Source: http://openjurist.org/print/25420
Timestamp: 2015-08-30 20:26:18
Document Index: 282442988

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1757', '§ 16', '§ 16', '§ 305', '§ 305', '§ 1581', '§ 1581']

328 US 61 Girouard v. United States
Home > 328 US 61 Girouard v. United States
328 US 61 Girouard v. United States 328 U.S. 61
66 S.Ct. 826
90 L.Ed. 1084
GIROUARDv.UNITED STATES.
Messrs. Homer Cummings and William D. Donnelly, both of Washington D.C., for petitioner.
The Schwimmer, Macintosh and Bland cases involved, as does the present one, a question of statutory construction. At the time of those cases, Congress required an alien, before admission to citizenship, to declare on oath in open court that 'he will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and bear true faith and allegiance to the same.'1 It also required the court to be satisfied that the alien had during the five year period immediately proceeding the date of his application 'behaved as a man of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same.'2 Those provisions were reenacted into the present law in substantially the same form.3
While there are some factual distinctions between this case and the Schwimmer and Macintosh cases, the Bland case on its facts is indistinguishable. But the principle emerging from the three cases obliterates any factual distinction among them. As we recognized in Re Summers, 325 U.S. 561, 572, 577, 65 S.Ct. 1307, 1313, 1316, they stand for the same general rule—that an alien who refuses to bear arms will not be admitted to citizenship. As an original proposition, we could not agree with that rule. The fallacies underlying it were, we think demonstrated in the dissents of Mr. Justice Holmes in the Schwimmer case and of Mr. Chief Justice Hughes in the Macintosh case.
Petitioner's religious scruples would not disqualify him from becoming a member of Congress or holding other public offices. While Article VI, Clause 3 of the Constitution provides that such officials, both of the United States and the several States, 'shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution,' it significantly adds that 'no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.' The oath required is in no material respect different from that prescribed for aliens under the Naturalization Act. It has long contained the provision 'that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion.' R.S. § 1757, 5 U.S.C. § 16, 5 U.S.C.A. § 16. As Mr. Chief Justice Hughes stated in his dissent in the Macintosh case, 283 U.S. at page 631, 51 S.Ct. at page 577, 75 L.Ed. 1302, 'the history of the struggle for religious liberty, the large number of citizens of our country from the very beginning who have been unwilling to sacrifice their religious convictions, and, in particular, those who have been conscientiously opposed to war and who would not yield what they sincerely believed to be their allegiance to the will of God'—these considerations make it impossible to conclude 'that such persons are to be deemed disqualified for public office in this country because of the requirement of the oath which must be taken before they enter upon their duties.'
As Mr. Chief Justice Hughes pointed out (United States v. Macintosh, supra, 283 U.S. at page 633, 51 S.Ct. at page 578, 75 L.Ed. 1302), religious scruples against bearing arms have been recognized by Congress in the various draft laws. This is true of the selective Training and Service Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 889, 50 U.S.C.App. § 305(g), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 305(g),4 as it was of earlier acts. He who is inducted into the armed services takes an oath which includes the provision 'that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the United States of America; that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies whomsoever.'5 41 Stat. 809, 10 U.S.C. § 1581, 10 U.S.C.A. § 1581. Congress has thus recognized that one may adequately discharge his obligations as a citizen by rendering non-combatant as well as combatant services. This respect by Congress over the ears for the conscience of those having religious scruples against bearing arms is cogent evidence of the meaning of the oath. It is recognition by Congress that even in time of war one may truly support and defend our institutions though he stops short of using weapons of war.