disloyalty to the government essay

Legitimacy of the System: Implications of Government-Endorsed Disloyalty

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On April 3, 1996, after nearly eighteen years of bombings that left three dead and twenty-nine injured, federal agents arrested Ted Kacyznski, also known as “The Unabomber,” in his isolated cabin in Lincoln, Montana (Brooke). Despite being the longest and most expensive FBI manhunt to date with a record-setting $1 million reward, the search for the mysterious Unabomber was brought to a close only after his younger brother, David Kaczynski, came forward with his suspicions that Ted could be the Unabomber (Graham). David had noticed striking similarities between the “Unabomber’s Manifesto,” published in 1995, and letters his older brother had sent him over the years (Graham).

The public was captivated by this modern betrayal-epic, a “benevolent Cain and Abel” (Glaberson). In an interview, David described the agonizing position he and his wife were placed in, forced to choose between his brother’s life and that of his next victim: “We found ourselves in a position where anything we did could lead to somebody’s death. I can’t tell you what that felt like” (Graham). His decision was praised by many. He was hailed for “doing the only honest thing any sane person could have done” and forty-four-year-old West Hills resident Barbara Frank remarked, “I don’t think I could live with myself knowing a relative was responsible for causing misery and destruction to other people” (Shuster). A somewhat surprised David reported that “not only haven’t we gotten a lot of angry or abusive letters, but we’ve really gotten a lot of letters from people who thanked us for having the courage to do what we did” (Graham). To most, the prospect of another dead victim was enough to justify the brotherly betrayal.

Even so, the actions of the younger Kaczynski were not universally hailed. David Letterman dubbed him “The Unasquealer” and on the Tuesday after the story broke, CNN’s “Talk Back Live” debated “whether he was saint or snitch” (Dowd). Others, like mechanic Dave Kubert, remarked that these situations are “still something to be resolved within the family” (Shuster). Explaining this kind of negative reaction to David Kacyznski’s actions, New York Times reporter Maureen Dowd wrote: “Many Americans subscribe to the sentiment expressed by E. M. Forster: ‘If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.’” This disapproving group placed the value of family loyalty—and their disdain for snitching—above not only the million dollar reward, but also above the potential consequences of remaining silent.

David Kaczynski quickly donated the FBI’s reward to the families of his brother’s victims (Brooke). David likely felt that keeping such a reward would be inappropriate, as his actions were motivated by concern for potential victims rather than by personal gain. Imagine the public outcry against the younger Kaczynski had he accepted the FBI’s proverbial thirty pieces of silver. Yet this purchase of betrayal is exactly the type of transaction that occurs every day within the criminal justice system. Criminal informants regularly “flip” on their associates in return for some type of reward—often consisting of heavily reduced sentences. By rewarding those criminals who provide information, the government is encouraging betrayal and sanctioning disloyalty. Regardless of the individual morality of David Kaczynski and of the more self-interested (and numerous) criminal informants, it is worth considering the implications of the justice system’s endorsement of disloyalty and how this endorsement reflects on our societal values and the perceived legitimacy of the legal system.

The negative responses to David Kacyznski’s decision to turn in his brother reflect not only the collective value we place on family loyalty, but also the extreme negative sentiment commonly felt for snitches and informants of all sorts. In the Divine Comedy , Dante reserves the ninth and lowest circle of hell for traitors and betrayers, who are damned instantly from the moment that “any soul becomes a traitor . . . then a demon takes its body away—and keeps that body in his power until its years have run their course completely” (207). At the center of the ninth circle, Dante describes the three-faced Satan who in each mouth “with gnashing teeth . . . tore to bits a sinner,” specifically the infamous traitors Brutus, Cassius, and, worst of all, Judas Iscariot (210). Thus the betrayers of Dante’s past and present (for he places many of his treacherous contemporaries in the frozen lake Cocytus, as well) are given a special place in Hell, closest to the Devil himself. This placement expresses a disdain for disloyalty that extends throughout history.

