Executive order
An executive order is a directive issued by the head of state or government that manages the operations of a nation's federal administration. While the structure and authority of executive orders vary by country, they generally allow leaders to direct government agencies, implement policies, or respond to emergencies without new legislation. In many systems, the legality of such orders is subject to constitutional or legislative limits and judicial oversight. The term is most prominently associated with presidential systems such as that of the United States, where executive orders carry legal weight within the president's administration.
In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. Executive orders are only binding on the federal government's executive branch. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of the United States Constitution gives presidents broad executive and enforcement authority to use their discretion to determine how to enforce the law or to otherwise manage the resources and staff of the federal government's executive branch. The delegation of discretionary power to make such orders is required to be supported by either an expressed or implied congressional law, or the constitution itself. The vast majority of executive orders are proposed by federal agencies before being issued by the president.
Like both legislative statutes and the regulations promulgated by government agencies, executive orders are subject to judicial review and may be overturned if the orders lack support by statute or the Constitution. Some policy initiatives require approval by the legislative branch, but executive orders have significant influence over the internal affairs of government, deciding how and to what degree legislation will be enforced, dealing with emergencies, waging wars, and in general fine-tuning policy choices in the implementation of broad statutes. As the head of state and head of government of the United States, as well as commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces, only the president of the United States can issue an executive order.
Presidential executive orders, once issued, remain in force until they are canceled, revoked, adjudicated unlawful, or expire on their terms. At any time, the president may revoke, modify or make exceptions from any executive order, whether the order was made by the current president or a predecessor. Typically, a new president reviews in-force executive orders in the first few weeks in office.
Many countries have mechanisms for executive orders, though their structure and legal authority differ by country. In the United Kingdom and Canada, executive actions, known as Orders in Council, are issued by the Monarch or Governor General on ministerial advice and can be based on statutory or prerogative powers. In France, India, and Russia, the executive is granted temporary legislative powers or the ability to issue decrees, often for urgent or administrative purposes, subject to approval or judicial review.
Basis in the United States Constitution
The United States Constitution does not have a provision that explicitly permits the use of executive orders. ArticleII, Section1, Clause1 of the Constitution simply states: "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." Sections2 and3 describe the various powers and duties of the president, including "He shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed".The U.S. Supreme Court has held that all executive orders from the president of the United States must be supported by the Constitution, whether from a clause granting specific power, or by Congress delegating such to the executive branch. Specifically, such orders must be rooted in Article II of the US Constitution or enacted by the Congress in statutes. Attempts to block such orders have been successful at times, when such orders either exceeded the authority of the president or could be better handled through legislation.
The Office of the Federal Register is responsible for assigning the executive order a sequential number, after receipt of the signed original from the White House and printing the text of the executive order in the daily Federal Register and eventually in Title3 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
Format
In the United States, executive orders are generally written in the first person, including pronouns such as "I" and "me". Each order has a title, a date of issue, and a unique numeric identifier, with orders being numbered consecutively. These three elements usually appear at the beginning of the document, although the date or numeric identifier sometimes appear at the end of historical documents. The introductory text of the order usually starts with a phrase indicating the issuer's authority. For example: "By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered " Sometimes the introduction will be longer, and may include the issuer's legal rationale for the order.The body of the document is generally broken into numbered or lettered sections and subsections. According to the American Bar Association, " spell out the orders, action steps to realize the orders, and other directives, such as study or evaluation, and subsections add additional details, including any relevant definitions." The last section of an order is usually administrative, including a directive to publish the order in the Federal Register.
History and use
With the exception of William Henry Harrison, all presidents since George Washington in 1789 have issued orders that in general terms can be described as executive orders. Initially, they took no set form and so they varied as to form and substance.The first executive order was issued by Washington on June 8, 1789; addressed to the heads of the federal departments, it instructed them "to impress with a full, precise, and distinct general idea of the affairs of the United States" in their fields.
