"It is not only a legal requirement but also a principle of wisdom and good citizenship for an individual called before a court, grand jury, or a legislative committee, to answer questions frankly and honestly. The constitutional privilege to keep silent is an exception to the legal obligation to testify, but even when the legal privilege is available, there are times when it is best not exercised."
The logical relevance of this second statement I find very hard to determine. What guidance does one draw from a general principle which, at the specific point in question, is recognized as outlawed by the Constitution? And further, when we are talking about "wisdom and good citizenship," the matter at issue is not a "legal privilege" but a "moral duty." And, that being true, there are no "times when it is best not exercised."
5.
But the other demand that every citizen shall, in every relevant situation, "cooperate in government" cannot, in the same way, be set aside. In some sense, that duty is laid upon every one of us. But in what sense? Does it mean that our only duty is to obey the laws and submit, without question, to the authority of our agents who govern us? That suggestion, which would be valid in a despotic society, is intolerable where men, as we say, "govern themselves." If it were true what is the purpose of those "checks and balances" by which each of the separate branches of our government holds powers which no other branch may invade? A refusal to obey a specific Congressional demand for information is not, in itself, a refusal to cooperate in government. The President of the United States has, on occasion, denied to Congress information from his files. So, too, have the Departments of State, Justice, and War. Have they, then, failed in their duty? Certainly not, if Congress, in seeking the information, was usurping powers not granted to it by the Constitution. In that situation, the duty of cooperation requires the denial of the illegitimate demand, rather than submission to it. And, in a free society, that duty is laid upon the citizens as directly and inescapably as upon their representatives. Unless men are willing, when emergency come, to do that duty, whatever the cost to themselves, the entire structure of free institutions falls to the ground.
6.
The letter seems to me to fail of its purpose of advising citizens about their duty to the nation chiefly because it ignores the two-sidedness of the institutions of political self-government. Free men, it is true, are subjects of the laws. But, in a far more important aspect, they are also masters of them, responsible for them. As subjects, we have "privileges." But, as masters, we have "duties." The letter speaks much of our privileges. But it seems to me to ignore our Constitutional states as the ultimate rulers of the nation. It, therefore, leaves out of account the duties which we assume when we undertake to govern ourselves.
In 1662, by action of the Ecclesiastical Courts of England, nearly two thousand rectors and vicars, one-fifth of the total number, were expelled from their parishes on the ground that their refusal to renounce heresy rendered them "unfit for office." In the years which followed, they suffered penury and misery. But, by holding their ground, they, and others with them, so aroused the conscience of England that the Ecclesiastical Courts were abolished--three hundred years ago! Today, in the United States, teachers and others, on grounds of political heresy, are likewise being declared "unfit for office." How shall the conscience of the United States be likewise aroused? Perhaps it cannot be. But, in any case, if the issue is thrust upon him, it is a man's duty to defend the Constitution, no matter what it may cost him.
7.
Because of the deservedly high repute of its writers, the Chafee-Sutherland letter has had, I think, more popular influence upon current discussions of Congressional investigations "than any other public statement. If, then, that influence has been misleading, the issue here discussed is, for practical purposes, an exceedingly serious one. For example, there is a clear and direct relation of dependence between the letter and the Statement on "The Rights and Responsibilities of Universities and their Faculties," issued unanimously by the Association of American Universities, on March 30, 1953. I do not, for a moment, question the good intentions of the forty- three Presidents who signed that document. And yet their renunciation of the obligations of intellectual leadership which they owe to the nation, their desertion, in time of trial, of scholars and teachers whom, through years of association, they had found worthy of trust, is one of the most disastrous actions in the history of American education. What the letter really means can be most clearly seen in the sanction which it gives to actions such as this. And what those actions mean is revealed by the rising tide of political and social repression which now threatens the foundations of our national life.