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Abstract
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It is almost a commonplace to say that free government is on trial for its life. But it is the truth. And it has been so throughout history. What is almost as certain: It will probably be true throughout the foreseeable future. Why should this be so? Why is it that, over the centuries of world history, the right to liberty that our Declaration of Independence declares to be "inalienable" has been more often abridged than enforced?
One important reason, surely, is that the members of a free society are called up-on to bear an extraordinarily heavy responsibility, for such a society is based upon the reciprocal self-imposed discipline of both the governed and their government. Many nations in the past have attempted to develop democratic institutions, only to lose them when either the people or their government lapsed from the rigorous self-control that is essential to the maintenance of a proper relation between freedom and order. Such failures have produced the totalitarianism or the anarchy that, however masked, are the twin mortal enemies of an ordered liberty.
Our forebears, well understanding this problem, sought to solve it in unique fashion by incorporating the concept of mutual restraint into our Nation's basic Charter. In the body of our Constitution, the Founding Fathers insured that the Government would have the power necessary to govern. Most of them felt that the self-discipline basic to a democratic government of delegated powers was implicit in that document in the light of our Anglo-Saxon heritage. But our people wanted explicit assurances. The Bill of Rights was the result.
This act of political creation was a remarkable beginning. It was only that, of course, for every generation of Americans must preserve its own freedoms. In so doing, we must turn time and again to the political consensus that is our heritage. Nor should we confine ourselves to examining the diverse, complicated, and sometimes subordinate issues that arise in the day-to-day application of the Bill of Rights. It is perhaps more important that we seek to understand in its fullness the nature of the spirit of liberty that gave that document its birth.
Determining the proper role to be assigned to the military in a democratic society has been a troublesome problem for every nation that has aspired to a free political life. The military establishment is of course, a necessary organ of government; but the reach of its power must be carefully limited lest the delicate balance between freedom and order be upset. The maintenance of the balance is made more difficult by the fact that while the military serves the vital function of preserving the existence of the nation, it is, at the same time, the one element of government that exercises a type of authority not easily assimilated in a free society.
The critical importance of achieving a proper accommodation is apparent when one considers the corrosive effect upon liberty of exaggerated military power. In the last analysis, it is the military--or at least a militant organization of power--that dominates life in totalitarian countries regardless of their nominal political arrangements. This is true, moreover, not only with respect to Iron Curtain countries, but also with respect to many countries that have all of the formal trappings of constitutional democracy.
Reprinted by permission of New York University Law Review 1962, 37(181): 181-185. |