★
Executive Orders Historical Archive
🎲
Cite
Executive Order 9196 ⚖️✨ Zone 2: Zone of Twilight Constitutional Neutral (+0.02) 📜 Art. II §2: Commander-in-Chief Supervisory Authority

Executive Order 9196—Government Purchases of Prison-Made Goods

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin D. Roosevelt
•
Thursday, July 9, 1942
•
1 min read (162 words)

Executive Brief • At a Glance

⏱️ 1 min read (162 words) • ● In Effect
🎯 Primary Mandate

Executive Order No. 325A of May 18, 1905, be, and the same is hereby, suspended for the period of the war and for six months thereafter to the extent necessary to permit officers and agencies of the Federal Government charged with the purchase or procurement of articles necessary in the conduct of the war to procure, directly or indirectly, through any contractor or subcontractor or otherwise, articles of any kind produced in any Federal, State or territorial prison, provided such articles are not produced pursuant to any contract or other arrangement under which prison labor is hired out to, or employed or used by, any private person, firm or corporation.

View all 1 directives ↓
⚖️ Constitutional Footing
⚖️✨ Zone 2: Zone of Twilight
Concurrent Authority / Congressional Silence
📜 Art. II §2: Commander-in-Chief Supervisory Authority
Framers' constitutional debate ↓
🏛️ Scope & Affected Sectors
Sovereign State Governments & Localities Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants
Inspect unabridged text ↓

Plain-English Translation & Framers' Constitutional Analysis

Early Statesman synthesis distilling legal jargon into practical meaning, statutory anchors, and structural constitutional impacts.

Signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on July 9, 1942, this order concerns Government Purchases of Prison-Made Goods. Executive Order No. 325A of May 18, 1905, be, and the same is hereby, suspended for the period of the war and for six months thereafter to the extent necessary to permit officers and agencies of the Federal Government charged with the purchase or procurement of articles necessary in the conduct of the war to procure, directly or indirectly, through any contractor or subcontractor or otherwise, articles of any kind…

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

▪

Executive Order No. 325A of May 18, 1905, be, and the same is hereby, suspended for the period of the war and for six months thereafter to the extent necessary to permit officers and agencies of the Federal Government charged with the purchase or procurement of articles necessary in the conduct of the war to procure, directly or indirectly, through any contractor or subcontractor or otherwise, articles of any kind produced in any Federal, State or territorial prison, provided such articles are not produced pursuant to any contract or other arrangement under which prison labor is hired out to, or employed or used by, any private person, firm or corporation.

Constitutional & Societal Entities Impacted

🏛️ Sovereign State Governments & Localities 🏛️ Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants

Policy Areas & Topics

🏷️ Criminal Justice & Law Enforcement
🏛️

The Framers' Constitutional Council

1787 Prism

Evaluating 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
39 / 100 friction index
Dimension 1 • Art. I, §1 & §8

Legislative Encroachment & Purse

Low Friction

Operates within delegated statutory execution without modifying legislative appropriations or taxing powers.

Benchmark: Power of the purse, taxes/tariffs, and rule of law reserved to Congress.
Dimension 2 • Art. II, §1 & §3

Executive Scope & Faithfulness

Moderate Friction

Directs internal executive branch machinery, agency workflows, and federal personnel.

Benchmark: Faithfully execute laws enacted by Congress vs. unilateral decree.
Dimension 3 • 10th Amendment

Federalism & State Sovereignty

Moderate Friction

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

Due Process & Individual Rights

Moderate Friction

Applies regulatory or compliance standards to private contractors or commercial entities.

Benchmark: Protection of private property, contracts, liberty, and procedural justice.
Dimension 5 • Separation of Powers

Youngstown Jacksonian Tier

Moderate Friction

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
162
968 characters
Estimated Read Time
1 min
@ 200 words / min
Flesch-Kincaid
25.9
Post-Graduate Legal
Language Tone Score
+0.02
Constitutional Neutral
How is this scored?
Text size:

Official Archival Text

View Source Document

Under and by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, and in order to remove any doubts which might otherwise exist and to insure the effective utilization of all existing productive facilities, it is hereby ordered that Executive Order No. 325A of May 18, 1905, be, and the same is hereby, suspended for the period of the war and for six months thereafter to the extent necessary to permit officers and agencies of the Federal Government charged with the purchase or procurement of articles necessary in the conduct of the war to procure, directly or indirectly, through any contractor or subcontractor or otherwise, articles of any kind produced in any Federal, State or territorial prison, provided such articles are not produced pursuant to any contract or other arrangement under which prison labor is hired out to, or employed or used by, any private person, firm or corporation. FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT The White House, July 9, 1942.

🔗

Referenced By Later Executive Orders (1)

Subsequent presidents who cited, amended, continued, or revoked this directive in later orders.

References Executive Order 9859—Revoking Executive Order No. 9196 of July 9, 1942
Harry S Truman • 1947-05-31
📜

Scholarly & Legal Citations 

Exec. Order No. 9196 (July 9, 1942), https://executiveordersarchive.org/orders/app-executive-order-9196-government-purchases-prison-made-goods.