“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression”
Thomas Paine
The framers of our Constitution created a remarkable blueprint for a representative democracy with a centralized federal government. It contained numerous internal checks and balances together with an elaboration of the powers of that government.
To the consternation of some delegates, however, three of whom ultimately refused to sign it, the Constitution failed to provide specific protections for individual rights, thereby limiting the powers of the national government it created. Only after its framers pledged to enact amendments to protect individual liberties against possible excesses of government or a tyranny of the majority was the Constitution ratified.
Regretfully, the Bill of Rights was only a first step and throughout much of its history was largely ignored by both the courts and an apathetic public. Seventy years passed before the rights of due process and equal protection were embodied in the Constitution, slavery was officially abolished, and former slaves were given the right to vote … after which it took was another half century before women won universal suffrage in 1920.
Yet, even as women were finally permitted to vote, civil rights for large segments of our society were in a sorry state. Anti-war views were enough to land an individual in prison, racial segregation was commonplace, conservative Christian dogma permeated many aspects of secular life, sex discrimination remained institutionalized and violence against any number of minorities was pervasive across the American landscape.
From this environment emerged a small, dedicated cadre, initially concerned over the mass arrests of individuals suspected of being radicals simply because they were foreigners or expressed ideas outside the popular mainstream. This courageous band of young lawyers, under the leadership of Roger Baldwin, first made headlines by securing the release of hundreds of people illegally incarcerated for their anti-war opinions. In 1925, they were again amid controversy when they defended a Tennessee science teacher named John Scopes who dared teach theories of evolution in a state officially endorsing biblical creation.
Committed to holding government accountable for the protection of individual rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights and seceding Amendments, American Civil Liberties Union fought and won a series of important court battles to eliminate such threats to liberty as censorship, efforts to suppress free speech and rights of assembly, loyalty oaths requirements, efforts to inject religious doctrine into secular affairs and segregation in public schools. While many of their victories were controversial in their day, the freedoms these decisions have made possible are frequently taken for granted today.
An apolitical organization, its members have been periodically threatened with physical violence and otherwise been the target of, and reviled by liberals and conservatives … Republicans and Democrats … men and women … theists and atheists … pacifists and anarchists. In 1986, the Democratic candidate for president was routinely labeled as being a card-carrying member of the ACLU. Unfortunately, the Massachusetts Governor permitted this label to became an albatross around his neck rather wearing it as a badge of honor. What’s more American than defending individual liberties?
In truth, the ACLU is perhaps the most vigilant and most aggressive defender of individual rights and civil liberties on the American scene. While it makes use of legislative lobbying efforts and public education programs, its most visible and effective weapon against those in positions of authority or power who would usurp the rights of the people has been its litigation activities.
In its unrelenting pursuit to preserve, protect and frequently expand the rights of our citizenry, the ACLU has not always a popular entity … as these efforts have frequently entailed the representation of individuals or groups who have committed heinous crimes or whose messages have been abhorrent and unpalatable to large segments of American society.
Yet, what its detractors fail to recognize is the ACLU is not defending any individual or group, but rather it is committed to safeguarding those civil liberties which are being denied to those persons or threatened by the state.
Unique among American institutions, the American Civil Liberties Union remains a bulwark against continued intrusions by instruments of government to dismantle the basic freedoms and individual rights which are the foundation of our social and political system.
We must never loose sight of Justice Hugo Black’s admonition, “the freedoms of speech, press, petition and assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment must be accorded to the ideas we hate or sooner or later they will be denied to the ideas we cherish.“
