Mr. Justice BLACK, dissenting.
The appellant was tried for murder in a California state court. He did not take the stand as a witness in his own behalf. The prosecuting attorney, under purported authority of a California statute, Cal.Penal Code, 1323 (Hillyer-Lake 1945), argued to the jury that an inference of guilt could be drawn because of appellant's failure to deny evidence offered against him. The appellant's contention in the state court and here has been that the statute denies him a right guaranteed by the Federal Constitution. The argument is that (1) permitting comment upon his failure to testify has the effect of compelling him to testify so as to violate that provision of the Bill of Rights contained in the Fifth Amendment that 'No person * * * shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself'; and (2) although this provision of the Fifth Amendment originally applied only as a restraint upon federal courts, Barron v. Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243, the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to, and did make the prohibition against compelled testimony applicable to trials in state courts. [332 U.S. 46, 69] The Court refuses to meet and decide the appellant's first contention. But while the Court's opinion, as I read it, strongly implies that the Fifth Amendment does not, of itself, bar comment upon failure to testify in federal courts, the Court nevertheless assumes that it does in order to reach the second constitutional question involved in appellant's case. I must consider the case on the same assumption that the Court does. For the discussion of the second contention turns out to be a decision which reaches far beyond the relatively narrow issues on which this case might have turned.
This decision reasserts a constitutional theory spelled out in Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78, that this Court is endowed by the Constitution with boundless power under 'natural law' periodically to expand and contract constitutional standards to conform to the Court's conception of what at a particular time constitutes 'civilized decency' and 'fundamental principles of liberty and justice.'1 Invoking this Twining rule, the Court concludes that although comment upon testimony in a federal court would violate the Fifth Amendment, identical comment in a state court does not violate today's fashion in civilized decency and fundamentals and is therefore not prohibited by the Federal Constitution as amended.
The Twining case was the first, as it is the only decision of this Court, which has squarely held that states were free, notwithstanding to Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, to extort evidence from one accused of crime.2 I [332 U.S. 46, 70] agree that if Twining be reaffirmed, the result reached might appropriately follow. But I would not reaffirm the Twining decision. I think that decision and the 'natural law' theory of the Constitution upon which it relies, degrade the constitutional safeguards of the Bill of Rights and simultaneously appropriate for this Court a broad power which we are not authorized by the Constitution to exercise. Furthermore, the Twining decision rested on previous cases and broad hypotheses which have been undercut by intervening decisions of this Court. See Corwin, The Supreme Court's Construction of the Self-Incrimination Clause, 29 Mich.L. Rev. 1, 191, 202. My reasons for believing that the Twining decision should not be revitalized can best be understood by reference to the constitutional, judicial, and general history that preceded and followed the case. That reference must be abbreviated far more than is justified but for the necessary limitations of opinion-writing.
The first 10 amendments were proposed and adopted largely because of fear that Government might unduly interfere with prized individual liberties. The people wanted and demanded a Bill of Rights written into their Constitution. The amendments embodying the Bill of Rights were intended to curb all branches of the Federal Government in the fields touched by the amendments — Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. The Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments were pointedly aimed at confining exercise of power by courts and judges within precise boundaries, particularly in the procedure used for the trial of criminal cases.3 Past history provided strong reasons [332 U.S. 46, 71] for the apprehensions which brought these procedural amendments into being and attest the wisdom of their adoption. For the fears of arbitrary court action sprang largely from the past use of courts in the imposition of criminal punishments to suppress speech, press, and religion. Hence the constitutional limitations of courts' powers were, in the view of the Founders, essential supplements to the First Amendment, which was itself designed to protect the widest scope for all people to believe and to express the most divergent political, religious, and other views.
But these limitations were not expressly imposed upon state court action. In 1833, Barron v. Baltimore, supra, was decided by this Court. It specifically held inapplicable to the states that provision of the Fifth Amendment which declares: 'nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.' In deciding the particular point raised, the Court there said that it could not hold that the first eight amendments applied to the states. This was the controlling constitutional rule whenthe Fourte enth Amendment was proposed in 1866.4
My study of the historical events that culminated in the Fourteenth Amendment, and the expressions of those who sponsored and favored, as well as those who opposed its submission and passage, persuades me that one of the chief objects that the provisions of the Amendment's first section, separately, and as a whole, were intended to accomplish was to make the Bill of Rights, applicable to the [332 U.S. 46, 72] states.5 With full knowledge of the import of the Barron decision, the framers and backers of the Fourteenth Amendment proclaimed its purpose to be to overturn the constitutional rule that case had announced. This historical purpose has never received full consideration or exposition in any opinion of this Court interpreting the Amendment.
In construing other constitutional provisions, this Court has almost uniformly followed the precept of Ex parte Bain, 121 U.S. 1, 12, 787, that 'It is never to be forgotten that in the construction of the language of the Constitution * * *, as indeed in all other instances where construction becomes necessary, we are to place ourselves as nearly as possible in the condition of the men who framed that instrument.' See also Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 67 S. Ct. 504; Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 95, 102, 740, 744; Knowlton v. Moore, 178 U.S. 41, 89, 106, 766, 772; Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 162; Barron v. Baltimore, supra, 7 Pet. at pages 250, 251; Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 416-420.
Investigation of the cases relied upon in Twining v. New Jersey to support the conclusion there reached that neither the Fifth Amendment's prohibition of compelled testimony, nor any of the Bill of Rights, applies to the States, reveals an unexplained departure from this salutary [332 U.S. 46, 73] practice. Neither the briefs nor opinions in any of these cases, except Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U.S. 581, make reference to the legislative and contemporary history for the purpose of demonstrating that those who conceived, shaped, and brought about the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment intended it to nullify this Court's decision in Barron v. Baltimore, supra, and thereby to make the Bill of Rights applicable to the States. In Maxwell v. Dow, supra, the issue turned on whether the Bill of Rights guarantee of a jury trial was, by the Fourteenth Amendment, extended to trials in state courts. In that case counsel for appellant did cite from the speech of Senator Howard, Appendix, infra, 332 U.S. 104, which so emphatically stated the understanding of the framers of the Amendment — the Committee on Reconstruction for which he spoke — that the Bill of Rights was to be made applicable to the states by the Amendment's first section. The Court's opinion in Maxwell v. Dow, supra, 176 U.S. 601, acknowledged that counsel had 'cited from the speech of one of the Senators,' but indicated that it was not advised what other speeches were made in the Senate or in the House. The Court considered, moreover, that 'What individual Senators or Representatives may have urged in debate, in regard to the meaning to be given to a proposed constitutional amendment, or bill, or resolution, does not furnish a firm ground for its proper construction, nor is it important as explanatory of the grounds upon which the members voted in adopting it.' 176 U.S. at pages 601, 602, 20 S.Ct. at page 456.
