★
Executive Orders Historical Archive
🎲
Cite
Executive Order 9631 ⚖️⚠️ Zone 3: Lowest Ebb Constitutional Friction / Overreach (-0.83) 📜 Art. II §2: Commander-in-Chief / War Prerogative Tension

Executive Order 9631—Termination of the Office of Censorship

Harry S Truman Harry S Truman
•
Friday, September 28, 1945
•
2 min read (354 words)

Executive Brief • At a Glance

⏱️ 2 min read (354 words) • ● In Effect
🎯 Primary Mandate

The Office of Censorship, established by Executive Order No. 8985 of December 19, 1941, shall continue to function for the purposes of liquidation until the close of business on November 15, 1945, at which time the Office (including the office of the Director of Censorship) shall terminate.

View all 4 directives ↓
⚖️ Constitutional Footing
⚖️⚠️ Zone 3: Lowest Ebb
Incompatible with Expressed Will of Congress or High Friction
📜 Art. II §2: Commander-in-Chief / War Prerogative Tension
Framers' constitutional debate ↓
🏛️ Scope & Affected Sectors
Financial Institutions & Monetary Authorities
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 Harry S Truman on September 28, 1945, this order concerns Termination of the Office of Censorship. The Office of Censorship, established by Executive Order No. 8985 of December 19, 1941, shall continue to function for the purposes of liquidation until the close of business on November 15, 1945, at which time the Office (including the office of the Director of Censorship) shall terminate. The Censorship Policy Board, created by the said Executive order, is terminated this date.

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

▪

The Office of Censorship, established by Executive Order No. 8985 of December 19, 1941, shall continue to function for the purposes of liquidation until the close of business on November 15, 1945, at which time the Office (including the office of the Director of Censorship) shall terminate.

▪

The Censorship Policy Board, created by the said Executive order, is terminated this date.

▪

For the purpose of completing the liquidation of the affairs of the Office of Censorship, all property and records of the Office on hand on November 15, 1945, together with its remaining personnel and any balances of appropriations then unexpended, shall be transferred to the Secretary of the Treasury, and so much thereof as the Director of the Bureau of the Budget shall determine to be necessary for such purpose shall be utilized by the Secretary in winding up the affairs of the Office. 2.

▪

When no longer needed for carrying out the provisions of this order, the property and records of the Office of Censorship shall be disposed of in accordance with applicable laws and regulations, and the personnel of the Office shall be transferred or separated from the Office as the interests of the Government may require. 3.

Constitutional & Societal Entities Impacted

🏛️ Financial Institutions & Monetary Authorities

Policy Areas & Topics

🏷️ Economy & Finance
🏛️

The Framers' Constitutional Council

1787 Prism

Evaluating this order against the constitutional debates of 1787 and the limits of Article II executive power.

⚖️⚠️ Zone 3 (Lowest Ebb)
§

"When the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb."

— Justice Robert H. Jackson, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952) Incompatible with Expressed Will of Congress or High Friction
JM

James Madison

Separation of Powers & Legislative Primacy

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands... may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." — Federalist No. 47 (1788)

Madison would express grave alarm over this order. By asserting independent authority in tension with legislative limits or the Bill of Rights, the Executive risks collapsing the separation of powers into unilateral rule. Under the Madisonian model, no emergency justifies the Executive substituting its decree for a deliberative Act of Congress.

Madisonian Stance: Strict Dissent (Overreach)
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 purse and the sword ought never to be in the same hands... nor the liberties of the citizen placed at the pleasure of a single magistrate." — Virginia Ratifying Convention (1788)

George Mason and the Anti-Federalists would sound a fierce warning. They feared that Article II would inevitably evolve into an elective monarchy. When an executive order impacts private rights, property, or civil liberties without individualized judicial process, Mason would see their darkest predictions verified.

Anti-Federalist Stance: Vehement Objection
📐

Five Measurable "Constitutional Friction" Dimensions

An objective audit measuring potential separation-of-powers tension against the United States Constitution and established Supreme Court doctrine.

⚠️ Elevated Constitutional Friction
63 / 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

High Friction

Invokes broad unilateral or emergency executive authorities that test the constitutional boundary of the Take Care Clause.

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

High Friction

Scrutinized under the Bill of Rights for potential impact on private contracts, property rights, or procedural due process.

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

Youngstown Jacksonian Tier

High Friction

The order asserts independent Article II prerogative against statutory constraints, reallocates funds without explicit appropriation, or stretches executive power into realms constitutionally reserved to the legislature or judiciary.

Benchmark: Incompatible with Expressed Will of Congress or High Friction
⚖️ Audit Synthesis

This directive engages significant constitutional friction across statutory authorization, legislative prerogatives, or individual liberties.

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
354
2,115 characters
Estimated Read Time
2 min
@ 200 words / min
Flesch-Kincaid
18
Post-Graduate Legal
Language Tone Score
-0.83
Constitutional Friction / Overreach
How is this scored?
Text size:

Official Archival Text

View Source Document

By virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the statutes, and as President of the United States, and since the censoring of communications has been heretofore discontinued in accordance with my direction, it is hereby ordered as follows: 1. The Office of Censorship, established by Executive Order No. 8985 of December 19, 1941, shall continue to function for the purposes of liquidation until the close of business on November 15, 1945, at which time the Office (including the office of the Director of Censorship) shall terminate. The Censorship Policy Board, created by the said Executive order, is terminated this date. For the purpose of completing the liquidation of the affairs of the Office of Censorship, all property and records of the Office on hand on November 15, 1945, together with its remaining personnel and any balances of appropriations then unexpended, shall be transferred to the Secretary of the Treasury, and so much thereof as the Director of the Bureau of the Budget shall determine to be necessary for such purpose shall be utilized by the Secretary in winding up the affairs of the Office. 2. When no longer needed for carrying out the provisions of this order, the property and records of the Office of Censorship shall be disposed of in accordance with applicable laws and regulations, and the personnel of the Office shall be transferred or separated from the Office as the interests of the Government may require. 3. Such further measures and dispositions as may be determined by the Director of the Bureau of the Budget to be necessary to effectuate the purposes and provisions of this order shall be carried out in such manner as the Director may direct and by such agencies as he may designate. 4. Nothing contained in this order shall be deemed to affect any proceedings instituted, or any forfeitures incurred, under section 303 of the First War Powers Act, 1941, or regulations occurring prior to August 16, 1945. 5. All prior Executive orders which are in conflict with this order are amended accordingly. HARRY S. TRUMAN

THE WHITE HOUSE, #signature

September 28, 1945

📜

Scholarly & Legal Citations 

Exec. Order No. 9631 (Sept. 28, 1945), https://executiveordersarchive.org/orders/app-executive-order-9631-termination-the-office-censorship.