Columbia law professor George Fletcher acknowledges this deep, negative sentiment in his book, Loyalty: An Essay on the Morality of Relationships , when he writes: “Some of the strongest moral epithets in the English language are reserved for the weak who cannot meet the threshold of loyalty: They commit adultery, betrayal and treason” (8). Fletcher notes that these epithets for “the sin of betrayal” are “worse than murder, worse than incest” and invite “universal scorn” of the traitor (41). Why such a strong response to disloyalty? Fletcher argues that “loyalty enables individuals to grasp the humanity of their fellow citizens and to treat them as bearers of equal rights” (21). Thus, the heavy condemnation of disloyalty serves as a defense mechanism to protect the trust-based, interpersonal relationships that society is built upon. Any actions taken to jeopardize that trust must be considered carefully.

One such action is “snitching” or, more specifically, acting as a criminal informant. In 1999, Fordham law professor Ian Weinstein estimated that “twenty percent of all defendants ally themselves with the prosecutor (and many more try)” (617). Snitching alone destroys trust, but this type of widespread government endorsement of the practice has amplified and institutionalized its consequences. This practice does not just undermine the trust of a single relationship; rather, entire communities are suffering the consequences. Loyola law professor and ex-Federal Public Defender Alexandra Natapoff chronicles this phenomenon in her paper, “Snitching: The Institutional and Communal Consequences.” She argues that “criminally active informants exacerbate a culture in which crime is commonplace and tolerated” and, in communities where “approximately one in twelve men are active informants,” it is no surprise that there is immense damage done to “the fabric of interpersonal trust and psychological security” (687-690). Not only does snitching destroy trust within a community, but its negative consequences also have a severe impact on citizens’ views of the legal system and undermine their confidence that the government is acting in their best interest. Society must believe that institutions such as the legal system legitimately reflect their goals and values; otherwise, the only incentive to obey is fear of punishment.

Why is disloyalty encouraged and rewarded among criminals while elsewhere (e.g., playground tattletales or the police “blue wall of silence”) it is so heavily condemned? Mostly because society fears the harm criminals pose. Due to heavy caseloads and minimal supplementary evidence, collecting informant testimony is often the only way that law enforcement officials can prosecute offenders (Richman 1). As harmful as snitching is to a community, it would be equally unacceptable to let unknown numbers of offenders go unpunished, which, unhelpfully, would also result in a decreased perception of the legal system’s legitimacy.

The practice of using criminal informants clearly reflects the hierarchy of moral values in our society. In his paper, “When Morality Opposes Justice,” American psychologist Jonathan Haidt describes his theory that there are “five psychological systems that provide the foundations for the world’s many moralities” (1). Haidt believes that these five foundations are based on concerns for harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, in-group/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity, and that different cultures and groups develop these virtues (2). If we take the legal system’s practice of using criminal informants as an extension of our society’s values (admittedly, a substantial assumption), we can uncover a moral hierarchy. Concerns for harm at the hands of criminals exceed the importance placed on loyalty to a community. The sphere of fairness presents a more complicated issue. On the one hand, informing is justified as it brings criminals to justice and makes them pay for their actions. On the other hand, “any system that rewards cooperation . . . can favor the most culpable defendants,” a phenomenon known as “inverted sentencing” (Richman 1), which throws the fairness of the practice into question. Judging from these observations about our legal system, it seems that of Haidt’s foundations, society’s concern for preventing harm takes precedence over the moral spheres of loyalty and fairness.

Why is this so? And do these conclusions reflect society’s true values, especially considering that a universal disdain for informants implies that loyalty is of no minor significance? In his paper, “Coercive Sentencing,” Michigan law professor Steven Nemerson summarizes the utilitarian influences on our justice system and their use as justification for rewarding cooperating defendants. Nemerson argues that, in its simplest terms, “utilitarianism holds that an act is morally acceptable if it maximizes overall social well-being, measured in terms of people’s happiness” and that “the supplying of information and testimony by defendants and their use as active informants serves to detect and prevent crime,” which increases social well-being (684). With this utilitarian calculus in mind, it is easy to see how crime’s explicit immorality and its obvious negative effects on social happiness justify the overriding importance the legal system places on the moral principle of preventing harm, at the expense of personal loyalties.