In the Twining case itself, the Court was cited to a then recent book, Guthrie, Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1898). A few pages of that work recited some of the legislative background of the Amendment, emphasizing the speech of Senator Howard. But Guthrie did not emphasize the speeches of Congressman Bingham, nor the part he played in the framing and adoption of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment. Yet Congressman [332 U.S. 46, 74] Bingham may, without extravagance, be called the Madison of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment. In the Twining opinion the Court explicitly declined to give weight to the historical demonstration that the first section of the Amendment was intended to apply to the states the several protections of the Bill of Rights. It held that that question was 'no longer open' because of previous decisions of this Court which, however, had not appraised the historical evidence on that subject. 211 U. S. at page 98, 29 S.Ct. at page 19. The Court admitted that its action had resulted in giving 'much less effect to the 14th Amendment than some of the public men active in framing it' had intended it to have. 211 U.S. at page 96, 29 S.Ct. at page 18. With particular reference to the guarantee against compelled testimony, the Court stated that 'Much might be said in favor of the view that the privilege was guaranteed against state impairment as a privilege and immunity of national citizenship, but, as has been shown, the decisions of this court have foreclosed that view.' 211 U.S. at page 113, 29 S.Ct. at page 25. Thus the Court declined and again today declines, to appraise the relevant historical evidence of the intended scope of the first section of the Amendment. Instead it relied upon previous cases, none of which had analyzed the evidence showing that one purpose of those who framed, advocated, and adopted the Amendment had been to make the Bill of Rights applicable to the States. None of the cases relied upon by the Court today made such an analysis.
For this reason, I am attaching to this dissent, an appendix which contains a resume, by no means complete, of the Amendment's history. In my judgment that history conclusively demonstrates that the language of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, taken as a whole, was thought by those responsible for its submission to the people, and by those who opposed its submission, sufficiently explicit to guarantee that thereafter no state [332 U.S. 46, 75] could deprive its citizens of the privileges and protections of the Bill of Rights. Whether this Court ever will, or whether it now should, in the light of past decisions, give full effect to what the Amendment was intended to accomplish is not necessarily essential to a decision here. However that may be, our prior decisions, including Twining, do not prevent our carrying out that purpose, at least to the extent of making applicable to the states, not a mere part, as the Court has, but the full protection of the Fifth Amendment's provision against compelling evidence from an accused to convict him of crime. And I further contend that the 'natural law' formula which the Court uses to reach its conclusion in this case should be abandoned as an incongruous excrescence on our Constitution. I believe that formula to be itself a violation of our Constitution, in that it subtly conveys to courts, at the expense of legislatures, ultimate power over public policies in fields where no specific provision of the Constitution limits legislative power. And my belief seems to be in accord with the views expressed by this Court, at least for the firs two decad es after the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted.
In 1872, four years after the Amendment was adopted, the Slaughter-House cases came to this Court. 16 Wall. 36. The Court was not presented in that case with the evidence which showed that the special sponsors of the Amendment in the House and Senate had expressly explained one of its principal purposes to be to change the Constitution as construed in Barron v. Baltimore, supra, and make the Bill of Rights applicable to the states.6 Nor [332 U.S. 46, 76] was there reason to do so. For the state law under consideration in the Slaughter-House cases was only challenged as one which authorized a monopoly, and the brief for the challenger properly conceded that there was 'no direct constitutional provision against a monopoly.'7 [332 U.S. 46, 77] The argument did not invoke any specific provision of the Bill of Rights, but urged that the state monopoly statute violated 'the natural right of a person' to do business and engage in his trade or vocation. On this basis, it was contended that 'bulwarks that have been erected around the investments of capital are impregnable against state legislation.' These natural law arguments, so suggestive of the premises on which the present due process formula rest, were flatly rejected by a majority of the Court in the Slaughter-House cases. What the Court did hold was that the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment only protected from state invasion such rights as a person has because he is a citizen of the United States. The Court enumerated some, but refused to enumerate all of these national rights. The majority of the Court emphatically declined the invitation of counsel to hold that the Fourteenth Amendment subjected all state regulatory legislation to continuous censorship by this Court in order for it to determine whether it collided with this Court's opinion of 'natural' right and justice. In effect, the Slaughter-House cases rejected the very [332 U.S. 46, 78] natural justice formula the Court today embraces. The Court did not meet the question of whether the safeguards of the Bill of Rights were protected against state invasion by the Fourteenth Amendment. And it specifically did not say as the Court now does, that particular provisions of the Bill of Rights could be breached by states in part, but not breached in other respects, according to this Court's notions of 'civilized standards,' 'canons of decency,' and 'fundamental justice.'
Later, but prior to the Twining case, this Court decided that the following were not 'privileges or immunities' of national citizenship, so as to make them immune against state invasion: the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436; the Seventh Amendment's guarantee of a jury trial in civil cases, Walker v. Sauvinet, 92 U.S. 90; the Second Amendment's 'right of the people to keep and bear arms * * *,' Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, 584; the Fifth and Sixth Amendments' requirements for indictment in capital or other infamous crimes, and for trial by jury in criminal prosecutions, Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U.S. 581. While it can be argued that these cases implied that no one of the provisions of the Bill of Rights was made applicable to the states as attributes of national citizenship, no one of them expressly so decided. In fact, the Court in Maxwell v. Dow, supra, 176 U.S. at pages 597, 598, 20 S.Ct. at page 455, concluded no more than that 'the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States do not necessarily include all the rights protected by the first eight amendments to the Federal Constitution against the powers of the Federal government.' Cf. Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 329, 153.
After the Slaughter-House decision, the Court also said that states could, despite the 'due process' clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, take private property without just compensation, Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. [332 U.S. 46, 79] 97, 105; Pumpelly v. Green Bay & Mississippi Canal Co., 13 Wall. 166, 176, 177; abridge th freedom o f assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment, United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 ; see also Prudential Ins. Co. v. Cheek, 259 U.S. 530, 543, 522, 27 A.L.R. 27; Patterson v. Colorado, 205 U.S. 454, 10 Ann.Cas. 689; cf. Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652, 666, 629 (freedom of speech); prosecute for crime by information rather than indictment, Hurtado v. People of California, 110 U.S. 516, 292; regulate the price for storage of grain in warehouses and elevators, Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113. But this Court also held in a number of cases that colored people must, because of the Fourteenth Amendment, be accorded equal protection of the laws. See, e.g., Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303; cf. Virginia v. Rives, 100 U.S. 313; see also Yick Wo. v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356.
Thus, up to and for some years after 1873, when Munn v. Illinois, supra, was decided, this Court steadfastly declined to invalidate states' legislative regulation of property rights or business practices under the Fourteenth Amendment unless there were racial discrimination involved in the state law challenged. The first significant breach in this policy came in 1889, in Chicago, M. & St. P.R. Co. v. Minnesota, 134 U.S. 418, 702 .8 A state's railroad rate regulatory statute was there stricken as violative of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This was accomplished by reference to a due process formula which did not necessarily operate so as to protect the Bill of Rights' personal liberty safeguards, but which gave a new and hitherto undiscovered scope for the Court's use of the due process clause to protect property rights under natural law concepts. And in 1896, in Chicago, B. & Q.R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U.S. 226, [332 U.S. 46, 80]this Court, in effect, overruled Davidson v. New Orleans, supra, by holding, under the new due process-natural law formula, that the Fourteenth Amendment forbade a state from taking private property for public use without payment of just compensation.9
Following the pattern of the new doctrine formalized in the foregoing decisions, the Court in 1896 applied the due process clause to strike down a state statute which had forbidden certain types of contracts. Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U.S. 578 Cf. Hoope ston Canning Co. v. Cullen, 318 U.S. 313, 316, 318, 319, 604, 605, 606, 145 A.L.R. 1113. In doing so, it substantially adopted the rejected argument of counsel in the Slaughter-House cases, that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees the liberty of all persons under 'natural law' to engage in their chosen business or vocation. In the Allgeyer opinion, 165 U.S. at page 589, 17 S.Ct. at page 431, the Court quoted with approval the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Bradley in a second Slaughter-House case; Butchers' Unions Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111 U.S. 746, 762, 764, 765, 656, 657, 658, which closely followed [332 U.S. 46, 81] one phase of the argument of his dissent in the original Slaughter-House cases — not that phase which argued that the Bill of Rights was applicable to the States. And in 1905, three years before the Twining case, Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 3Ann.Cas. 1133, followed the argument used in Allgeyer to hold that the due process clause was violated by a state statute which limited the employment of bakery workers to 60 hours per week and 10 hours per day.
