dimensions
An objective audit measuring potential separation-of-powers tension against the United States Constitution and established Supreme Court doctrine.
⚖️ Discretionary Twilight Zone
38 / 100 friction index
Dimension 1 • Art. I, §1 & §8
Moderate Friction
Legislative Encroachment & Purse
Administers commerce or fiscal programs requiring ongoing statutory delegation and legislative oversight.
Benchmark: Power of the purse, taxes/tariffs, and rule of law reserved to Congress.
Dimension 2 • Art. II, §1 & §3
Low Friction
Executive Scope & Faithfulness
Exercises standard supervisory executive authority to faithfully execute existing statutes.
Benchmark: Faithfully execute laws enacted by Congress vs. unilateral decree.
Dimension 3 • 10th Amendment
Moderate Friction
Federalism & State Sovereignty
Engages state and local partners in cooperative federalism programs.
Benchmark: Police powers and un-delegated responsibilities reserved to the States.
Dimension 4 • 5th & 14th Amendments
Low Friction
Due Process & Individual Rights
Focuses on internal governmental operations with no direct impairment of private rights or property.
Benchmark: Protection of private property, contracts, liberty, and procedural justice.
Dimension 5 • Separation of Powers
Moderate Friction
Youngstown Jacksonian Tier
The order relies on inherent Article II executive discretion, civil service management, or foreign diplomacy where Congress has neither expressly approved nor prohibited action.
Benchmark: Concurrent Authority / Congressional Silence
⚖️
Audit Synthesis
This order operates within Justice Jackson’s Zone of Twilight, resting upon concurrent presidential authority or congressional silence.
Weighted composite: Art. I (25%), Art. II (25%), Federalism (15%), Due Process (15%), Youngstown (20%).
ℹ️
How to read these dimensions: Executive power expands whenever an administration acts without explicit statutory authorization from Congress (Article I), touches upon police powers historically reserved to the states (Tenth Amendment), or limits private rights and property without judicial process. A low friction score indicates strict concordance with enacted law; a high friction score highlights orders testing the limits of presidential discretion.
Total Words
413
2,517 characters
Estimated Read Time
2 min
@ 200 words / min
Flesch-Kincaid
31.6
Post-Graduate Legal
Text size:
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Referenced By Later Executive Orders (3)
Subsequent presidents who cited, amended, continued, or revoked this directive in later orders.
Franklin D. Roosevelt • 1936-02-21
Franklin D. Roosevelt • 1934-10-29
Franklin D. Roosevelt • 1934-02-28
Related Executive Orders
Other executive actions signed by Herbert Hoover around this period.
EO 5567 Feb 28, 1931
⚖️✨ Zone 2 (Zone of Twilight) Constitutional Neutral
Executive Order 5567—Power-Site Restoration No. 461, Montana
📜 Art. II §1: Executive Discretion & Internal Operations
So much of Executive Order of October 14, 1915, creating Power-Site Reserve No. 512, as modified by Order of Modification approved March 14, 1916, as affects the lands hereinafter described, is hereby revoked: Principal Meridian Those portions of the following described…
Herbert Hoover High School • 1m
EO 5565 Feb 25, 1931
⚖️✨ Zone 2 (Zone of Twilight) Constitutional Neutral
Executive Order 5565—Amending Regulations for Appointments to the Foreign Service
📜 Art. II §1: Executive Discretion & Internal Operations
The Executive order of September 11, 1929, section 14, is hereby amended to read as follows: 14. The examinations shall be both written and oral, except that clerks in the Foreign Service who have rendered satisfactory service as clerks for a period of five years prior to…
Herbert Hoover Post-Graduate Legal • 1m
EO 5564 Feb 25, 1931
⚖️✨ Zone 2 (Zone of Twilight) Constitutional Neutral
Executive Order 5564—Power-Site Restoration No. 460, Oregon
📜 Art. II §1: Executive Discretion & Internal Operations
So much of the order of November 24, 1916, creating Power-Site Reserve No. 566 as affects the lands hereinafter described is hereby revoked: Willamette Meridian T. 1 S., R. 19 E., Sec. 9, SE ¼ SE ¼; Sec. 10, lots 1 and 2, SW ¼ NW ¼, W ½ SW ¼, E ½ SE ¼; Sec. 11, lots 3 and 4, NW…
Herbert Hoover Grade 5 • 1m
EO 5570 Mar 3, 1931
⚖️✨ Zone 2 (Zone of Twilight) Constitutional Neutral
Executive Order 5570—Reinstatement of Probationer in Any Part of the Service
📜 Art. II §3: Administrative Management & Civil Service
Civil Service Rule IX, section 1, is amended by adding a new paragraph to read as follows: (e) An employee involuntarily separated during or at end of probation, without fault on his part, may be reinstated to serve a new probation in any part of the service, in any position…
Herbert Hoover Post-Graduate Legal • 1m
EO 5569 Mar 3, 1931
⚖️✨ Zone 2 (Zone of Twilight) Constitutional Neutral
Executive Order 5569—Revocation of Withdrawal of Public Lands for Survey, Florida
📜 Art. II §1: Executive Discretion & Internal Operations
Executive Order No. 3737 of September 23, 1922, withdrawing public lands erroneously omitted from a survey of T. 26 S., R. 31 E., Tallahassee meridian, Florida, executed in 1847, be, and the same is hereby, revoked in so far as it applies to lots 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 sec. 1…
Herbert Hoover High School • 1m
EO 5568 Mar 3, 1931
⚖️✨ Zone 2 (Zone of Twilight) Constitutional Neutral
Executive Order 5568—Chugach National Forest, Alaska
📜 Art. II §1: Executive Discretion & Internal Operations
The tract of land in Alaska lying within the following described boundaries, heretofore occupied for home-site purposes, be, and the same is hereby, excluded from the Chugach National Forest and restored to entry under the applicable public land laws: Chs.
Herbert Hoover Grade 5 • 2m
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Scholarly & Legal Citations
Exec. Order No. 5566 (Feb. 27, 1931), https://executiveordersarchive.org/orders/app-executive-order-5566-placing-the-government-the-virgin-islands-under-the-supervision-the.
