Court Opinion

ID: 9422315
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:02:03.891965+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:35.922962
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Black,
dissenting.
As a prerequisite to his union’s right to seek relief from unfair labor practices before the National Labor Relations Board, petitioner was compelled to subscribe to an oath *259which stated: (1) “I am not a member of the Communist Party or affiliated with such Party;” and (2) “I do not believe in, and I am not a member of nor do I support any organization that believes in or teaches, the overthrow of the United States Government by force or by any illegal or unconstitutional methods.” The Government now claims that in submitting to this compulsion petitioner made false statements as to his membership in and affiliation with the Communist Party, and on the basis of these allegedly false statements it seeks to send petitioner to prison. I agree with MR. Justice Douglas that if the Government is to be allowed to do this sort of thing at all, it should only be upon a showing that petitioner was a member who engaged in illegal activities in connection with his Communist Party membership. But I wish also to reiterate my own belief that our Constitution, properly interpreted and applied, would prohibit this prosecution completely — regardless of the nature of petitioner’s connection with the Communist Party. I think the Constitution absolutely prohibits the Government from sending people to jail for “crimes” that arise out of, and indeed are manufactured out of, the imposition of test oaths that invade the freedoms of belief and political association— freedoms which the Founders of our Nation recognized as indispensable to a democratic society.
The test oath is an historic weapon against religious and political minorities, but the fact that this practice has survived the centuries surely cannot be pointed to either as a source of pride or, in my judgment, as evidence that the practice is constitutional. Quite the contrary, I think that history shows test oaths to be one of the most generally and continuously hated and dangerous forms of governmental intrusion upon individual freedom that liberty-loving people have had to contend with. It was squarely in the face of this history of almost universal condemnation that this Court, in American Communica*260tions Assn. v. Douds, 339 U. S. 382, upheld the test oath requirement upon which this prosecution is based, resting its decision upon the ground that however obnoxious test oaths may be, they must be endured in the interest of interstate commerce. Eleven years have elapsed since that decision and I think it is fair to say that this recent experience with test oaths in this country has done nothing to change the evil reputation they gained throughout previous centuries in other countries. The question before us now is thus no different from that originally presented to us in Douds: Can Congress, in the name of regulation of interstate commerce, circumvent the history, language and purpose of our Bill of Rights and impose test oaths designed to penalize political or religious minorities? I would overrule the decision in Douds and order this prosecution dismissed. As I said there, “Whether religious, political, or both, test oaths are implacable foes of free thought. By approving their imposition, this Court has injected compromise into a field where the First Amendment forbids compromise.” Id., at 448.
Mr. Justice Douglas has asked me to add the following: “I dedupe from what the Court does today that the Douds decision was good for one Monday only and that it is being overruled sub silentio on the point now in issue. I did not participate in the Douds decision as I was necessarily absent when it was argued. I would, however, be content to decide this case within the framework which the Douds case established. Yet since the Douds decision is now apparently discarded on the point in issue, and since we face anew the precise question it tendered, I see no constitutional answer to the opinions of Mr. Justice Black in that case and in the present one that Congress has no power to exact from people affirmations or affidavits of belief, apart from the accepted form of oath of office demanded of all officials.”