Court Opinion

ID: 9418439
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:25:32.450916+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:03.006832
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Brandéis,
dissenting.
Joseph Gilbert, manager of the organization department of the Non-partisan Leajgue, was sentenced to fine and imprisonment for speaking on August 18, .1917, at a public meeting of the League, words held to be prohibited by c. 463 of the laws of Minnesota, approved April 20, 1917. Gilbert was a citizen of the United States, and apparently of a State other than Minnesota. He claimed seasonably that the statute violated, rights guaranteed to him by the Federal Constitution. This claim has been denied; and, in my opinion, erroneously.
The Minnesota statute was enacted during the World War; but it is not a war measure. The statute is said to have been enacted by the State under its police power to preserve the peace; — but it is in fact an act to prevent teaching that the abolition of war is possible. Unlike the Federal Espionage Act of June 15,1917, c. 30,40 Stat. 217, 219, it applies equally whether the United States is at peace or at war. It abridges freedom of speech and of the press, not in a particular emergency, in order to avert a clear -and present danger, but under all circumstances. The restriction imposed relates to the teaching of . the doctrine of pacifism and the legislature in effect proscribes it for all time. The .statute does not in terms prohibit .the teaching of the doctrine. Its'prohibition is-more specific and is-directed against the teaching of certain applications of it. This specification operates, as will be seen, rather to extend, than to limit the scope of the prohibition.
*335Sections 1 and 2 prohibit teaching or advocating by-printed matter, writing or word of mouth, that men should not enlist in the military or naval forces of the United States. The prohibition is made to appiy whatever the motive, the intention, or the purpose of him who teaches. It applies alike to the preacher in the pulpitj the professor at the university, the speaker at a political meeting, the lecturer at a society or club gathering. Whatever -the nature of the meeting and whether it be public or private, the prohibition is absolute, if five persons are assembled. The reason given by the speaker for advising against enlistment is immaterial. Young men considering whether they should enter these services as a means of earning a livelihood or as a career, may not be told that, in the opinion of the speaker, they can serve their country and themselves better by entering the civil service of State or Nation, or by studying for one of the professions, or by engaging in the transportation service, or in farming or in business, or by becoming a workman in some productive industry. Although conditions may exist in the Army or the Navy which are undermining efficiency, which tend to demoralize those who enter the service and would render futile their best efforts, the State forbids citizens of the United States to. advocate that men should not enlist until existing abuses or defects are remedied. The prohibition imposed by the Minnesota statute has no relation to existing needs or desires of the Government. It applies although recruiting is neither in process nor in contemplation. For the statute aims to prevent not acts but beliefs. The prohibition imposed by § 3 is even more far-reaching than that provided in §§ 1 and 2. Section 3 makes it punishable to teach in any place a single person that a citizen should not aid in carrying on a war, no matter what the relation of the parties may be. Thus the statute invades the privacy and freedom of the home. Father and mother may not follow the promptings of religious belief, *336of conscience or of conviction, and teach son or daughter the doctrine of pacifism. If they do any police officer may summarily arrest them. ' "
That such a law is inconsistent with the conceptions of liberty hitherto-prevailing seems clear. But.it is said that the guaranty against abridging freedom of speech contained in the First Amendment of the Federal Constitution applies only to federal action; , that the legislation here complained of is that of a State; that the validity of the statute has been sustained by its highest court as a police measure; that the matter is one of state concern; and that, consequently this court cannot interfere. But the-matter is not one merely of state concern. The state law affects directly the functions of the Federal Government. It affects rights, privileges and immunities, of one who is a citizen of the United States; and it deprives him of an important part of his liberty. These are. rights which are guaranteed protection by the Federal Constitution; and they are invaded by the statute in question.
Congress has the exclusive power to legislate concerning the Army and the Navy of the United States, and to determine, among other things, the conditions of enlistment. It has likewise exclusive power to declaré war, to determine to what extent citizens shall aid in its prosecution and how effective aid may best be secured. Congress, which has power to raise an army and-naval forces by conscription when public safety demands, may, tó avert a clear and present danger, prohibit interference, by persuasion with the process of either compulsory or voluntary enlistment. As an incident of its power to declare war it may, when the public safety demands, require from every citizen full support, and may, to avert a clear and present danger, prohibit interference by persuasion with the giving of such support. But Congress might conclude that the most effective Army or Navy would be one composed wholly of men who had enlisted with full appreciation of *337the limitations and obligations which the service imposes, and in the face of efforts to discourage their doing so.1 It might conclude that the most effective Army would be one composed exclusively of men who are firmly convinced that war is sometimes necessary if honor is to be preserved, and also that the particular war in which they are engaged is a just one. Congress, legislating for a people justly proud of liberties theretofore enjoyed and suspicious or resentful of any interference with them, might conclude that even in times of grave danger, the most effective means of securing support from the great body of citizens is to accord to all full freedom to criticise the acts and administration of their country, although such freedom may be used by a few to urge upon their fellow-citizens not to aid the Government in carrying on a war, which reason or faith tells them is wrong and will, therefore, bring misery upon their country.
The right to speak freely concerning functions of the Federal Government is a privilege or immunity of every citizen of the United States which, even before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, a State was powerless to curtail. It was held in Crandall v. Nevada, 6 Wall. 35, 44, that the United States has the power to call to the seat of government or elsewhere any citizen to aid it in the conduct of public affairs; that every citizen has the correlative right to go there or anywhere in the pursuit of public or private business; and that “no power can exist in a State to obstruct this right which would not enable it to defeat the purpose for which the government was established.” The right of a citizen of the United States to take part, for his. own or the country’s benefit, in the making of federal laws and in the conduct of the Government, necessarily includes the right to speak or write about them; to endeavor to make bis own opinion concerning laws existing *338or contemplated prevail; and, to this end, to teach the truth- as he sees it. Were this not so “the right of the people peaceably to assemble for the purpose of petitioning Congress for a redress of grievances, or for any thing else connected with the powers or dúties of the national government” would be a right totally without substance. See United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 552; Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 79. Full and free exercise of this right by the citizen is ordinarily also his duty; for its exercise is more important to the Nation than it is to himself. Like the course of the heavenly bodies, harmony in national life is a resultant of the struggle between contending forces. In frank expression of conflicting opinion lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action; and in suppression lies ordinarily the greatest peril. There are times when those charged with the responsibility of Government, faced with clear and present danger, may conclude that suppression of divergent opinion is imperative; because the emergency does not permit reliance upon the slower conquest of error by truth. And in such emergencies the power to suppress exists. But the responsibility for the maintenance of the Army and Navy, for the conduct of war and for the preservation of government, both state and federal, from “malice domestic and foreign levy” rests upon Congress. It is true that the States have the power of self-preservation inherent in any government to suppress insurrection and repel invasion; and to that end they may maintain such a force of militia as Congress may prescribe and arm. Houston v. Moore, 5 Wheat. 