Source: https://openjurist.org/293/us/245
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 05:57:24+00:00

Document:
The allegations of the petition do not mean that California has divested itself of any part of its power solely to determine what military training shall be offered or required at the University. While, by acceptance of the benefits of the Morrill Act of 1862 and the creation of the University in order appropriately to comply with the terms of the grant, the state became bound to offer students in that University instruction in military tactics, it remains untrammeled by federal enactment and is entirely free to determine for itself the branches of military training to be provided, the content of the instruction to be given, and the objectives to be attained. That state—as did each of the other states of the Union—for the proper discharge of its obligations as beneficiary of the grant made the course in military instruction compulsory upon students. Recently Wisconsin and Minnesota have made it elective.3 The question whether the state has bound itself to require students to take the training is not here involved. The validity of the challenged order does not depend upon the terms of the land grant.
The petition is not to be understood as showing that students required by the regents' order to take the prescribed course thereby serve in the Army or in any sense become a part of the military establishment of the United States. Nor is the allegation that the courses are prescribed by the War Department to be taken literally. We take judicial notice of the long-established voluntary co-operation between federal and state authorities in respect of the military instruction given in the land grant colleges.4 The War Department has not been empowered to determine, or in any manner to prescribe, the military instruction in these institutions. The furnishing of officers, men, and equipment conditioned upon the giving of courses and the imposing of discipline deemed appropriate, recommended, or approved by the Department does not support the suggestion that the training is not exclusively prescribed and given under the authority of the state. The states are interested in the safety of the United States, the strength of its military forces, and its readiness to defend them in war and against every attack of public enemies. Gilbert v. Minnesota, 254 U.S. 325, 328, 329, 41 S.Ct. 125, 65 L.Ed. 287; State v. Holm, 139 Minn. 267, 273, 166 N.W. 181, L.R.A. 1918C, 304. Undoubtedly every state has authority to train its able-bodied male citizens of suitable age appropriately to develop fitness, should any such duty be laid upon them, to serve in the United States Army or in state militia (always liable to be called forth by federal authority to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrection, or repel invasion, Constitution, art. 1, § 8, cls. 12, 15 and 16. Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U.S. 366, 380—383, 38 S.Ct. 159, 62 L.Ed. 349, L.R.A. 1918C, 361, Ann. Cas. 1918B, 856; State v. Industrial Comm. (1925) 186 Wis. 1, 202 N.W. 191) or as members of local constabulary forces or as officers needed effectively to police the state. And, when made possible by the national government, the state, in order more effectively to teach and train its citizens for these and like purposes, may avail itself of the services of officers and equipment belonging to the military establishment of the United States. So long as its action is within retained powers and not inconsistent with any exertion of the authority of the national government and transgresses no right safeguarded to the citizen by the Federal Constitution, the state is the sole judge of the means to be employed and the amount of training to be exacted for the effective accomplishment of these ends. Second Amendment; Houston v. Moore, 5 Wheat. 1, 16, 17, 5 L.Ed. 19; Dunne v. People (1879) 94 Ill. 120, 129, 34 Am.Rep. 213; 1 Kent's Commentaries, 265, 389. Cf. Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, 6 S.Ct. 580, 29 L.Ed. 615.
The clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment invoked by appellants declare: 'No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.' Appellants' contentions are that the enforcement of the order prescribing instruction in military science and tactics abridges some privilege or immunity covered by the first clause and deprives of liberty safeguarded by the second. The 'privileges and immunities' protected are only those that belong to citizens of the United States as distinguished from citizens of the states—those that arise from the Constitution and laws of the United States as contrasted with those that spring from other sources. Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 72—74, 77—80, 21 L.Ed. 394; McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1, 38, 13 S.Ct. 3, 36 L.Ed. 869; Duncan v. Missouri, 152 U.S. 377, 382, 14 S.Ct. 570, 38 L.Ed. 485; Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78, 97, 29 S.Ct. 14, 53 L.Ed. 97; Maxwell v. Bugbee, 250 U.S. 525, 538, 40 S.Ct. 2, 63 L.Ed. 1124; Prudential Ins. Co. v. Cheek, 259 U.S. 530, 539, 42 S.Ct. 516, 66 L.Ed. 1044, 27 A.L.R. 27. Appellants assert—unquestionably in good faith—that all war, preparation for war, and the training required by the University are repugnant to the tenets and discipline of their church, to their religion, and to their consciences. The 'privilege' of attending the University as a student comes not from federal sources but is given by the state. It is not within the asserted protection. The only 'immunity' claimed by these students is freedom from obligation to comply with the rule prescribing military training. But that 'immunity' cannot be regarded as not within, or as distinguishable from, the 'liberty' of which they claim to have been deprived by the enforcement of the regents' order. If the regents' order is not repugnant to the due process clause, then it does not violate the privileges and immunities clause. Therefore we need only decide whether by state action the 'liberty' of these students has been infringed.
