Gilbert v. State of Minnesota
Citation | 41 S.Ct. 125,254 U.S. 325,65 L.Ed. 287 |
Decision Date | 13 December 1920 |
Docket Number | No. 79,79 |
Parties | GILBERT v. STATE OF MINNESOTA |
Court | United States Supreme Court |
Messrs. George Nordlin and Frederick A. Pike, both of St. Paul, Minn., for plaintiff in error.
Messrs. James E. Markham, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Clifford L. Hilton, Atty. Gen., for State of Minnesota.
A statute of Minnesota makes it unlawful 'to interfere with or discourage the enlistment of men in the military or naval forces of the United States or of the state of Minnesota.'
Its second and third sections are as follows:
'Sec. 2. Speaking by Word of Mouth against Enlistment Unlawful.—It shall be unlawful for any person in any public place, or at any meeting where more than five persons are assembled, to advocate or teach by word of mouth or otherwise that men should not enlist in the military or naval forces of the United States or the state of Minnesota.
'Sec. 3. Teaching or Advocating by Written or Printed Matter against Enlistment Unlawful.
—It shall be unlawful for any person to teach or advocate by any written or printed matter whatsoever, or by oral speech, that the citizens of this state should not aid or assist the United States in prosecuting or carrying on war with the public enemies of the United States.'
Section 4 defines a citizen to be 'any person within the confines of the state,' and section 5 declares violations of the act to be gross misdemeanors and punishable by fine and imprisonment. (Gen. St. Supp. 1917, §§ 8521-2 to 8521-5).
The indictment charged that Gilbert at a time and place designated in the state, and under the conditions prohibited by section 2, the United States being then and there at war with the kingdom and imperial government of Germany, used the following language:
A demurrer to the indictment was overruled, and Gilbert was tried and convicted. The judgment was that he pay a fine of $500 and be imprisoned in the county jail of the county of Goodhue for one year, and pay the costs of the prosecution. The judgment was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the state.
The statute, it is contended, is repugnant to the Constitution of the United States in that: (1) 'All power of legislation regarding the subject-matter contained in the statute is conferred upon Congress and withheld from the states.' (2) And that the statute is obnoxious to the 'inherent right of free speech respecting the concerns, activities and interests of the United States of America and its government.'
We shall consider the objections in their order. It is said in support of the exclusive power in Congress, that Congress alone can under the Constitution "provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,' 'declare war,' 'raise and support armies,' 'to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces." To these affirmative delegations of power to Congress, there is added, it is said, a prohibition to the states to 'engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.' And, These specific grounds of objection to the statute are attempted to be reinforced by analogy to the power of Congress over interstate commerce to the exclusion of the interference of the states.
The bases of the objections seem to be that plaintiff in error had an accountability as a citizen of the United States different from that which he had as a citizen of the state, and that therefore he was not subject to the power or jurisdiction of the state exercised in the act under review. Manifestly, to support the contention something more is necessary than the letter of the cited constitutional provisions. The broader proposition must be established that a state has no interest or concern in the United States or its armies or power of protecting them from public enemies.
Undoubtedly, the United States can declare war and it not the states, has the power to raise and maintain armies. But there are other considerations. The United States is composed of the states, the states are constituted of the citizens of the United States, who also are citizens of the states, and it is from these citizens that armies are raised and wars waged, and whether to victory and its benefits, or to defeat and its calamities, the states as well as the United States are intimately concerned. And whether to victory or defeat depends upon their morale, the spirit and determination that animates them—whether it is repellant and adverse or eager and militant, and to maintain it eager and militant against attempts at its debasement in aid of the enemies of the United States, is a service of patriotism, and from the contention that it encroaches upon or usurps any power of Congress, there is an instinctive and immediate revolt. Cold and technical reasoning in its minute consideration may indeed insist on a separation of the sovereignties and resistance in each to any co-operation from the other, but there is opposing demonstration in the fact that this country is one composed of many and must on occasions be animated as one, and that the constituted and constituting sovereignties must have power of co-operation against the enemies of all. Of such instance, we think, is the statute of Minnesota and it goes no farther. It, therefore, has none of the character of the illustrations adduced against it, nor the possibility of conflict of powers which they condemn. This was the view of the Supreme Court of the state, and the court expressed it with detail and force of reasoning. The same view of the statute was expressed in State v. Holm, 139 Minn. 267, 166 N. W. 181, L. R. A. 1918C, 304, where, after a full discussion, the contention was rejected that the Espionage Law of June 15, 1917 (Comp. St. 1918, Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1919, §§ 10212a-10212h), abrogated or superseded the statute, the court declaring that the fact that the citizens of the state are also citizens of the United States and owe a duty to the nation, does not absolve them from duty to the state nor preclude a state from enforcing such duty. 'The same act,' it was said, 'may be an offense or transgression of both' nation and state, and both may punish it without a conflict of their sovereignties. Numerous cases were cited commencing with Moore v. Illinois, 14 How. 13, 14 L. Ed. 306, and terminating with Halter v. Nebraska, 205 U. S. 341, 27 Sup. Ct. 419, 51 L. Ed. 696, 10 Ann. Cas. 525.
The latter case is especially pertinent in its sentiment and reasoning. It sustained a statute of Nebraska directed against the debasement of the national flag to trade uses against the contention that the flag being the national emblem was subject only to the control of the national power. In sustaining the statute it was recognized that in a degradation of the flag there is a degradation of all of which it is the symbol, that is, 'the national power and national honor,' and what they represent and have in trust. To maintain and reverence these, to 'encourage patriotism and love of country among its people,' may be affirmed, it was said, to be a duty that rests upon each state, and that 'when, by its legislation, the state encourages a feeling of patriotism towards the nation, it necessarily encourages a like feeling towards the state.'
And so with the statute of Minnesota. An army is an instrument of government, a necessity of its power and honor, and, it may be, of its security. An army, of course, can only be raised and directed by Congress; in neither has the state power, but it has power to regulate the conduct of its citizens and to restrain the exertion of baleful influences against the promptings of patriotic duty to the detriment of the welfare of the nation and state. To do so is not to usurp a national power; it is only to render a service to its people, as Nebraska rendered a service to its people when it inhibited the debasement of the flag.
We concur, therefore, in the final conclusion of the court, that the state is not inhibited from making 'the national purposes its own purposes, to the extent of exerting its police power to prevent its own citizens from obstructing the accomplishment of such purposes.'
The statute, indeed, may be supported as a simple exertion of the police power to preserve the peace of the state. As counsel for the state say:
And the state knew the conditions which existed, and could have...
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