The foregoing constitutional doctrine, judicially created and adopted by expanding the previously accepted meaning of 'due process,' marked a complete departure from the Slaughter-House philosophy of judicial tolerance of state regulation of business activities. Conversely, the new formula contracted the effectiveness of the Fourteenth Amendment as a protection from state infringement of individual liberties enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Thus the Court's second-thought interpretation of the Amendment was an about face from the Slaughter-House interpretation and represented a failure to carry out the avowed purpose of the Amendment's sponsors.10 This reversal is dramatized by the fact that the Hurtado case, which had rejected the due process clause as an instrument [332 U.S. 46, 82] for preserving Bill of Rights liberties and privileges, was cited as authority for expanding the scope of that clause so as to permit this Court to invalidate all state regulatory legislation it believed to be contrary to 'fundamental' principles.
The Twining decision, rejecting the compelled testimony clause of the Fifth Amendment, and indeed rejecting all the Bill of Rights, is the end product of one phase of this philosophy. At the same time, that decision consolidated the power of the Court assumed in past cases by laying broader foundations for the Court to invalidate state and even federal regulatory legislation. For the Twining decision, giving separate consideration to 'due process' and 'privileges or immunities,' went all the way to say that the 'privileges or immunities' clause of the Fourteenth Amendment 'did not forbid the states to abridge the personal rights enumerated in the first eight Amendments * * *.' Twining v. New Jersey, supra, 211 U.S. at page 99, 29 S.Ct. at page 19. And in order to be certain, so far as possible, to leave this Court wholly free to reject all the Bill of Rights as specific restraints upon state actions, the decision declared that even if this Court should decide that the due process clause forbids the states to infringe personal liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, it would do so, not 'because those rights are enumerated in the first eight Amendments, but because they are of such a nature that they are included in the conception of due process of law.' 211 U.S. 78, 20.
At the same time that the Twining decision held that the states need not conform to the specific provisions of the Bill of Rights, it consolidated the power that the Court had assumed under the due process clause by laying even broader foundations for the Court to invalidate state and even federal regulatory legislation. For under the Twining formula, which includes nonregard for the first eight amendments, what are 'fundamental rights' and in accord with 'canons of decency,' as the Court [332 U.S. 46, 83]said in Twining, and today reaffirms, is to be independently 'ascertained from time to time by judicial action * * *.' 211 U.S. at page 101, 29 S.Ct. at page 20; 'what is due process of law depends on circumstances.' Moyer v. Peabody, 212 U.S. 78, 84, 236. Thus the power of legislatures became what this Court would declare it to be at a particular time independently of the specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights such as the right to freedom of speech, religion and assembly, the right to just compensation for property taken for a public purpose, the right to jury trial or the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. Neither the contraction of the Bill of Rights safeguards11 nor the invalidation of regulatory laws12by this Court's appraisal of 'circumstances' would readily be classified as the most satisfactory contribution of this Court to the nation. In 1912, four years after the Twining case was decided, a book written by Mr. Charles Wallace Collins gave the history of this Court's interpretation and application of the Fourteenth Amendment up to that time. It is not necessary for one fully to agree with all he said in [332 U.S. 46, 84] order to appreciate the sentiment of the following comment concerning the disappointments caused by this Court's interpretation of the Amendment. ' * * * It was aimed at restraining and checking the powers of wealth and privilege. It was to be a charter of liberty for human rights against property rights. The transformation has been rapid and complete. It operates today to protect the rights of property to the detriment of the rights of man. It has become the Magna Charta of accumulated and organized capital.' Collins, The Fourteenth Amendment and the States, (1912) 137, 138. That this feeling was shared, at least in part, by members of this Court is revealed by the vigorous dissents that have been written in almost every case where the Twining and Hurtado doctrines have been applied to invalidate state regulatory laws.13
Later decisions of this Court have completely undermined the phase of the Twining doctrine which broadly precluded reliance on the Bill of Rights to determine what is and what is not a 'fundamental' right. Later cases have also made the Hurtado case an inadequate support for this phase of the Twining formula. For despite Hurtado and Twining, this Court has now held that the Fourteenth Amendment protects from state invasion the following 'fundamental' rights safeguarded by the Bill of Rights: right to counsel in criminal cases, Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 67, 63, 84 A.L.R. 527, limiting the Hurtado case; see also Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455, and De Meerleer v. Michigan, 329 U.S. 663; freedom of assembly, De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 364, 259; at the very least, certain types of cruel and unusual punishment and former jeopardy, State of Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, 329 U.S. 459; the right of an accused in a criminal case to be informed [332 U.S. 46, 85] of the charge against him, see Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 105, 332, 90 A.L.R. 575; the right to receive just compensation on account of taking private property for public use, Chicago, B. & Q.R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U.S. 226. And the Court has now through the Fourteenth Amendment literally and emphatically applied the First Amendment to the States in its very terms. Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 ; West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 639, 1186, 147 A.L.R. 674; Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 252, 268, 196, 159 A.L.R. 1346.
In Palko v. Connecticut, supra, a case which involved former jeopardy only, this Court re-examined the path it had traveled in interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment since the Twining opinion was written. In Twining the Court had declared that none of the rights enumerated in the first eight amendments were protected against state invasion because they were incorporated in the Bill of Rights. But the Court in Palko, supra, 302 U.S. at page 323, 58 S.Ct. at pages 150, 151, answered a contention that all eight applied with the more guarded statement, similar to that the Court had used in Maxwell v. Dow, supra, 176 U.S. at page 597, 20 S.Ct. at page 455, that 'there is no such general rule.' Implicit in this statement, and in the cases decided in the interim between Twining and Palko and since, is the understanding that some of the eight amendments do apply by their very terms. Thus the Court said in the Palko case that the Fourteenth Amendment may make it unlawful for a state to abridge by its statutes the 'freedom of speech which the First Amendment safeguards against encroachment by the Congress * * * or the like freedom of the press * * *or the free exercise of religion * * *, or the right of peaceable assembly * * * or the right of one accused of crime to the benefit of counsel * * *. In these and other situations immunities that are valid as against the federal government by force of the specific pledges of particular amendments have been found to be implicit in the concept of ordered [332 U.S. 46, 86] liberty, and thus, through the Fourteenth Amendment, become valid as against the states.' 302 U.S. at pages 324, 325, 58 S.Ct. at pages 151, 152. The Court went on to describe the Amendments made applicable to the States as 'the privileges and immunities that have been taken over from the earlier articles of the Federal Bill of Rights and brought within the Fourteenth Amendment by a process of absorption.' 302 U. S. at page 326, 58 S.Ct. at page 152. In the Twining case fundamental liberties were things apart from the Bill of Rights. Now it appears that at least some of the provisions of the Bill of Rights in their very terms satisfy the Court as sound and meaningful expressions of fundamental liberty. If the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination be such an expression of fundamental liberty, I ask, and have not found a satisfactory answer, why the Court today should consider that it should be 'absorbed' in part but not in full? Cf. Warren, The New Liberty under the Fourteenth Amendment, 39 Harv.L.Rev. 431, 458-461 (1925). Nothing in the Palko opinion requires that when the Court decides that a Bill of Rights' provision is to be applied to the States, it is to be applied piecemeal. Nothing in the Palko opinion recommends that the Court apply part of an amendment's established meaning and discard that part which does not suit the current style of fundamentals.