There is no occasion at this time to mark the limits of governmental power in the exaction of military service when the nation is at peace.* The petitioners have not been required to bear arms for any hostile purpose, offensive or defensive, either now or in the future. They have not even been required in any absolute or peremptory way to join in courses of instruction that will fit them to bear arms. If they elect to resort to an institution for higher education maintained with the state's moneys, then and only then they are commanded to follow courses of instruction believed by the state to be vital to its welfare. This may be condemned by some as unwise or illiberal or unfair when there is violence to conscientious scruples, either religious or merely ethical. More must be shown to set the ordinance at naught. In controversies of this order, courts do not concern themselves with matters of legislative policy, unrelated to privileges or liberties secured by the organic law. The First Amendment, if it be read into the Fourteenth, makes invalid any state law 'respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.' Instruction in military science is not instruction in the practice or tenets of a religion. Neither directly nor indirectly is government establishing a state religion when it insists upon such training. Instruction in military science, unaccompanied here by any pledge of military service, is not an interference by the state with the free exercise of religion when the liberties of the Constitution are read in the light of a century and a half of history during days of peace and war.
Manifestly a different doctrine would carry us to lengths that have never yet been dreamed of. The conscientious objector, if his liberties were to be thus extended, might refuse to contribute taxes in furtherance of a war, whether for attack or for defense, or in furtherance of any other end condemned by his conscience as irreligious or immoral. The right of private judgment has never yet been so exalted above the powers and the compulsion of the agencies of government. One who is a martyr to a principle—which may turn out in the end to be a delusion or an error—does not prove by his martyrdom that he has kept within the law.
The quoted language, section 4, has been twice re-enacted. See Act of March 3, 1883, 22 Stat. 484 and Act of April 13, 1926, 44 Stat. 247 (7 USCA § 304).
Morrill Act land grant colleges have been given federal aid under the following Acts: March 2, 1887, 24 Stat. 440 (7 USCA §§ 362, 363, 365, 368, 377—379); August 30, 1890, 26 Stat. 417 (7 USCA §§ 321—328); March 16, 1906, 34 Stat. 63; March 4, 1907, 34 Stat. 1256, 1281 (7 USCA § 322); May 8, 1914, 38 Stat. 372 (7 USCA §§ 341—348); February 24, 1925, 43 Stat. 970 (7 USCA §§ 361, 366, 370 et seq., 380, 382); May 22, 1928, 45 Stat. 711 (7 USCA §§ 343a, 343b). And see Acts of February 23, 1917, 39 Stat. 929 (20 USCA §§ 11—28); June 7, 1924, 43 Stat. 653 (16 USCA §§ 471, 499 note, 505, 515, 564—570); February 9, 1927, 44 Stat. 1065 (7 USCA § 146).
Micas v. Williams, 104 U.S. 556, 26 L.Ed. 842; Wabash R.R. Co. v. Flannigan, 192 U.S. 29, 38, 24 S.Ct. 224, 48 L.Ed. 328; Deming v. Carlisle Packing Co., 226 U.S. 102, 105, 107, 33 S.Ct. 80, 57 L.Ed. 140; Erie Railroad v. Solomon, 237 U.S. 427, 35 S.Ct. 648, 59 L.Ed. 1033; Chi., Rock Island & P.R.R. v. Devine, 239 U.S. 52, 54, 36 S.Ct. 27, 60 L.Ed. 140; Sugarman v. United States, 249 U.S. 182, 39 S.Ct. 191, 63 L.Ed. 550; Quong Ham Wah Co. v. Industrial Accident Comm., 255 U.S. 445, 448, 449, 41 S.Ct. 373, 65 L.Ed. 723; Zucht v. King, 260 U.S. 174, 176, 43 S.Ct. 24, 67 L.Ed. 194; Roe v. Kansas, 278 U.S. 191, 49 S.Ct. 160, 73 L.Ed. 259; Seaboard Air Line Ry. v. Watson, 287 U.S. 86, 92, 53 S.Ct. 32, 77 L.Ed. 180, 86 A.L.R. 174.
Each state has a land grant college; Massachusetts has two. In 1923 Wisconsin made the course elective. Wis. Laws 1923, c. 226. On the argument of this case, appellants' counsel stated that Minnesota has recently made the course elective. Circular 126, Preliminary Report, Land-Grant Colleges and Universities, 1933, Department of Interior, Office of Education.
Sections 40—47 of National Defense Act of June 3, 1916, 39 Stat. 166, 191—192, as amended by sections 33 and 34 of Act of June 4, 1920, 41 Stat. 759, 776, 777, Act of June 5, 1920, 41 Stat. 948, 967, and Act of May 12, 1928, 45 Stat. 501. 10 U.S.C. §§ 381—390 (10 USCA §§ 381—390); Army Regulations No. 145-10, § II, pars. 10 and 11.
As to the duty of the able-bodied citizen to aid in suppressing crime, see Matter of Babington v. Yellow Taxi Corp., 250 N.Y. 14, 16, 164 N.E. 726, 61 A.L.R. 1354, and the authorities there assembled.

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