Civil Liberty After the War

In: American political science review, Band 38, Heft 1, S. 1-20

Abstract

No nation has ever fought a tough war without overriding for the duration some of the civil liberties of its people. The war we are fighting is more than a tough war; it is a mortal struggle in which the life of constitutional democracy throughout the world is at stake. It presents a new kind of challenge to the vitality of American civil liberty. We know from grim experience that in the peace which follows a tough war, civil liberty faces new and increased dangers. High-keyed energies and emotions, suddenly released, seek a new outlet. Wartime patriotism tends to become peacetime intolerance, and wherever there is intolerance, the traditional civil liberties of unpopular minority groups are in grave danger of being brutally suppressed. The peace which will follow the war we are now fighting will be without precedent in the complexity of its problems, the power of the emotional reactions which it will generate, and the strength of the triumphant determination of our people to preserve intact the fruits of victory. This peace will bring in its wake an unprecedented temptation to abridge some of our basic civil liberties, and this new threat will be very dangerous indeed. This is the general subject which I wish to explore.What I have to say falls into three parts. First, I wish to review some of the salient features of our national experience with civil liberty problems down to the eve of the present war; and by experience I mean our thinking about these problems as well as our behavior with respect to them.