The Court's opinion in Twining, and the dissent in that case, made it clear that the Court intended to leave the states wholly free to compel confessions, so far as the Federal Constitution is concerned. Twining v. New Jersey, supra, see particularly 211 U.S. at pages 111-114, 125, 126, 29 S.Ct. at pages 24-26, 30. Yet in a series of cases since Twining this Court has held that the Fourteenth Amendment does bar all American courts, state or federal, from convicting people of crime on coerced confessions. Chambers v. Florida, 309 U.S. 227; Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U.S. 143, 154, 155, 926, 927, and cases cited. Federal courts cannot do so because of the Fifth Amendment. [332 U.S. 46, 87] Bram v. United States, 168 U.S. 532, 542, 562, 563, 186, 194. And state courts cannot do so because the principles of the Fifth Amendment are made applicable to the States through the Fourteenth by one formula or another. And taking note of these cases, the Court is careful to point out in its decision today that coerced confessions violate the Federal Constitution if secured 'by fear of hurt, torture or exhaustion.' Nor can a state, according to today's decision, constitutionally compel an accused to testify against himself by 'any other type of coercion that falls within the scope of due process.' Thus the Court itself destroys or at least drastically curtails the very Twining decision it purports to reaffirm. It repudiates the foundation of that opinion, which presented much argument to show that compelling a man to testify against himself does not 'violate' a 'fundamental' right or privilege.
It seems rather plain to me why the Court today does not attempt to justify all of the broad Twining discussion. That opinion carries its own refutation on what may be called the factual issue the Court resolved. The opinion itself shows, without resort to the powerful argument in the dissent of Mr. Justice Harlan, that outside of Star Chamber practices and influences, the 'English-speaking' peoples have for centuries abhorred and feared the practice of compelling people to convict themselves of crime. I shall not attempt to narrate the reasons. They are well known and those interested can read them in both the majority and dissenting opinions in the Twining case, in Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, and in the cases cited in notes 8, 9, 10, and 11 of Ashcraft v. Tennessee, supra. Nor does the history of the practice of compellig testimon y in this country, relied on in the Twining opinion support the degraded rank which that opinion gave the Fifth Amendment's privilege against compulsory self-incrimination. I think the history there recited by the Court belies its conclusion. [332 U.S. 46, 88] The Court in Twining evidently was forced to resort for its degradation of the privilege to the fact that Governor Winthrop in trying Mrs. Ann Hutchison in 1637 was evidently 'not aware of any privilege against self-incrimination or conscious of any duty to respect it.' 211 U. S. at pages 103, 104, 29 S.Ct. at page 21. Of course not.14 Mrs. Hutchison was tried, if trial it can be called, for holding unorthodox religious views.15People with a consuming belief that their religious convictions must be forced on others rarely ever believe that the unorthodox have any rights which should or can be rightfully respected. As a result of her trial and compelled admissions, Mrs. Hutchison was found guilty of unorthodoxy and banished from Massachusetts. The lamentable experience of Mrs. Hutchison and others, contributed to the overwhelming sentiment that demanded adoption [332 U.S. 46, 89] of a Constitutional Bill of Rights. The founders of this Government wanted no more such 'trials' and punishments as Mrs. Hutchison had to undergo. They wanted to erect barriers that would bar legislators from passing laws that encroached on the domain of belief, and that would, among other things, strip courts and all public officers of a power to compel people to testify against themselves. See Pittman, supra at 789.
I cannot consider the Bill of Rights to be an outworn 18th Century 'strait jacket' as the Twining opinion did. Its provisions may be thought outdated abstractions by some. And it is true that they were designed to meet ancient evils. But they are the same kind of human evils that have emerged from century to century wherever excessive power is sought by the few at the expense of the many. In my judgment the people of no nation can lose their liberty so long as a Bill of Rights like ours survives and its basic purposes are conscientiously interpreted, enforced and respected so as to afford continuous protection against old, as well as new, devices and practices which might thwart those purposes. I fear to see the consequences of the Court's practice of substituting its own concepts of decency and fundamental justice for the language of the Bill of Rights as its point of departure in interpreting and enforcing that Bill of Rights. If the choice must be between the selective process of the Palk decision applying some of the Bill of Rights to the States, or the Twining rule applying none of them, I would choose the Palko selective process. But rather than accept either of these choices. I would follow what I believe was the original purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment — to extend to all the people of the nation the complete protection of the Bill of Rights. To hold that this Court can determine what, if any, provisions of the Bill of Rights will be enforced, and if so to what degree, is to frustrate the great design of a written Constitution. [332 U.S. 46, 90] Conceding the possibility that this Court is now wise enough to improve on the Bill of Rights by substituting natural law concepts for the Bill of Rights. I think the possibility is entirely too speculative to agree to take that course. I would therefore hold in this case that the full protection of the Fifth Amendment's proscription against compelled testimony must be afforded by California. This I would do because of reliance upon the original purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment.
It is an illusory apprehension that literal application of some or all of the provisions of the Bill of Rights to the States would unwisely increase the sum total of the powers of this Court to invalidate state legislation. The Federal Government has not been harmfully burdened by the requirement that enforcement of federal laws affecting civil liberty comform literally to the Bill of Rights. Who would advocate its repeal? It must be conceded, of course, that the natural-law-due-process formula, which the Court today reaffirms, has been interpreted to limit substantially this Court's power to prevent state violations of the individual civil liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.16But this formula also has been used in the past and can be used in the future, to license this Court, in considering regulatory legislation, to roam at large in the broad expanses of policy an morals and to trespass, all too freely, on the legislative domain of the States as well as the Federal Government.
Since Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, was decided, the practice has been firmly established for better or worse, that courts can strike down legislative enactments which violate the Constitution. This process, of course, involves interpretation, and since words can have many meanings, interpretation obviously may result in contraction or extension of the original purpose of a constitutional [332 U.S. 46, 91] provision thereby affecting policy. But to pass upon the constitutionality of statutes by looking to the particular standards enumerated in the Bill of Rights and other parts of the Constitution is one thing;17 to invalidate statutes because of application of 'natural law' deemed to be above and undefined by the Constitution is another.18 'In the one instance, courts proceeding within [332 U.S. 46, 92] clearly marked constitutional boundaries seek to execute policies written into the Constitution; in the other they roam at will in the limitless area of their own beliefs as to reasonableness and actually select policies, a responsibility which the Constitution entrusts to the legislative representatives of the people.' Federal Power Commission v. Natural Gas Pipeline Co., 315 U.S. 575, 599, 601, n. 4, 749, 750.
Mr. Justice DOUGLAS joins in this opinion.
[Footnote 1] The cases on which the Court relies seem to adopt these standards. Malinski v. New York, 324 U.S. 401, concurring opinion, 412Ÿ417, 786Ÿ789; Buchalter v. New York, 319 U.S. 427, 429, 1130; Hebert v. Louisiana, 272 U.S. 312, 316, 104, 48 A.L.R. 1102.