1. But the duty of preserving the state governments falls ultimately upon the Federal Government, Luther v. Borden, 7 How. 1, 77; Prize Cases, 2 Black, 635, 668; Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700, 727. And the superior responsibility carries with it the superior right. The States act only under the express direction of Congress. See National Defence Act, June 3, 1916, c. 134, 39 Stat. *339166; Selective Service Act, May 18, 1917, c. 15, 40 Stat. 76. The fact that they may stimulate and encourage recruiting, just as they may stimulate and encourage interstate commerce, Monongahela Navigation Co. v. United States, 148 U. S. 312, 329, does not give them the power by police regulations or otherwise to exceed the authority expressly granted to them by the Federal Government. See Kurtz v. Moffitt, 115 U. S. 4.87, Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 16 Pet. 539. Congress, being charged with responsibility'for those functions of Government, must determine whether a paramount interest of the Nation demands that free discussion in relation to them should be curtailed. No State may trench upon its province.
Prior to the passage of the Minnesota statute it had been the established policy of the United States, departed from only once in the life of the Nation,1 to raise its military and naval forces in times of war as in peace exclusively by voluntary enlistment. Service was deemed a privilege of Americans, not a duty exacted by law. Specific provision had been made to ensure that enlistment should be the result of .free, informed and deliberate choice.2 The law of the United States left an American as *340free to advise his fellows not . to enter the Army or the Navy as he was free to recommend their enlistment. The Government had exacted from American citizens no service except the prompt payment of taxes. Although war had been declared such was still the policy and the law of the United States when Minnesota enacted the statute here in question.
The Minnesota statute was, when enacted, inconsistent with the law of the United States, because at that time Congress still permitted free discussion of these governmental functions. Later, and before Gilbert spoke the words complained of, the Federal Espionage Law was enacted, but the Minnesota statute was also inconsistent with it. The federal act did not prohibit the teaching of any doctrine; it prohibited only certain tangible obstructions to. the conduct of the- existing war with the German Empire committed with criminal intent. It was so understood and administered by the Department of Justice.1 Under the Minnesota law, teaching or advice that men, *341should not enlist is made punishable although the jury should find (1) that the teaching or advocacy proved wholly futile' and no obstruction resulted; (2) that there was no intent to obstruct; and the court, taking judicial notice of facts, should rule (3) th^t, when the words were written or spoken, the United States was at peace with all the world. That this conflict was not merely a technical one but a cause of real embarrassment and danger to the Federal Government, we learn from one of the officials entrusted with the administration of the Espionage Act:
“In the State of Minnesota because of what was claimed to be either inadequate federal law or inadequate federal administration, state laws of a sweeping character were passed and enforced with' severity. Whether justified or not in adopting this policy of repression, the result of its . adoption increased discontent and the most serious cases of alleged interference with civil liberty were reported to the federal government from that state.” 1
In Johnson v. Maryland, ante, 51, this court held that the power of Congress to establish post roads precluded the State from requiring of a post-office employee using the state highway in the transportation of mail the customary evidence of competency to drive a motor truck, although the danger to public safety was obvious and it did. not appear that the Federal Government hád undertaken to deal with the matter by statute or regulation. The prohibition of state action rests, as the court pointed out there, “not upon any consideration of degree but upon the entire absence of power on the part of the States to touch . . . the instrumentalities of the United States.” As exclusive power over enlistments in the Army and the Navy of the United States and the responsibility for the conduct of war is vested by the Federal Constitution in Congress, *342legislation by a State on this subject is necessarily void unless authorized by Congress. It is so when Congress makes no regulation, because by omitting to make regulations Congress signifies its intention that, in this respect, the action of the citizen shall be Untrammelled. This would be true, even if the subject in question were one over which Congress and the States have concurrent power. For where Congress has occupied a field theretofore open also to state legislation, it necessarily excludes all such. Southern Ry. Co. v. Reid, 222 U. S. 424; Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Hardwick Farmers Elevator Co., 226 U. S. 426. Here Congress, not only had exclusive power to act on the subject; it had exercised that power directly by the Espionage Law beforé Gilbert spoke the words for which he was sentenced. The provisions of the Minnesota statute and its title preclude a contention that its purpose was to prevent breaches of the peace'. Compare Ex parte Meckel, 220 S. W. Rep. (Tex.) 81. But neither the fact that it was a police regulation, New York Central R. R. Co. v. Winfield, 244 U. S. 147, nor the fact that it was legislation in aid of congressional action would, if true, save the statute. For “when the United States has exercised its exclusive powers . . . so far as to take possession of the field, the States can no inore supplement its requirements than they can annul them.” Pennsylvania R. R. Co. v. Public Service Commission, 250 U. S. 566, 569; Northern Pacific Ry. Co. v. Washington, 222 U. S. 370. The exclusiveness ofi the power of the Federal Government with which this state legislation interferes springs from the very roots of political sovereignty. The States may not punish treason against the United States, People v. Lynch, 11 Johns. (N. Y.) 549; Ex parte Quarrier, 2 W. Va. 569; although indirectly acts of treason may affect them vitally. No more may they arrogate to themselves authority to punish the teaching of pacifism which the legislature of Minnesota appears *343to have put into that category. Compare Schaefer v. United States, 251 U. S. 466, 494, note.
As the Minnesota statute is in my opinion invalid because it interferes with federal functions and with the right of a citizen of the United States to discuss them, I see no occasion to consider whether it violates also the Fourteenth Amendment. But I have difficulty in believing that the liberty guaranteed by the Constitution, which has been held to protect against state denial the right of ah employer to discriminate against a workman because he is a member of a trade union, Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U. S. 1, the right of a business man to conduct a private employment agency, Adams v. Tanner, 244 U. S. 590, or to contract outside the State for insurance of his property, Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U. S. 578, 589, although the legislature deems it inimical to the public welfare, does not include liberty to teach, either in the privacy of the home or publicly, the doctrine of pacifism; so long, at least, as Congress has not declared that the public safety demands its suppression. I cannot believe that the liberty guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment includes only liberty to acquire and to enjoy property.

