Lend Lease Act
Relying on executive prerogative, President Roosevelt used the complex and legally dubious memorandum of his attorney general to justify the lease of destroyer ships to Great Britain, which contributed to a rise in executive power.
Issue
In the summer of 1940, Winston Churchill, the new prime minister of the United Kingdom, asked the United States government to loan the UK forty to fifty destroyer ships in order to help defend against an impending Nazi invasion of Great Britain. At the time, the United States was legally neutral in the widening world conflict, and therefore faced strict domestic and international legal constraints on providing belligerent nations with supplies.
Roosevelt and Churchill devised a plan to allow them to move forward with a transfer of aid: the territory-rich British Empire would provide the US Navy with access to bases in Canada and the Caribbean in exchange for the requested destroyers. US Attorney General Robert H Jackson composed a memorandum to justify the administration’s move, arguing that any domestic statutory restrictions on arms sales did not apply to the trade. He also posited that beyond these legal bounds, the president possesses certain executive powers to defend the nation from outside attack irrespective of Congress. The deal went through without formal opposition from Congress.
Causes
It is hard to overstate the peril Britain faced in the summer of 1940. After the fall of France in June, the British Empire stood alone in its opposition to the Nazi war machine that had already swallowed up much of Europe. Maintaining control over the English Channel was essential to repelling a continental assault on Great Britain.
By 1940, Roosevelt understood it was very likely, if not inevitable, that the United States would be pulled into the conflict. By supplying Britain with materials, the United States could keep their old ally in the fight while buying time to arm themselves for a war it was not prepared to wage. He believed it was within his powers as president to ensure the execution of this plan, which he saw as in the national interest.
Outcome
The attorney general’s memorandum justified broad presidential powers over foreign policy and the commerce of war supplies in pursuit of the commander in chief’s understanding of the “public interest.” Despite opposition from a vocal minority of isolationist senators, opponents of the deal could not muster enough votes to check the president’s strategy. Congress passed the Lend Lease Act early in 1941.
Americans were largely unconcerned about the implications of such an act of executive prerogative, likely because they largely supported the deal. The public was taken by Roosevelt’s declaration that their country would be the ‘Arsenal for Democracy’. It was a message made more digestible by the American media’s widespread publication of grotesque caricatures of Europe’s dictators and somber footage of bombed-out British cities. On top of that, they believed that Roosevelt’s deal was good for American national security.
Armed with American destroyers, the Royal Navy continued to fend off Nazi invasion following months of devastating bombings on British military bases and cities. By the end of 1940, Hitler gave up, instead turning his attention east to the Soviet Union.
Roosevelt’s instinct was right; a year later, the Japanese bombing at Pearl Harbor brought the United States into world war. Lend-Lease was the first in a series of strategic moves that would launch the United States into an ever-greater role on the world stage, a shift which would further alter the role and the powers of the president.
Feature image: British women unload rifles delivered under the Lend Lease Act (Source: Library of Congress)