[Footnote 2] 'The question in the case at bar has been twice before us, and been left undecided, as the cases were disposed of on other grounds.' Twining v. New Jersey, supra, 211 U.S. at page 92, 29 S.Ct. at page 17. In Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, relied on by the Court, the issue was double jeopardy and not to enforced self-incrimination.
[Footnote 3] The Fifth Amendment requires indictment by a Grand Jury in many criminal trials, prohibits double jeopardy, self-incrimination, deprivation of life, liberty or property without due process of law or the taking of property for public use without just compensation.
The Sixth Amendment guarantees to one accused of crime a speedy, public trial before an impartial jury of the district where the crime was allegedly committed; it requires that the accused be informed of the nature of the charge against him, confronted with the witnesses against him, have compulsory process to obtain witnesses in his favor, and assistance of counsel.
The Eighth Amendment prohibits excessive bail, fines and cruel and unusual punishments.
[Footnote 4] See Appendix, infra, 332 U.S. 97 .
[Footnote 5] Another prime purpose was to make colored people citizens entitled to full equal rights as citizens despite what this Court decided in the Dred Scott case. Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393.
A comprehensive analysis of the historical origins of the Fourteenth Amendment, Flack, The Adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment (1908) 94, concludes that 'Congress, the House and the Senate, had the following objects, and motives in view for submitting the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the States for ratification:
[Footnote 6] It is noteworthy that before the Twining decision Justices Bradley, Field, Swayne, Harlan, and apparently Brewer, although they had not been presented with and did not rely upon a documented history of the Fourteenth Amendment such as is set out in the Appendix, infra, nevertheless dissented from the view that the Fourteenth Amendment did not make provisions of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states. In the attached Appendix (at pages 120Ÿ123 of 332 U.S., at pages 1709Ÿ1711 of 67 S.Ct.) I have referred to some cases evidencing their views, and set out some expressions of it.
A contemporary comment illustrates that the Slaughter-House interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment was made without full regard for the congressional purpose or popular understanding.
It is a little remarkable that, so far as the reports disclose, no one of the distinguished counsel who argued this great case (the Slaughter-House Cases), nor any one of the judges who sat in it, appears to hae thought it worth while to consult the proceedings of the Congress which proposed this amendment to ascertain what it was that they were seeking to accomplish. Nothing is more common than this. There is hardly a question raised as to the true meaning of a provision of the old, original Constitution that resort is not had to Elliott's Debates, to ascertain what the framers of the instrument declared at the time that they intended to accomplish. * * *' Royall, The Fourteenth Amendment: The Slaughter-House Cases, 4 So.L.Rev.(N.S.) 558, 563 (1879).
For a collection of other comments on the Slaughter-House cases, see 2 Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History (1937) c. 32.
[Footnote 7] The case was not decided until over two years after it was submitted. In a short brief filed some two years after the first briefs, one of the counsel attacking the constitutionality of the state statute referred to and cited part of the history of the Fourteenth Amendment. The historical references made were directed only to an effort to show that a purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to protect freedom of contract against monopoly since monopolies interfered with the freedom of contract and the right to engage in business. Nonetheless some of these references would have supported the theory, had it been in question there, that a purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to make the Bill of Rights applicable to the states. For counsel quoted a statement by Congressman Bingham that '* * * it is * * * clear by every construction of the Constitution, its continued construction, legislative, executive and judicial, that these great provisions of the Constitution, this immortal bill of rights embodied in the Constitution, rested for its execution and enforcement hitherto upon the fidelity of the States. The House knows, the country knows * * *, that the legislative, executive and judicial officers of 11 States within this Union, within the last five years, have utterly disregarded the behest.' But since there was no contention that the Bill of Rights Amendment prohibited monopoly, this statement, in the context it was quoted, is hardly an indication that the Court was presented with documented argument on the question of whether the Fourteenth Amendment made the Bill of Rights applicable to the States.
[Footnote 8] See San Mateo County v. Southern P.R. Co., 116 U.S. 138 ; Santa Clara County v. Southern P.R. Co., 118 U.S. 394, 396 ; Graham, The 'Conspiracy Theory' of the Fourteenth Amendment, 47 Yale, L.J. 371, 48 L.J. 171.
[Footnote 9] This case was decided after Hurtado but before Twining. It apparently was the first decision of this Court which brought in a Bill of Rights provision under the due process clause. In Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U.S. 97, 105, the Court had refused to make such a holding, saying that 'it must be remembered that, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, the provision on that subject (just compensation), in immediate juxtaposition in the fifth amendment with the one we are now construing (due process), was left out, and this (due process) was taken.' Not only was the just compensation clause left out, but it was deliberately left out. A Committee on Reconstruction framed the Fourteenth Amendment, and its Journal shows that on April 21, 1866, the Committee by a 7 to 5 vote rejected a proposal to incorporate the just compensation clause in the Fourteenth Amendment. Journal of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. (1866), reprinted as Sen.Doc.No.711, 63d Cong., 3d Sess. (1915) 29. As shown by the history of the Amendment's passage, however, the Framers thought that in the language they had included this protection along with all the other protections of the Bill of Rights. See Appendix, infra.
[Footnote 10] One writer observed, 'That the Supreme Court has, on the one hand, refused to give this Amendment its evident meaning and purpose, thus completely defeating the intention of the Congress that framed it and the people who adopted it. But, on the other hand, the Court has put into it a meaning which had never been intended either by its framers or adopters, thus in effect adopting a new amendment and augmenting its power by constituting itself that 'perpetual censor upon all legislation of the state,' which Justice Miller was afraid the Court would become if the Fourteenth Amendment were interpreted according to its true meaning and given the full effect intended by the people when they adopted it.' 2 Boudin, Government by Judiciary (1932) 117. See also Haines, The Revival of Natural Law Concepts (1930) 143Ÿ165; Fairman, Mr. Justice Miller and the Supreme Court (193) c. VIII.
[Footnote 11] See cases collected p. 11 supra. Other constitutional rights left unprotected from state violation are, for example, right to counsel, Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455 ; privilege against self-incrimination, Feldman v. United States, 322 U.S. 487, 490, 1083, 154 A.L.R. 982.
[Footnote 12] Examples of regulatory legislation invalidated are: state 10 hour law for baking employees, Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 3 Ann.Cas. 1133; cf. Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412, 13 Ann.Cas. 957; District of Columbia minimum wage for women, Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U.S. 525, 24 A.L.R. 1238; Morehead v. New York, 298 U.S. 587, 103 A.L.R. 1445; but cf. West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379, 108 A.L.R. 1330; state law making it illegal to discharge employee for membership in a union, Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U.S. 1, L.R.A.1915C, 960;cf. Adair v. United States, 208 U.S. 161, 13 Ann.Cas. 764, state law fixing price of gasoline, Williams v. Standard Oil Co., 278 U.S. 235, 60 A.L.R. 596; state taxation of bonds, Baldwin v. Missouri, 281 U.S. 586, 72A.L.R. 1303; state law limiting amusement ticket brokerage, Ribnik v. McBride, 277 U.S. 350, 56 A.L.R. 1327; law fixing size of loaves of bread to prevent fraud on public, Jay Burns Baking Co. v. Bryan, 264 U.S. 504, 32 A.L.R. 661; cf. Schmidinger v. Chicago, 226 U.S. 578, Ann.Cas. 1914B, 284.
[Footnote 13] See particularly dissents in cases cited notes 11 and 12, supra.
