Bond v. Floyd

Context

The broad context of Bond v. Floyd involves the way in which dissent on American foreign policy by legislators is tolerated and how legislators may treat fellow legislators who dissent from the prevailing views. Legislators may be treated poorly by fellow legislators and by their constituents as a result of their dissenting views. However, it was unclear at the time whether a legislature could use its power to judge the qualifications of its members in order to refuse to seat a duly elected member merely for his or her opposition to war and dissent on foreign policy.

The narrow context of Bond v. Floyd involved the convergence of three powerful forces in 1960s America: the civil rights movement, anti–Vietnam War sentiment, and the push toward equally populous districts that would lead to the election of African American candidates in significant numbers for the first time since Reconstruction. Julian Bond, a leader in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)—a major civil rights organization in the 1960s—endorsed SNCC’s anti–Vietnam War statements and was consequently denied a seat in the Georgia legislature after being elected to a district that was created as a result.

War and civil rights had been linked for many generations prior to Bond v. Floyd. Whether the war at issue was the Civil War, World War I, or World War II, some discussion of the need for adequate civil rights for African American soldiers and African Americans in general had taken place. In these earlier wars, the demand for equal civil rights accompanied support for the war. The Vietnam War was different. Many who fought for civil rights at home questioned whether it made sense for African Americans to fight in the war when they did not have equal rights at home, particularly given that the Vietnam War was ostensibly being fought to keep or make Vietnam free. The linkage between support of civil rights and dissent on American war policy allowed some to renew their contempt for civil rights and for those who supported equality. Others thought that civil rights supporters should stick to advocating for civil rights and should not comment on war or foreign policy.

The struggle for Vietnam had been ongoing for years before the United States committed substantial emotional and physical resources in 1964. The escalation of America’s role occurred in the wake of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which authorized President Lyndon Johnson to use force in Vietnam. Over the next year, President Johnson ordered significant aerial bombing of Vietnam, sent tens of thousands of troops to Vietnam, and authorized many tens of thousands more.

This escalation came at a momentous time for the civil rights movement. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the most sweeping civil rights bill since Reconstruction, had been passed in no small measure because of President Johnson’s support. Through a series of cases, the Supreme Court had declared that one-man, one-vote was required under the Constitution, leading to the redrawing of district lines to guarantee that districts would consist of equal populations. This redistricting promised that—if African Americans were allowed to vote—areas with high concentrations of African American citizens would be able to elect representatives to their liking for the first time in many years, if ever. The eventual passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 helped ensure that African Americans would be allowed to vote in areas of the country where their electoral voices had been stifled for years. American life was becoming relatively more equal and democratic. However, civil rights organizations, their leaders, and many others recognized that the United States had far to go before its citizens would become truly equal. This is why the U.S. claim that the war was being fought to guarantee freedom to the people of Vietnam struck a discordant note to some in civil rights organizations and triggered dissent. Some dissenters were philosophically opposed to war. Others were opposed to this particular war. In sum, the dissent was significant.

In August 1965 Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke out against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Although some might have thought that the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize winner would understandably speak out against war, others argued that he should stick to civil rights rather than opine on American foreign policy. Nonetheless, King specifically linked civil rights and the war in Vietnam. His outspokenness was not appreciated by President Johnson or by some of his own supporters. Undaunted, King continued to oppose the war. Other civil rights leaders and organizations would speak out against the war when they deemed the time was right. In early 1966 SNCC did just that. It was their statement opposing the war that led directly to Bond v. Floyd.

When private citizens dissented with respect to the Vietnam War in particular and American foreign policy in general, legislators could do little to stop them. The First Amendment clearly protected the right to dissent. Indeed, legislators arguably had little reason to pay attention to the dissenters as long as the dissent did not involve violence. However, legislators could take additional interest if those dissenters were going to become colleagues. Julian Bond’s criticism of American foreign policy and the Vietnam War as he was about to take office put him in the category of potential legislator-dissenter.

Julian Bond was elected to the Georgia legislature in 1965 in a special election that was required when Georgia had to redraw its electoral districts as a result of the Supreme Court’s one-man, one-vote jurisprudence. Before he was sworn in, he noted his support for an official statement made by SNCC in January 1966 regarding opposition to the Vietnam War. Bond was the communications director of SNCC and a supporter from the organization’s early days, but he had not drafted the statement. The statement was issued in response to the murder of Samuel Younge, Jr. (misspelled “Young” in the document), a member of SNCC and a Tuskegee Institute student who was killed in January 1966 for using the segregated bathroom at a Tuskegee gas station. The statement indicated SNCC’s disapproval of American foreign policy as expressed in the country’s involvement in the Vietnam War. The statement linked freedom at home with freedom abroad, suggesting that the U.S. government’s claims to fight for freedom overseas appeared to be at odds with its refusal to fight for freedom at home. The statement also linked Younge’s struggle for freedom and his ultimate death with the Vietnamese peasants’ fight for freedom and potential death. SNCC’s statement ultimately suggested that Americans ought to be allowed to avoid the military draft by working with organizations in the United States that sought to build democracy here.

A number of members of the Georgia legislature wanted to refuse to seat Bond because of his support for the statement and his opposition to the Vietnam War. It could be argued that the legislators merely claimed that Bond could not honestly take the oath of office and therefore could not be seated. However, whether Bond could profess support for the U.S. Constitution and the Georgia constitution, as required by the oath, was inextricably linked to the substance of the debate about the Vietnam War. The Court decided that whether a legislator could sincerely take an oath was to be decided by the legislator alone, not by the legislator’s peers.