See General John A. Logan, “The Volunteer Soldier of America,” pp. 89-91; Col. F. N. Maude in the Contemporary Review, v. 189, p. 37.

Act of March 3, 1863, c. 75, 12 Stat. 731.

 Recruiting officers were required to explain'to every man before he signed the enlistment paper the nature of the service, the length of the term, the amount of pay, clothing, rations and other allowances to which a soldier is entitled by law; and to read and explain to the applicant many of the Articles of War before administering to him the oath of enlistment. U. S. Army Regulations, 1913, paragraphs 854, 856.
The following is contained in the instructions sent to all officers and men assigned to recruiting duty:
“All progress and success rests fundamentally on truth. Hence never resort to indirection or misrepresentation or suppression of part of the facts in order to push a wavering case over the line. Recruits signed up on misrepresented facts or partial information do not make good soldiers. They resent being’fooled just as you would, and will-never yield their full value to a Government whose agents obtained their services in a way not fully square. Therefore tell your prospect anything he *340wants to know about the Army. If the real facts are not strong enough to win him, you don’t want him anyway.” Recruiters ■iHandbook, United States Army, p. 16.

 “The general policy of the Attorney General (Mr.. Gregory) toward free speech has been well understood and adhered to by his subordinates with a good deal of consistency. From the outset, recognizing that free expression of public opinion is the life of the nation, we have endeavored to impress on our subordinates the necessity of keeping within the limits of policy established by Congress and bearing in mind at all times the, constitutional guarantees. Repeatedly their attention has been called to the fact that expression of private or public opinion relating' to matters of governmental policy or of political character must not be confused with wilful attempts to interfere with our conduct of the war. At all times we have had before us the dangers which follow attempts to restrain public discussion and so far as instructions issued by the Attorney General have been concerned, they have consistently and at all times emphasized this general policy.” John Lord O’Brian, “Civil Liberty in War Time,” Report of New York State Bar Association, vol. 42, p. 308.

 Report of Now York Bar Association, vol. 42, p. 296.-