[Footnote 14] Actually it appears that the practice of the Court of Star Chamber of compelling an accused to testify under oath in Lilburn's trial, 3 Howard State Trials 1315; 4 id., 1269, 1280, 1292, 1342, had helped bring to a head the popular opposition which brought about the demise of that engine of tyranny. 16 Car. I, cc. 10, 11. See 8 Wigmore, Evidence (1940) 292, 298; Pittman, The Colonial and Constitutional History of the Privilege Against Self-incrimination, 21 Va.L.Rev. 763, 774 (1935). Moreover, it has been pointed out that seven American state constitutions guaranteed a privilege against self-incrimination prior to 1789. Pittman, supra, 765; Md.Const. (1776), 1 Poore Constitutions (1878) 818; Mass.Const . (1780), id. at 958; N.C.Const. (1776), 2 id. at 1409; N.H.Const. (1784), id. at 1282; Pa.Const. (1776), id. at 1542; Vt.Const. (1777), id. at 1860; Va. Bill of Rights (1776), id. at 1909.
By contrast it has been pointed out that freedom of speech was not protected by colonial or state constitutions prior to 1789 except for the right to speak freely in sessions of the legislatures. See Warren, The New Liberty under the Fourteenth Amendment, 39 Harv.L.Rev. 431, 461 (1926).
[Footnote 15] For accounts of the proceedings against Mrs. Hutchison, see I Hart, American History told by Contemporaries, 382 ff (1897); Beard, The Rise of American Civilization (1930) 57; 1 Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History, 485 (1934).
[Footnote 16] See, e.g., Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455; Feldman v. United States, 322 U.S. 487, 154 A.L.R. 982.
[Footnote 17] See Chambers v. Florida, 309 U.S. 227; Polk Co. v. Glover, 305 U.S. 5, 12Ÿ19, 18Ÿ21; McCart v. Indianapolis Water Co., 302 U.S. 419, 423, 428, 325, 328; Milk Wagon Drivers v. Meadowmoor Dairies, 312 U.S. 287, 299, 301, 557, 558, 132 A.L.R. 1200; Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455, 474, 1262; International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 322, 324Ÿ326, 161, 162, 163, 90 LEd. 95, 16 1 A.L.R. 1057; Feldman v. United States, 322 U.S. 487, 494, 495, 1085, 154 A.L.R. 982; Federal Power Commission v. Hope Nat'l. Gas Co., 320 U.S. 591, 619, 620, 295, 296; United Gas Public Service Co. v. Texas, 303 U.S. 123, 146, 153, 494, 497; Gibbs v. Buck, 307 U.S. 66, 79, 732.
[Footnote 18] An early and prescient expose of the inconsistency of the natural law formula with our constitutional form of government appears in the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Iredell in Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 398, 399: 'If any act of Congress, or the Legislature of a state, violates * * * constitutional provisions, it is unquestionably void; though, I admit, that as the authority to declare it void is of a delicate and awful nature, the Court will never resort to that authority, but in a clear and urgent case. If, on the other hand, the Legislature of the Union, or the Legislature of any member of the Union, shall pass a law, within the general scope of thier constitutional power, the Court cannot pronounce it to be void, merely because it is, in their judgment, contrary to the principles of natural justice. The ideas of natural justice are regulated by no fixed standard: the ablest and the purest men have differed upon the subject; and all that the Court could properly say in such an event, would be, that the Legislature (possessed of an equal right of opinion) had passed an act which, in the opinion of the judges, was inconsistent with the abstract principles of natural justice.'
See also Haines, The Law of Nature in State and Federal Decisions, 25 Yale L.J. 617 (1916); Judicial Review of Legislation in the United States and the Doctrines of Vested Rights and of Implied Limitations on Legislatures, 2 Tex.L.Rev. 257 (1924), 3 Tex.L.Rev. 1 (1924); The Revival of Natural Law Concepts (1930); The American Doctrine of Judicial Supremacy (1932); The Role of the Supreme Court in American Government and Politics (1944).
APPENDIX.
I. The legislative origin of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment seems to have been in the Joint Committee on Reconstruction. That Committee had been appointed by a concurrent resolution of the House and Senate with authority to report 'by bill or otherwise' whether the former Confederate States 'are entitled to be represented in either House of Congress.' Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. (1865) 6, 30. The broad mission of that Committee was revealed by its very first action of sending a delegation to President Johnson requesting him to 'defer all further executive action in regard to reconstruction until this committee shall have taken action on that subject.' Journal of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. (1866), reprinted as Sen.Doc. No. 711, 63d Cong., 3d Sess. (1915) 6. It immediately set about the business of drafting constitutional amendments which would outline the plan of reconstruction which it would recommend to Congress. Some of those proposed amendments related to suffrage and representation in the South. Journal, 7. On January 12, 1866, a subcommittee, consisting of Senators Fessenden (Chairman of the Reconstruction Committee) [332 U.S. 46, 93] and Howard, and Congressmen Stevens, Bingham and Conkling, was appointed to consider those suffrage proposals. Journal, 9. There was at the same time referred to this Committee a 'proposed amendment to the Constitution' submitted by Mr. Bingham that:
II. When, on February 26, the proposed amendment came up for debate, Mr. Bingham stated that 'by order * * * of the committee * * * I propose adoption of this amendment.' In support of it he said:
Opposition speakers emphasized that the Amendment would destroy state's rights and empower Congress to legislate on matters of purely local concern. Cong.Globe, supra, 1054, 1057, 1063-1065, 1083, 1085-1087. See also id. at 1082. Some took the position that the Amendment was unnecessary because the Bill of Rights were already secured against state violation. Id. at 1059, 1066, 1088. Mr. Bingham joined issue on this contention:
"The people of the United States framed such a Government for the United States as they supposed best adapted to their situation and best calculated to promote their interests. The powers they conferred on this Government were to be exercised by itself; and the limitations of power, if expressed in general terms, are naturally, and we think necessarily, applicable to the Government created by the instrument. They are limitations of power granted in the instrument itself, not of distinct governments, framed by different persons and for different purposes.
"If these propositions be correct, the fifth amendment must be understood as restraining the power of the General Government, not as applicable to the States.'
"As to the Amendments of the Constitution of the United States, they must be put out of the case, since it is now settled that those amendments do not extend to the States; and this observation disposes of the next exception, which relies on the seventh article of those amendments.'
As one important writer on the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment has observed, 'Mr. Bingham's speech in defense and advocacy of his amendment comprehends practically everything that was said in the press or on the floor of the House in favor of the resolution. * * *' Kendrick, Journal of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction (1914) 217. A reading of the debates indicates that no member except Mr. Hale had contradicted Mr. Bingham's argument that without this Amendment the states had power to deprive persons of the rights guaranteed by the first eight amendments. Mr. Hale had conceded that he did not 'know of a case where it has ever been decided that the United States Constitution is sufficient for the protection of the liberties of the citizen.' Cong.Globe, supra, at 1064. But he was apparently unaware of the decision of this Court in Barron v. Baltimore, supra. For he thought that the protections of the Bill of Rights had already been 'thrown over us in some way, whether with or without the sanction of a judicial decision * * *' And in any event, he insisted, '* * * the American people have not yet found that their State governments are insufficient to protect the rights and liberties of the citizen.' He further objected, as had most of the other opponents to the proposal, that the Amendment authorized the Congress to 'arrogate' to itself vast powers over all kinds of affairs which should properly be left to the States. Cong.Globe, supra, 1064, 1065.