However, as the controversy in the Unabomber case demonstrates, not all Americans agree with this ordering, and for them, the legal system fails to reflect their moral values, an extremely dangerous prospect to any society. Also, as Professor Natapoff demonstrates, there are less apparent damages that result from the practice of widespread informant use and the normative message that this practice sends by rewarding disloyalty. Not only does it run the risk of undermining Haidt’s core values of fairness and loyalty, but the communities that suffer from the practice also lose their respect for authority and law enforcement, and thus another of Haidt’s principles (authority/respect) is compromised. The practice of rewarding informants with reduced sentences may be a necessity to the prosecution of many criminals, but the dangers of undermining three out of Haidt’s five foundations for all social values cannot be ignored.

The practice of using criminal informants thus presents something of a moral paradox. Experimental psychologist and author Stephen Pinker observes that most people believe that “not only is it allowable to inflict pain on a person who has broken a moral rule; it is wrong not to, to ‘let them get away with it'” (2). Our justice system is designed to punish those guilty of breaking the law (society’s moral rules) and, in doing so, it employs a number of different tactics, including the rewarding of informants. However, in its efforts to “inflict pain” on criminal offenders, the justice system allows cooperators to “get away with it.” This type of self-defeating paradox is exactly what makes the use of informants such a dangerous practice. In attempting to defend communities from harm, the legal system undermines the interpersonal trust that those groups are based on. From a utilitarian view, it is not even clear if the crime prevented through informant testimony outweighs the informant’s own criminal activity that goes overlooked, or the aforementioned community harm. By striking deals with those criminals who are often the most culpable, the legitimacy of the justice system—which may not even reflect its constituents’ own moral values—is called into question.

The legal system is in many ways sensitive to the same forces as the economy; its power is ultimately based on citizens’ confidence that the system works. That confidence weakens when snitching undermines the essential trust that, as Fletcher said, “enables individuals to grasp the humanity of their fellow citizens” (21). If the use of informants is indeed a necessary evil, it is one that must be handled carefully so that faith in the system does not dwindle.

WORKS CITED

Brooke, James. “Unabomber’s Kin Collect Reward of $1 Million for Turning Him In.” The New York Times . 21 Aug. 1998. 5 Dec. 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/21/us/unabomber-s-kin-collect-reward-of-1-million-for-turning-him-in.html.

Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy . Trans. Allen Mandelbaum. New York: Everyman’s Library, 1995.

Dowd, Maureen. “Liberties; His Brother’s Keeper.” The New York Times . 11 Apr. 1996. 5 Dec 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/11/opinion/liberties-his-brother-s-keeper.html.

Fletcher, Gordon P. Loyalty: An Essay on the Morality of Relationships . New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Graham, Chris. “The Man Who Stopped the Unabomber.” Augusta Free Press . 22 Sept. 2005. 5 Dec. 2008. http://augustafreepress.com/2005/09/22/the-man-who-stopped-the-unabomber/.

Glaberson, William. “Heart of Unabom Trial is Tale of Two Brothers.” The New York Times . 5 Jan. 1998. 5 Dec. 2008. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F01E6D71430F936A35752C0A96E958260.

Haidt, Jonathan, J. Graham. “When Morality Opposes Justice: Conservatives Have Moral Intuitions That Liberals May Not Recognize.” Social Justice Research 20 (2007): 98-116.

Natapoff, Alexandra. “Snitching: The Institutional and Communal Consequences.” University of Cincinnati Law Review 73 (2004): 645-703.

Nemerson, Steven S. “Coercive Sentencing.” Minnesota Law Review 64 (1980): 669-751.

Pinker, Steven. “The Moral Instinct.” The New York Times Magazine . 13 Jan. 2006. 5 Nov. 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psychology-t.html.

Richman, Daniel C. “Cooperating Defendants.” Federal Sentencing Reporter 8.5 (1996): 292-295.

Shuster, Fred. “The Ties That Bind-Or Tough Love?: Readers Step Into Shoes of Man Who Thought His Brother May Be The Elusive Deadly Unabomber.” Los Angeles Daily News . 10 Apr. 1996. TheFreeLibrary. 5 Dec 2008. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/_/print/PrintArticle.aspx?id=83938147.

