holding that oath did not deny due process after assuming that scienter was implicit in each clause of oath
How later courts described this case
- holding that oath did not deny due process after assuming that scienter was implicit in each clause of oath
- upholding requirement that all city employees must disclose membership to the Communist party and swear an oath of loyalty
- city ordinance requiring city employees to take an oath that they had not advocated or belonged to organization advocating overthrow of government by force was not invalid as a bill of attainder
- concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Frankfurter
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Black,
dissenting.
I agree with the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Douglas but wish to emphasize two objections to the opinion of the Court:
1. Our per curiam opinion in Gerende v. Board of Supervisors, 341 U. S. 56 , in no way stands for the principle for which the Court cites it today. In Gerende , we upheld a Maryland law that had been interpreted by the highest court of that state to require only an oath' that a candidate “is not a person who is engaged ‘in one way or another in the attempt to overthrow the government by force or violence,’ and that he is not knowingly a member of an organization engaged in such an attempt.” The oath and affidavit in the present case are obviously not so limited.
2. The opinion of the Court creates considerable doubt as to the continued vitality of three of our past decisions: Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277 ; Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333 ; United States v. Lovett, 328 U. S. 303 . To *731 this extent it weakens one more of the Constitution’s great guarantees of individual liberty. See, e. g., Dennis v. United States, ante, p. 494, and Breard v. Alexandria, ante, p. 622, decided this day.