When Mr. Hotchkiss suggested that the amendment should be couched in terms of a prohibition against the States in addition to authorizing Congress to legislate [332 U.S. 46, 99] against state deprivations of privileges and immunities, debate on the amendment was postponed until April 2, 1866. Cong.Globe, supra, 1095.
III. Important events which apparently affected the evolution of the Fourteenth Amendment transpired during the period during which discussion of it was postponed. The Freedman's Bureau Bill which made deprivation of certain civil rights of negroes an offense punishable by military tribunals had been passed. It applied, not to the entire country, but only to the South. On February 19, 1866, President Johnson had vetoed the bill principally on the ground that it was unconstitutional. Cong.Globe, supra, 915. Forthwith, a companion proposal known as the Civil Rights Bill empowering federal courts to punish those who deprived any person anywhere in the country of certain defined civil rights was pressed to passage. Senator Trumbull, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who offered the bill in the Senate on behalf of that Committee, had stated that 'the late slaveholding States' had enacted laws '* * * depriving persons of African descent of privileges which are essential to freemen. * * * (S) tatutes of Mississippi * * * provide that if any person of African descent residing in that State travels from one county to another without having a pass or a certificate of his freedom, he is liable to be committed to jail and to be dealt with as a person who is in the State without authority. Other provisions of the statute prohibit any negro or mulatto from having fire-arms; and one provision of the statute declares that for 'exercising the functions of a minister of the Gospel free negroes * * * on onviction, may be punished by * * * lashes. * * *' Other provisions * * * prohibit a free negro * * * from keeping a house of entertainment, and subject him to trial before two justices of the peace and five slaveholders for [332 U.S. 46, 100] violating * * * this law. The statutes of South Carolina make it a highly penal offense for any person, white or colored, to teach slaves; and similar provisions are to be found running through all the statutes of the late slaveholding States. * * * The purpose of the bill * * * is to destroy all these discriminations. * * *' Cong.Globe, supra, 474.
In the House, after Mr. Bingham's original proposal for a constitutional amendment had been rejected, the suggestion was also advanced that the bill secured for all 'the right to speech, * * * transit, * * * domicil, * * * the right to sue, the writ of habeas corpus, and the right of petition.' Cong.Globe., supra, 1263. And an opponent of the measure, Mr. Raymond, conceded that it would guarantee to the negro 'the right of free passage * * *. He has a defined status * * * a right to defend himself * * * to bear arms * * * to testify in the Federal courts * * *.' Cong.Globe, supra, 1266, 1267. But opponents took the position that without a constitutional amendment such as that proposed by Mr. Bingham, the Civil Rights Bill would be unconstitutional. Cong.Globe, supra, 1154, 1155, 1263.
Mr. Bingham himself vigorously opposed and voted against the Bill. His objection was two fold: First, insofar as it extended the protections of the Bill of Rights as against state invasion, he believed the measure to be unconstitutional because of the Supreme Court's holding in Barron v. Baltimore, supra. While favoring the extension of the Bill of Rights guarantees as against state invasion, he thought this could be done only by passage of his amendment. His second objection to the Bill was that in his view it would go beyond his objective of making the states observe the Bill of Rights and would actually strip the states of power to govern, centralizing all power in the Federal Government. To this he was opposed. His views are in part reflected by his own remarks and the answers to him by Mr. Wilson. Mr. Bingham said, in part: [332 U.S. 46, 101] '* * * I do not oppose any legislation which is authorized by the Constitution of my country to enforce in its letter and its spirit the bill of rights as embodied in that Constitution. I know that the enforcement of the bill of rights is the want of the Republic. I know if it had been enforced in good faith in every State of the Union the calamities and conflicts and crimes and sacrifices of the past five years would have been impossible.
Mr. Wilson, House sponsor of the Civil Rights Bill, answered Mr. Bingham's objections to it with these remarks:
In vetoing the Civil Rights Bill, President Johnson said among other things that the bill was unconstitutional for many of the same reasons advanced by Mr. Bingham:
The bill, however, was passed over President Johnson's veto and in spite of the constitutional objections of Bingham and others. Cong. Globe, supra, 1809, 1861.
IV. Thereafter the scene changed back to the Committee on Reconstruction. There Mr. Stevens had proposed an amendment,1 of which provided 'No discrimination shall be made by any State, nor by the United States, as to the civil rights of persons because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.' Journal 28. Mr. Bingham proposed an additional section providing that 'No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.' Journal 30. After the Committee had twice declined to recommend Mr. Bingham's proposal, on April 28 it was accepted by the Committee, substantially in the form he had proposed it, as 1 of the recommended Amendment. Journal 44. [332 U.S. 46, 104] V. In introducing the proposed Amendment to the House on May 8, 1866, Mr. Stevens speaking for the Committee said:
On May 23, 1866, Senator Howard introduced the proposed amendment to the Senate in the absence of Senator Fessenden who was sick. Senator Howard prefaced his remarks by stating:
Mr. Bingham had closed the debate in the House on the proposal prior to its consideration by the Senate. He said in part:
Both proponents and opponents of 1 of the amendment spoke of its relation to the Civil Rights Bill which had been previously passed over the President's veto. Some considered that the amendment settled any doubts there might be as to the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Bill. Cong. Globe, 2511, 2896. Others maintained that the Civil Rights Bill would be unconstitutional [332 U.S. 46, 108] unless and until the amendment was adopted. Cong. Globe, 2461, 2502, 2506, 2513, 2961, 2513. Some thought that amendment was nothing but the Civil Rights 'in another shape.' Cong. Globe, 2459, 2462, 2465, 2467, 2498, 2502. One attitude of the opponents was epitomized by a statement by Mr. Shanklin that the amendment strikes 'down the reserved rights of the States, * * * declared by the framers of the Constitution to belong to the States exclusively and necessary for the protection of the property and liberty of the people. The first section of this proposed amendment * * * is to strike down those State rights and invest all power in General Government.' Cong. Globe, supra, 2500. See also Cong. Globe, supra, 2530, 2538.
Except for the addition of the first sentence of 1 which defined citizenship, Cong. Globe, supra 2869, the amendment weathered the Senate debate without substantial change. Itis signifi cant that several references were made in the Senate debate to Mr. Bingham's great responsibility for 1 of the amendment as passed by the House. See e.g. Cong. Globe, supra, 2896.
VI. Also just prior to the final votes in both Houses passing the resolution of adoption, the Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, H.R.Rep.No.30, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. (1866); Sen.Rep.No. 112, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. (1866), was submitted. Cong.Globe, supra, 3038, 3051. This report was apparently not distributed in time to influence the debates in Congress. But a student of the period reports that 150,000 copies of the Report and the testimony which it contained were printed in order that senators and representatives might distribute them among their constituents. Apparently the Report was widely reprinted in the press and used as a campaign document [332 U.S. 46, 109] in the election of 1866. Kendrick, Journal of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction (1914) 265. According to Kendrick the Report was 'eagerly * * * perused' for information concerning 'conditions in the South.' Kendrick, supra, 265.