Weinstein, Ian. “Regulating the Market For Snitches.” Buffalo Law Review 47 (1999): 563-645.

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Feb 9, 2022

Sedition: The conundrum between disloyalty against the government and freedom of speech

Malavika Rajkumar and Kadambari Agarwal

“Sedition has been described as disloyalty in action, and the law considers as sedition all those practices which have for their object to excite discontent or dissatisfaction, to create public disturbance, or to lead to civil war; to bring into hatred or contempt the Sovereign or the Government, the laws or constitutions of the realm, and generally all endeavours to promote public disorder.” – Nazir Khan vs. State Of Delhi 2003 (8) SCC 461.

A relic of India’s colonial past — the law on sedition is defined in Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC). From when it was introduced in 1870, the Courts and public alike have deliberated and debated upon the meaning of the word “sedition”, and the evolving jurisprudence has led to the understanding that the following constitutes sedition:

● Exciting Disaffection: Sedition is an attempt or an act to create feelings of hatred or contempt or disaffection (i.e. feelings of disloyalty or enmity) towards the legally appointed Government.

● Inciting Violence: Courts have held in Kedar Nath Singh v State of Bihar that a citizen has a right to criticize or comment against the Government, so long as he does not incite people to violence against the Government or create any public disorder.

● Word, Deed or Action: Sedition can be any act against the Government which may include those which are written, verbal or visual in nature.

If convicted for sedition, one may be charged with imprisonment up to 3 years and/or a fine, or imprisonment for life and/or a fine, or a fine. Before a case of sedition comes to Court, there has to be prior sanction to prosecute a person. This means that the government has to approve and sanction the chargesheet filed by the prosecution lawyers. Since there is only the requirement of sanction for trial, and no pre-arrest requirements for sedition, it leads to multiple arrests and misuse of power by the police. However, there is a large gap between the number of arrests made and the number of persons convicted. For example, as per the data reported by the National Crime Records Bureau in 2017, 228 persons were arrested while 4 persons were convicted on the grounds of sedition.

Seditious Literature

Given below are common scenarios discussed by Courts which may be considered as seditious:

Critiquing Government

Under the law on sedition, authorship, distribution or possession of seditious literature can amount to a convictable offence. In Raghubir Singh v. State of Bihar , it was held that one need not be the author of seditious literature; the mere distribution or circulation of seditious material is also sufficient for an arrest and subsequent conviction, depending on the facts of the case. However, in Romesh Thappar v. State of Madras , it was held that merely authoring one piece of mildly seditious literature does not amount to sedition. Further, in Dr. Vinayak Binayak Sen Pijush Piyush Babun Guha v. State of Chhattisgarh , it was held that possession of seditious literature can also be grounds for punishment under this law.

Slogans and Posters

The law on sedition under the IPC clarifies that comments that merely express disapproval of the measures of the government with the purpose of gaining its alteration through lawful means do not constitute sedition, and neither do comments that are expressing disapproval of administrative, or any other action of the Government. This view was upheld and validated by the judiciary in the case of Sanskar Marathe v. State of Maharashtra and Ors .

Involvement in a banned organization group

Raising slogans or the use of posters can be considered seditious only if there is an attempt/cause for hatred or contempt against the Government or if they lead to violence or public disorder. It was held in Balwant Singh and Anr v. State of Punjab that raising casual slogans which did not elicit any response from any community or person cannot be considered to be sedition.

Cartoons/Drawings

It was held in Arup Bhuyan v. State of Assam and Indra Das v. State of Assam that it is not an act of sedition if a person is merely a member of a banned organisation unless he causes/incites violence or creates public disorder by violence or incitement to violence. The same principle was upheld in Dr. Vinayak Binayak Sen Pijush v. State of Chhattisgarh case, but in this case, it was proved that the appellants had caused violence (such as, damaging police vehicles, attacking members of the armed forces, etc.) through the use of documents (nasality pamphlets, booklets, letters) to cause violence by damaging police vehicles, attacking and killing members of armed forces.

