Word: warrener
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...decade following World War II," Warren continued, "there appeared a new kind of congressional inquiry unknown in prior periods of American history. Principally this was the result of the various investigations into the threat of subversion of the U.S. Government . . . This new phase of legislative inquiry involved a broad-scale intrusion into the lives and affairs of private citizens...
Stigma & Scorn. The Watkins case, wrote Warren, "rests upon fundamental principles of the power of the Congress and the limitations upon that power." The Chief Justice therefore delivered a professorial lecture on parliamentary history, ranging from the 17th century British inquiry involving Popish Plotmonger Titus Oates* ("the infamous rogue") through the historic lawgiving of Sir Edward Coke, James I's Lord Chief Justice, to the U.S. Senate investigation in 1859 of John Brown's seizure of the Harper's Ferry arsenal...
...Wrote Warren: "The mere summoning of a witness and compelling him to testify, against his will, about his beliefs, expressions or associations is a measure of governmental interference. And when those forced revelations concern matters that are unorthodox, unpopular, or even hateful to the general public, the reaction in the life of the witness may be disastrous . . . Those who are identified by witnesses and thereby placed in the same glare of publicity are equally subject to public stigma, scorn and obloquy...
Rights & Powers. The Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination was not raised by either side as an issue in the Watkins case, but, just as if it were, Chief Justice Warren let it be known that any challenge to Watkins' right to invoke that privilege "could not have prevailed" before the Supreme Court. Then he began balancing the First Amendment freedoms v. the investigatory power of Congress, and found it far from an even balance...
...Warren left no doubt that he and his court majority thought the Un-American Activities Committee ("it conceived of its task in the grand view of its name") had violated Watkins' First Amendment rights. But just as Warren seemed ready to make a ringing ruling on that basis, he veered back to the Fifth Amendment-this time to its clause requiring that "No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty or property without due process...