The Report of the Committee had said with reference to the necessity of amending the Constitution:
Among the examples recited by the testimony were discrimination against negro churches and preachers by local officials and criminal punishment of those who attended objectionable church services. Report, Part II, 52. Testimony also cited recently enacted Louisiana laws which made it 'a highly penal offense for anyone to do anything that might be construed into encouraging the blacks to leave the persons with whom they had made contracts for labor * * *.' Report, Part III, p. 25.3
Flack, supra at 142, who canvassed newspaper coverage and speeches concerning the popular discussion of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, indicates that [332 U.S. 46, 110] Senator Howard's speech stating that one of the purposes of the first section was to give Congress power to enforce the Bill of Rights as well as extracts and digests of other speeches were published widely in the press. Flack summarizes his observation that
VII. Formal statements subsequent to adoption of the Amendment by the congressional leaders who particiated in th e drafting and enactment of it are significant. In 1871 a bill was before the House which contemplated enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment. Mr. Garfield, who had participated in the debates on the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866 said:
A few days earlier, in a debate on this same bill to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment, Mr. Bingham, still a member of Congress, had stated at length his understanding of the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment as he had originally conceived it:
And the day after Mr. Garfield's address, Mr. Dawes, also a member of the 39th Congress, stated his understanding of the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment:
VIII. Hereafter appear statements in opinions of this Court rendered after adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment and prior to the Twining case which indicate a belief that the Fourteenth Amendment, and particularly its privileges and immunities clause, was plain application of the Bill of Rights to the states. See 332 U.S. 75, note 6, supra.
In the Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 83, the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Field emphasized that the Fourteenth Amendment made a 'citizen of a State * * * a citizen of the United States residing in that State.' 16 Wall. at page 95. But he enunciated a relatively limited number of privileges and immunities which he considered protected by national power from state interference by the Fourteenth Amendment. Apparently dissatisfied with the limited interpretation of Mr. Justice Field, Mr. Justice Bradley, although agreeing with all that Mr. Justice Field had said, wrote an additional dissent. 16 Wall. at page 111. In it he said:
Mr. Justice Swayne joined in this opinion but added his own not inconsistent views. 16 Wall. at page 124.
But in Walker v. Sauvinet, 92 U.S. 90, 92, when a majority of the Court held that 'A trial by jury in suits at common law pending in the State courts is not * * * a privilege or immunity of national citizenship, which the States are forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment to abridge,' Mr. Justice Field and Mr. Justice Clifford dissented from 'the opinion and judgment of the Court.' 92 U.S. at page 93.
In Spies v. Illinois, 123 U.S. 131, counsel for the petitioners, Mr. J. Randolph Tucker, after enumerating the protections of the Bill of Rights, took this position:
The constitutional issues raised by this argument were not reached by the Court which disposed of the case on jurisdictional grounds.
However, Mr. Justice Field in his dissenting opinion in O'Neil v. Vermont, 144 U.S. 323, 337, 361, 698, 707, stated that 'after much reflection' he had become persuaded that the definition of privileges and immunities given by Mr. Tucker in Spies v. Illinois, supra, 'is correct.' And Mr. Justice Field went on to say that 'While, therefore, the ten amendments as limitations on power, and, so far as they accomplish their purpose and find their fruition in such limitations, are applicable only to the federal government and not to the states, yet, so far as they declare or recognize the rights of persons they are rights belonging to them as citizens of the United States under the constitution; and the fourteenth amendment, as [332 U.S. 46, 123] to all such rights, places a limit upon state power by ordaining that no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge them. If I am right in this view, then every citizen of the United States is protected from punishments which are cruel and unusual. It is an immunity which belongs to him, against both state and federal action. The state cannot apply to him, any more than the United States, the torture, the rack, or thumb-screw, or any cruel and unusual punishment, or any more than it can deny to him security in his house, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, or compel him to be a witness against himself in a criminal prosecution. These rights, as those of citizens of the United States, find their recognition and guaranty against federal action in the constitution of the United States, and against state action in the fourteenth amendment. The inhibition by that amendment is not the less valuable and effective because of the prior and existing inhibition against such action in the constitutions of the several states. * * *' 144 U.S. at page 363, 12 S.Ct. at page 708.
Mr. Jusice Harlan, and apparently Mr. Justice Brewer, concurred in this phase of Mr. Justice Field's dissent. 144 U.S. at pages 366, 370, 371, 12 S.Ct. at pages 709, 711.
For further exposition of these views see also the vigorous dissenting opinions of Mr. Justice Harlan in Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516, 538, 122, 292, and Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U.S. 581, 605, as well as his dissenting opinion in Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78, 114, 26.
Mr. Justice MURPHY, with whom Mr. Justice RUTLEDGE concurs, dissenting.
While in substantial agreement with the views of Mr. Justice BLACK, I have one reservation and one addition to make. [332 U.S. 46, 124] I agree that the specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights should be carried over intact into the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment. But I am not prepared to say that the latter is entirely and necessarily limited by the Bill of Rights. Occasions may arise where a proceeding falls so far short of conforming to fundamental standards of procedure as to warrant constitutional condemnation in terms of a lack of due process despite the absence of a specific provision in the Bill of Rights.
That point, however, need not be pursued here inasmuch as the Fifth Amendment is explicit in its provision that no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. That provision, as Mr. Justice BLACK demonstrates, is a constitutent part of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Moreover, it is my belief that this guarantee against self-incrimination has been violated in this case. Under California law, the judge or prosecutor may comment on the failure of the defendant in a criminal trial to explain or deny any evidence or facts introduced against him. As interpreted and applied in this case, such a provision compels a defendant to be a witness against himself in one of two ways:
1. If he does not take the stand, his silence is used as the basis for drawing unfavorable inferences against him as to matters which he might reasonably be expected to explain. Thus he is compelled, through his silence, to testify against himself. And silence can be as effective in this situation as oral statements.
2. If he does take the stand, thereby opening himself to cross-examination, so as to overcome the effects of the provision in question, he is necessarily compelled to testify against himself. In that case, his testimony on cross-examination is the result of the coercive pressure of the provision rather than his own volition. [332 U.S. 46, 125] Much can be said pro and con as to the desiability of allowing comment on the failure of the accused to testify. But policy arguments are to no avail in the face of a clear constitutional command. This guarantee of freedom from self-incrimination is grounded on a deep respect for those who might prefer to remain silent before their accusers. To borrow language from Wilson v. United States, 149 U.S. 60, 66, 766: 'It is not every one who can safely venture on the witness stand, though entirely innocent of the charge against him. Excessive timidity, nervousness when facing others and attempting to explain transactions of a suspicious character, and offenses charged against him, will often confuse and embarrass him to such a degree as to increase rather than remove prejudices against him. It is not every one, however honest, who would therefore willingly be placed on the witness stand.'
We are obliged to give effect to the principle of freedom from self-incrimination. That principle is as applicable where the compelled testimony is in the form of silence as where it is composed of oral statements. Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment below.
[Footnote 1] Mr. Bingham and Mr. Stevens had introduced these same proposed amendments in the House prior to the establishment of the Reconstruction Committee. Cong.Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. (1865) 10, 14.
[Footnote 2] It has been said of Stevens' statement: 'He evidently had reference to the Bill of Rights, for it is in it that most of the privileges are enumerated, and besides it was not applicable to the States.' Flack, The Adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment (1908) 75.
[Footnote 3] In a widely publicized report to the President which was also submitted to the Congress, Carl Schurz had reviewed similar incidents and emphasized the fact that negroes had been denied the right to bear arms, own property, engage in business, to testify in Court, and that local authorities had arrested them without cause and tried them without juries. Sen.Exec.Doc.No.2, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. (1865) 23, 24, 26, 36. See also Report of Commissioner of Freedman's Bureau, Exec.Doc.No.70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. (1866) 41, 47, 48, 233, 236, 265, 376.