In the famous case of Sanskar Marathe v. State of Maharashtra and Ors . where the cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was booked for sedition, it was held that cartoons, caricatures, visual representations, signs, etc. can be witty, humorous, sarcastic or even express anger, but the right of speech and expression allows one to express one’s indignation towards the Government. As long as the cartoons, etc. do not incite violence or have the tendency to create any public disorder, it is not sedition.

The incidents given above are only an indicative list of acts that have or have not been considered as seditious in nature, but there is a chance that a person may be arrested or convicted under this law for other acts or incidents as well. Every case that appears before the Court, is tested against existing cases like Kedar Nath or Nazir Khan, but primary weightage is given to the facts of the case before the Court.

If you are arrested by the police for sedition, remember to contact a lawyer and request for bail. Many cases such as Sakal v. Union of India have discussed the right to freedom of speech and expression as an inherent right but since there are no pre-arrest requirements, there is a high chance of being arrested for sedition. Multiple lawyers have requested Courts to lay down guidelines or standards for arrest, like in the case of Common Cause v. Union of India requesting mandatory involvement of authorities like the Director General of Police or Magistrate to certify acts of sedition to prevent unwarranted arrests. Despite such requests, there has been no indication so far on any change in the way the colonial era law is going to be dealt with. Multiple discussions are taking place even today on whether this archaic law should be removed, but in the meanwhile, you should take all possible steps to stay safe in this politically charged environment where there is a very thin line between your freedom of speech and expression and the act of sedition.

Malavika Rajkumar is the Content Lead and Kadambari Agarwal is the Research Assistant at Nyaaya, an initiative of Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, New Delhi.

Originally published at https://www.moneycontrol.com .

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8 Disloyalty

• Published: March 2007
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The significance of the norm against disloyalty (and the closely related concept of breach of trust) to our understanding of white-collar crime has been both over- and underestimated in the scholarly literature. On one hand, there are writers, such as Susan Shapiro, who have argued that violation of trust is the defining characteristic of white-collar crime. On the other hand, there are scholars such as John Coffee who have expressed considerable skepticism about the role that breach of trust should play in the criminal law. A more accurate assessment would arrive at a conclusion somewhere between these extremes. While the concept of disloyalty does play a significant role in defining certain key criminal offenses, such as bribery, treason, some acts of insider trading, and some frauds, it has little to do with many other core white collar offenses. This chapter explains the meaning of disloyalty, and foreshadows some of the ways that it plays a role in defining white-collar crime.

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McCarthyism & the Red Scare: The 2nd Communism Hysteria Phenomenon

McCarthyism appeared in the early 1950s when Senator McCarthy fueled the mass hysteria phenomenon of the second Red Scare that created fear and paranoia of communist infiltration.

In the midst of the Cold War, a US senator from Wisconsin took the meaning of anti-Communism to a new level when he accused federal government employees of being disloyal to the nation due to communist ties. The term McCarthyism is named after Senator McCarthy and is often used synonymously with the height of the second Red Scare. In the early 1950s, the American public was advised to be wary of communist influences lurking across the nation, and it caused mass hysteria. As the Soviet Union was spreading the Communist movement across Eastern and Central Europe and parts of Asia, communist expansion in the West became an increasing threat to the public and national security.

The Birth of McCarthyism

McCarthyism is a term used alongside the period of the second Red Scare that took place between 1947 and 1957. The term is associated with former United States Senator Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin. McCarthyism refers to the public and falsely or loosely evidenced accusations that deemed federal government employees disloyal to the nation. One of the first uses of McCarthyism was in a Washington Post editorial released in March 1950. A cartoon created by Herbert Block entitled “ You Mean I’m Supposed to Stand on That? ” depicted Republican Senators Styles Bridges, Kenneth S. Wherry, and Robert A. Taft pushing and pulling on an elephant used as a Republican symbol toward a stack of tar buckets. On top of the buckets is a barrel labeled with the phrase McCarthyism holding up a small platform.

Joseph Raymond McCarthy was born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin on November 14, 1908. He attended school periodically but dedicated most of his time to farm labor to help support his family. He enrolled in high school at the age of 19 and completed all four years of coursework within one year. McCarthy enrolled at Marquette University in 1930 with the intention of studying engineering, but later switched to law and graduated in 1935. He went on to pass the Wisconsin bar exam and began a career in the legal field.

