Cite as: 524 U. S. 417 (1998)
Breyer, J., dissenting
§ 315(a), 42 Stat. 941-942. The Court also upheld this delegation against constitutional attack. See J. W. Hampton, Jr., & Co. v. United States, 276 U. S. 394 (1928).
These statutory delegations resemble today's Act more closely than one might at first suspect. They involve a duty on imports, which is a tax. That tax in the last century was as important then as the income tax is now, for it provided most of the Federal Government's revenues. See U. S. Dept. of Commerce, Census Bureau, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, pt. 2, at 1106 (in 1890, when Congress passed the statute at issue in Field, tariff revenues were 57% of the total receipts of the Federal Government). And the delegation then thus affected a far higher percentage of federal revenues than the tax-related delegation over extremely "limited" tax benefits here. See supra, at 487.
The standards at issue in these earlier laws, such as "un-reasonable," were frequently vague and without precise meaning. See, e. g., Act of Oct. 1, 1890, § 3, 26 Stat. 612. Indeed, the word "equalize" in the 1922 statute, 42 Stat. 942, could not have been administered as if it offered the precision it seems to promise, for a tariff that literally "equalized" domestic and foreign production costs would, because of transport costs, have virtually ended foreign trade.
Nor can I accept the majority's effort to distinguish these examples. The majority says that these statutes imposed a specific "duty" upon the President to act upon the occurrence of a specified event. See ante, at 443. But, in fact, some of the statutes imposed no duty upon the President at all. See, e. g., Act of Dec. 19, 1806, ch. 1, 2 Stat. 411 (President "authorized" to "suspend the operation of" a customs law "if in his judgment the public interest should require it"). Others imposed a "duty" in terms so vague as to leave substantial discretion in the President's hands. See Act of Oct. 1, 1890, 26 Stat. 612 (President's "duty" to suspend tariff law was triggered "whenever" and "so often as" he was "satisfied"
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