382 Opinion of JACKSON, J. to take one overt step to use or to incite violence or force against our Government, I do not see how in the light of our history a mere belief that one has a natural right under some circumstances to do so can subject an American citizen to prejudice any more than possession of any other erroneous belief. Can we say that men of our time must not even think about the propositions on ment are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of a right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government; the doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind." Declaration of Rights of Maryland, 1867. "The right of revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to relieve themselves of the oppression, if they are strong enough, either by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and substituting a government more acceptable." U. S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, I, 1885. Quotations of similar statements could be multiplied indefinitely. Of course, these quotations are out of their context and out of their times. And despite their abstract theories about revolt, it should also be noted that Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln and Grant were uncompromising in putting down any show of rebellion toward the Government they headed. The revolutionary origin of our own Government has inclined Americans to value revolution as a means to liberty and loosely to think that all revolutionists are liberals. The fact is, however, that violent revolutions are rare which do more in the long run than to overthrow one tyranny to make way for another. The cycle from revolt to reaction has taken less than a score of bloody years in the great revolutions. The Puritan Commonwealth under Cromwell led but to the Restoration; the French by revolution escaped from the reign of Louis XVI to the dictatorship of Napoleon; the Russians overthrew the Czar and won the dictatorship of Lenin and Stalin; the Germans deposed the Kaiser and fell victims of a dictatorship by Hitler. I am convinced that force and violence do not serve the cause of liberty as well as nonviolence. See Fischer, Gandhi and Stalin, passim. But the sentiments I have quoted have strong appeal to the impetuous and are deeply imbedded in American tradition. Opinion of JACKSON, J. 339 U.S. which our own Revolution was justified? Or may they think, provided they reach only one conclusion-and that the opposite of Mr. Jefferson's? While the Governments, State and Federal, have expansive powers to curtail action, and some small powers to curtail speech or writing, I think neither has any power, on any pretext, directly or indirectly to attempt foreclosure of any line of thought. Our forefathers found the evils of free thinking more to be endured than the evils of inquest or suppression. They gave the status of almost absolute individual rights to the outward means of expressing belief. I cannot believe that they left open a way for legislation to embarrass or impede the mere intellectual processes by which those expressions of belief are examined and formulated. This is not only because individual thinking presents no danger to society, but because thoughtful, bold and independent minds are essential to wise and considered self-government. Progress generally begins in skepticism about accepted truths. Intellectual freedom means the right to re-examine much that has been long taken for granted. A free man must be a reasoning man, and he must dare to doubt what a legislative or electoral majority may most passionately assert. The danger that citizens will think wrongly is serious, but less dangerous than atrophy from not thinking at all. Our Constitution relies on our electorate's complete ideological freedom to nourish independent and responsible intelligence and preserve our democracy from that submissiveness, timidity and herd-mindedness of the masses which would foster a tyranny of mediocrity. The priceless heritage of our society is the unrestricted constitutional right of each member to think as he will. Thought control is a copyright of totalitarianism, and we have no claim to it. It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the 382 Opinion of JACKSON, J. citizen to keep the Government from falling into error. We could justify any censorship only when the censors are better shielded against error than the censored. The idea that a Constitution should protect individual nonconformity is essentially American and is the last thing in the world that Communists will tolerate. Nothing exceeds the bitterness of their demands for freedom for themselves in this country except the bitterness of their intolerance of freedom for others where they are in power.13 An exaction of some profession of belief or nonbelief is precisely what the Communists would enact—each individual must adopt the ideas that are common to the ruling group. Their whole philosophy is to minimize man as an individual and to increase the power of man acting in the mass. If any single characteristic distinguishes our democracy from Communism it is our recognition of the individual as a personality rather than as a soulless part in the jigsaw puzzle that is the collectivist state. I adhere to views I have heretofore expressed, whether the Court agreed, West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, or disagreed, see dissenting opinion in United States v. Ballard, 322 U. S. 78, 92, that our Constitution excludes both general and local governments from the realm of opinions and ideas, beliefs and doubts, heresy and orthodoxy, political, religious or scientific. The right to speak out, or to publish, also 13 Prime Minister Attlee recently stated: "I constantly get hypocritical resolutions protesting against alleged infringements of freedom in this country. I get protests because we keep out from places where secret work is carried on people who cannot be trusted. This from Communists who know that their fellows in Communist countries carry on a constant purge and ruthlessly remove from office anyone who shows the slightest sign of deviating from what their rulers consider to be orthodoxy. It is sickening hypocrisy." London Times Weekly Edition, July 6, 1949. Opinion of JACKSON, J. 339 U.S. is protected when it does not clearly and presently threaten some injury to society which the Government has a right to protect. Separate opinion, Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516. But I have protested the degradation of these constitutional liberties to immunize and approve mob movements, whether those mobs be religious or political, radical or conservative, liberal or illiberal, Douglas v. City of Jeannette, 319 U. S. 157; Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1, 13, or to authorize pressure groups to use amplifying devices to drown out the natural voice and destroy the peace of other individuals. Saia v. People of New York, 334 U. S. 558; Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77. And I have pointed out that men cannot enjoy their right to personal freedom if fanatical masses, whatever their mission, can strangle individual thoughts and invade personal privacy. Martin v. Struthers, 319 U. S. 141, dissent at 166. A catalogue of rights was placed in our Constitution, in my view, to protect the individual in his individuality, and neither statutes which put those rights at the mercy of officials nor judicial decisions which put them at the mercy of the mob are consistent with its text or its spirit. I think that under our system, it is time enough for the law to lay hold of the citizen when he acts illegally, or in some rare circumstances when his thoughts are given illegal utterance. I think we must let his mind alone.14 14 The Court appears to recognize and compound the constitutional weakness of this statute and, to save this part of the oath from unconstitutionality, declines to read the text "very literally." It renders the Act to call for disclaimer of belief in forcible overthrow only as an objective but not as a prophecy. And furthermore, one is allowed to believe in forcible overthrow, even as an objective, so long as the belief does not relate to the Government "as it now exists." I think we do not make an Act constitutional by making it vague but only compound its invalidity. Cf. Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507. 382 BLACK, J., dissenting. IV. The task of this Court to maintain a balance between liberty and authority is never done, because new conditions today upset the equilibriums of yesterday. The seesaw between freedom and power makes up most of the history of governments, which, as Bryce points out, on a long view consists of repeating a painful cycle from anarchy to tyranny and back again. The Court's day-today task is to reject as false, claims in the name of civil liberty which, if granted, would paralyze or impair authority to defend existence of our society, and to reject as false, claims in the name of security which would undermine our freedoms and open the way to oppression. These are the competing considerations involved in judging any measures which government may take to suppress or disadvantage its opponents and critics. I conclude that today's task can only be discharged by holding that all parts of this oath which require disclosure of overt acts of affiliation or membership in the Communist Party are within the competence of Congress to enact and that any parts of it that call for a disclosure of belief unconnected with any overt act are beyond its power.15 MR. JUSTICE BLACK, dissenting. We have said that "Freedom to think is absolute of its own nature; the most tyrannical government is powerless to control the inward workings of the mind."1 But people can be, and in less democratic countries have 15 This conclusion, if it prevailed, would require decision of the effect of partial invalidity on the whole and the applicability of the severability clause. As it does not prevail, discussion of the question would be academic. 1 Dissenting opinion in Jones v. Opelika, 316 U. S. 584, 618, adopted as the Court's opinion in 319 U. S. 103. See also Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 303. |