McCarthy entered the political arena when he was elected as a circuit judge in 1939. He served in the US Marine Corps during the Second World War and returned to his position following the end of the war. His career as a circuit judge ended when he was elected as a US Senator on behalf of the Republican Party in 1946. McCarthy didn’t stand out as a senator during his first few years. However, he quickly became a notable figure following a speech he gave in Wheeling, West Virginia to the Women’s Republican Club.

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On February 9, 1950, McCarthy gave a speech in Lincoln’s birthday address that warned of communist infiltration within the US government. He did so by stating:

“ While I cannot take the time to name all the men in the State Department who have been named as members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring, I have here in my hand a list of 205 .”

McCarthy’s claims that he held a list of government officials associated with the Communist Party sparked a mass hysteria phenomenon that fueled the second Red Scare. The American public became extremely fearful of communist involvement, so much so that people lost their jobs and were blacklisted from entering certain organizations and federal government agencies.

The First Red Scare Phenomenon

The late 1940s Red Scare wasn’t the first time that mass paranoia of communism struck the nation. The first Red Scare appeared in 1919 when American socialists and radicals banded together to create the American Communist Party, which was largely influenced by the successful Russian Communist Party and Bolshevik Revolution . The Russian Communist Party created the Comintern , also referred to as the Communist International, to help push the Communist movement forward and establish influences in other parts of Europe. By 1922, two American Communist parties existed and had about 12,000 members.

Over the next decade, the American Communist Party expanded significantly to about 75,000 members. Communist influences within the US caused fear and hostility among the public, especially against immigrants. The first Red Scare led to thousands of individuals being accused of communist or anarchist relations.

The Palmer Raids was one of the most significant events of the first Red Scare, which was conducted by the US Department of Justice and led by J. Edgar Hoover. During the raids, between 3,000 and 10,000 individuals who were suspected of communist, socialist, or anarchist ties were detained. Many individuals who were detained were deported. The actions of the Palmer Raids were deemed constitutional since socialist, communist, and anarchist associations were thought to correlate with advocating for the overthrow of the US government.

Roots of the Second Red Scare

The unstable relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union became more apparent following World War II when political disagreements grew into competition over world power and influence. The heightened tensions between the two forces led to conflicts that threatened a third World War and the spread of Communism – a period known as the Cold War . Although the population of the US reached about 150 million in 1950 and only some 50,000 Americans were members of the Communist Party, the fear that Communism would take over the nation dominated the 1950s.

President Harry S. Truman reluctantly decided to launch the Federal Loyalty-Security Program through the signing of Executive Order 9835 to prevent communist infiltration within the US government. The program established loyalty boards, which were allowed to conduct investigations if there was any reasonable doubt that disloyalty existed. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was authorized to conduct investigations alongside the loyalty boards to help with the mass amount of inquiries they received on suspected individuals.

Loyalty boards were established in every federal agency and conducted reviews and hearings on federal employees. More than five million federal employees were investigated . Even being suspected of having communist relations or being a sympathizer was enough for people to lose their jobs. Thousands of employees resigned as a result, and several hundred were dismissed. Many of those who were accused had their political and social reputations damaged. Prior to the establishment of the Loyalty Order, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was created in 1938 to investigate the disloyalty of individuals and organizations. The committee later became an important entity in the disloyalty inquiries and investigations that ensued throughout the 1950s.

The Grip of McCarthyism on the Second Red Scare

Senator McCarthy capitalized on the nation’s paranoia of Communism and used it to gain notoriety. As he stepped onto the scene of anti-Communism by claiming he knew of State Department employees who were involved in communist activities, it heightened the state of fear and paranoia. Many political leaders used it as a way to launch anti-Communism political campaigns to win elections in the early 1950s.

McCarthy took his efforts even further when he started a series of probes for communist infiltration within the State Department, Treasury, and the White House. He also launched an investigation for communist infiltration in the US Army. These probes were highly publicized, and his accusations were often knowingly false or lacked sufficient evidence to be pursued. However, politicians and federal officials avoided confronting McCarthy for his outlandish accusations, fearing that they would be accused of communist subversion and have their reputation damaged.

