Publication Date
1967
Abstract
The signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, Benjamin Franklin warned that "We must all hang together or assuredly we shall all hang separately." Abraham Lincoln, in our nation's darkest hour, took his cue from the Biblical admonition of St. Mark to insist that a nation divided against itself cannot stand. From statements like these is derived the proposition that in unity there is strength. This simple truth, however, conceals a problem which is no different today than it has always been. We must ask: What is the price of unity, and is it worth the cost? Lyndon Johnson, faced with national disunity over the war in Vietnam, at first defended the right of dissent. But as the war and the criticism escalated, he called on the nation to unite behind his chosen course of action as "a family of patriots." He criticized those who make Vietnam "a topic of cocktail parties, office arguments or debate from the comfort of some distant sideline."
Suppression of dissent is the way of authoritarian government. We Americans have chosen a steeper path in our search for ultimate truth. If we have not quite said that in disunity there is strength, at least we have concluded that discussion based on honest disagreement is the best route to truth. This is the sense of the metaphor-so typically American in its commercial reference-that Mr. Justice Holmes adopted to explain why we permit the expression of currently unpopular views.
Recommended Citation
McKay, Robert B.
(1967)
"Civil Disobedience: A New Credo?,"
Georgia Law Review: Vol. 2:
No.
1, Article 5.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/glr/vol2/iss1/5