According to political scientist Brian R. Dirck, the most famous executive order was by President Abraham Lincoln when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, which in part contained explicit directions to the Army, the Navy, and other Executive departments:
Until the early 1900s, executive orders were mostly unannounced and undocumented, and seen only by the agencies to which they were directed.
That changed when the US Department of State instituted a numbering scheme in 1907, starting retroactively with United States Executive Order 1, issued on October 20, 1862, by President Lincoln. The documents that later came to be known as "executive orders" apparently gained their name from that order issued by Lincoln, which was captioned "Executive Order Establishing a Provisional Court in Louisiana". That court functioned during the military occupation of Louisiana during the American Civil War, and Lincoln also used Executive Order1 to appoint Charles A. Peabody as judge and designate the salaries of the court's officers.
President Harry Truman's Executive Order 10340 placed all the country's steel mills under federal control, which was found invalid in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 US 579, because it attempted to make law, rather than to clarify or to further a law put forth by the Congress or the Constitution. Presidents since that decision have generally been careful to cite the specific laws under which they act when they issue new executive orders; likewise, when presidents believe that their authority for issuing an executive order stems from within the powers outlined in the Constitution, the order instead simply proclaims "under the authority vested in me by the Constitution".
Wars have been fought upon executive order, including the 1999 Kosovo War during President Bill Clinton's second term in office; however, all such wars have also had authorizing resolutions from Congress. The extent to which the president may exercise military power independently of Congress and the scope of the War Powers Resolution remain unresolved constitutional issues, but all presidents since the passage of the resolution have complied with its terms, while also maintaining that they are not constitutionally required to do so.
Harry S. Truman issued 907 executive orders, with 1,081 orders made by Theodore Roosevelt, 1,203 orders made by Calvin Coolidge, and 1,803 orders made by Woodrow Wilson. Franklin D. Roosevelt has the distinction of making a record 3,721 executive orders.
In 2021, President Joe Biden issued 42 executive orders in the first 100 days of his presidency, more than any other president since Harry Truman. However, in 2025, Donald Trump became the president to issue the most executive orders in his first 100 days with 143, surpassing Franklin Roosevelt's 99.
Franklin Roosevelt
Before 1932, uncontested executive orders had determined such issues as national mourning on the death of a president and the lowering of flags to half-staff.President Franklin Roosevelt issued the first of his 3,721 executive orders on March 6, 1933, declaring a bank holiday, and forbidding banks to release gold coin or bullion. Executive Order 6102 forbade the hoarding of gold coin, bullion and gold certificates. A further executive order required all newly mined domestic gold be delivered to the Treasury.
By Executive Order 6581, the president created the Export-Import Bank of the United States. On March 7, 1934, he established the National Recovery Review Board. On June 29, the president issued Executive Order 6763 "under the authority vested in me by the Constitution", thereby creating the National Labor Relations Board.
In 1934, while Charles Evans Hughes was Chief Justice of the United States, the Court found that the National Industrial Recovery Act was unconstitutional. The president then issued Executive Order 7073 "by virtue of the authority vested in me under the said Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935", re-establishing the National Emergency Council to administer the functions of the NIRA in carrying out the provisions of the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act. On June 15, he issued Executive Order 7075, which terminated the NIRA and replaced it with the Office of Administration of the National Recovery Administration.
In the years that followed, Roosevelt replaced outgoing justices of the Supreme Court with people more in line with his views: Hugo Black, Stanley Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, Robert H. Jackson and James F. Byrnes. Historically, only George Washington has had equal or greater influence over Supreme Court appointments.
Justices Frankfurter, Douglas, Black, and Jackson dramatically checked presidential power by invalidating the executive order at issue in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer: in that case Roosevelt's successor, Harry S. Truman, had ordered private steel production facilities seized in Executive Order 10340 to support the Korean War effort: the Court held that the executive order was not within the power granted to the president by the Constitution.