Influenced by McCarthy’s accusations of federal employee disloyalty, the Ohio General Assembly created the Ohio Un-American Activities Committee to investigate communist influences in the state. The committee was modeled after the HUAC and targeted state and federal government employees, government organizations, and even significant figures in Hollywood. Although many supported the actions the state and federal governments were taking to prevent the spread of Communism, some thought it violated free speech and privacy rights. Soviet spy rings and communists acting in favor of a foreign power did infiltrate federal government operations during World War II and the Cold War.

For example, the Rosenberg trial was a highly controversial case that resulted in the first Americans, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, being executed based on conspiracy to commit espionage during peacetime. The trial began in 1951, just as McCarthy began spewing accusations about government employee disloyalty. It was later determined that Julius was the leader of a Soviet spy ring and recruited and coordinated with other individuals to share secrets of the atomic bomb with the Soviets. Communist infiltration within the US government was present, and it did affect certain outcomes. Soviet spies who infiltrated US government operations were largely responsible for the Soviet Union’s ability to test its first atomic bomb in August 1949. The test came years earlier than what experts had projected for this type of Soviet weapons development.

The Downfall of McCarthyism 

The Cold War didn’t end until 1991 along with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but McCarthyism died out in the mid-1950s. The second Red Scare also dissolved along with McCarthyism. Senator Joseph McCarthy was largely responsible for his own downfall, which began when he launched a series of probes against the US Army for communist subversion as chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 1953. Although he managed to get away with accusing more than 200 federal employees of disloyalty, accusations against the US Army were a longshot.

The committee conducted a series of hearings, known as the Army-McCarthy hearings , which were broadcast on national television. While conducting the hearings, McCarthy was described as acting belligerent and inappropriately. His behavior made it more apparent that his accusations were false, causing him to lose what remaining trust the public had in him.

Adding onto his embarrassing behaviors, the US Army countered the accusations by alleging that McCarthy was abusing his power as he requested special treatment for one of his former employees. This made him a subject of the committee’s investigation and caused him to step down from his position as chairman. In December 1954, McCarthy was censured by the US Senate but kept his position until he died on May 2, 1957. Fear of Communism was still present among the American public following the period of McCarthyism. However, paranoia of communist infiltration and influence reached its highest point when Senator McCarthy launched his highly publicized, witch-hunt-like probes on federal employees between 1950 and 1954.

The Munich Agreement: The Actual Beginning of World War II

By Amy Hayes BA History w/ English minor Amy is a contributing writer with a passion for historical research and the written word. She holds a BA in history from Old Dominion University with a concentration in English. Amy grew up in the historic state of Virginia and quickly became fascinated by the intricate details of how people, places, and things came to be. She specializes in topics on American history, Ancient and Medieval England, law, and the environment.

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Harry S Truman

Executive order 9835—prescribing procedures for the administration of an employees loyalty program in the executive branch of the government.

WHEREAS each employee of the Government of the United States is endowed with a measure of trusteeship over the democratic processes which are the heart and sinew of the United States; and

WHEREAS it is of vital importance that persons employed in the Federal service be of complete and unswerving loyalty to the United States; and

WHEREAS, although the loyalty of by far the overwhelming majority of all Government employees is beyond question, the presence within the Government service of any disloyal or subversive person constitutes a threat to our democratic processes; and

WHEREAS maximum protection must be afforded the United States against infiltration of disloyal persons into the ranks of its employees, and equal protection from unfounded accusations of disloyalty must be afforded the loyal employees of the Government:

NOW, Therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and statutes of the United States, including the Civil Service Act of 1883 (22 Stat. 403), as amended, and section 9A of the act approved August 2, 1939 (18 U.S.C. 61i), and as President and Chief Executive of the United States, it is hereby, in the interest of the internal management of the Government, ordered as follows:

PART I - INVESTIGATION OF APPLICANTS

• Investigations of persons entering the competitive service shall be conducted by the Civil Service Commission, except in such cases as are covered by a special agreement between the Commission and any given department or agency.
• Investigations of persons other than those entering the competitive service shall be conducted by the employing department or agency. Departments and agencies without investigative organizations shall utilize the investigative facilities of the Civil Service Commission.
• Investigations of persons entering the competitive service shall be conducted as expeditiously as possible; provided, however, that if any such investigation is not completed within 18 months from the date on which a person enters actual employment, the condition that his employment is subject to investigation shall expire, except in a case in which the Civil Service Commission has made an initial adjudication of disloyalty and the case continues to be active by reason of an appeal, and it shall then be the responsibility of the employing department or agency to conclude such investigation and make a final determination concerning the loyalty of such person.
• Federal Bureau of Investigation files.
• Civil Service Commission files.
• Military and naval intelligence files.
• The files of any other appropriate government investigative or intelligence agency.
• House Committee on un-American Activities files.
• Local law-enforcement files at the place of residence and employment of the applicant, including municipal, county, and State law-enforcement files.
• Schools and colleges attended by applicant.
• Former employers of applicant.
• References given by applicant.
• Any other appropriate source.
• Whenever derogatory information with respect to loyalty of an applicant is revealed a full investigation shall be conducted. A full field investigation shall also be conducted of those applicants, or of applicants for particular positions, as may be designated by the head of the employing department or agency, such designations to be based on the determination by any such head of the best interests of national security.

PART II - INVESTIGATION OF EMPLOYEES

• He shall be responsible for prescribing and supervising the loyalty determination procedures of his department or agency, in accordance with the provisions of this order, which shall be considered as providing minimum requirements.
• The head of a department or agency which does not have an investigative organization shall utilize the investigative facilities of the Civil Service Commission.
• An officer or employee who is charged with being disloyal shall have a right to an administrative hearing before a loyalty board in the employing department or agency. He may appear before such board personally, accompanied by counsel or representative of his own choosing, and present evidence on his own behalf, through witnesses or by affidavit.
• The officer or employee shall be served with a written notice of such hearing in sufficient time, and shall be informed therein of the nature of the charges against him in sufficient detail, so that he will be enabled to prepare his defense. The charges shall be stated as specifically and completely as, in the discretion of the employing department or agency, security considerations permit, and the officer or employee shall be informed in the notice (1) of his right to reply to such charges in writing within a specified reasonable period of time, (2) of his right to an administrative hearing on such charges before a loyalty board, and (3) of his right to appear before such board personally, to be accompanied by counsel or representative of his own choosing, and to present evidence on his behalf, through witness or by affidavit.
• A recommendation of removal by a loyalty board shall be subject to appeal by the officer or employee affected, prior to his removal, to the head of the employing department or agency or to such person or persons as may be designated by such head, under such regulations as may be prescribed by him, and the decision of the department or agency concerned shall be subject to appeal to the Civil Service Commission’s Loyalty Review Board, hereinafter provided for, for an advisory recommendation.
• The rights of hearing, notice thereof, and appeal therefrom shall be accorded to every officer or employee prior to his removal on grounds of disloyalty, irrespective of tenure, or of manner, method, or nature of appointment, but the head of the employing department or agency may suspend any officer or employee at any time pending a determination with respect to loyalty.
• The loyalty boards of the various departments and agencies shall furnish to the Loyalty Review Board, hereinafter provided for, such reports as may be requested concerning the operation of the loyalty program in any such department or agency.

PART III - RESPONSIBILITIES OF CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION

• The Board shall have authority to review cases involving persons recommended for dismissal on grounds relating to loyalty by the loyalty board of any department or agency and to make advisory recommendations thereon to the head of the employing department or agency. Such cases may be referred to the Board either by the employing department or agency, or by the officer or employee concerned.
• The Board shall make rules and regulations, not inconsistent with the provisions of this order, deemed necessary to implement statutes and Executive orders relating to employee loyalty.
• Advise all departments and agencies on all problems relating to employee loyalty.
• Disseminate information pertinent to employee loyalty programs.
• Coordinate the employee loyalty policies and procedures of the several departments and agencies.
• Make reports and submit recommendations to the Civil Service Commission for transmission to the President from time to time as may be necessary to the maintenance of the employee loyalty program.
• All executive departments and agencies are directed to furnish to the Civil Service Commission all information appropriate for the establishment and maintenance of the central master index.
• The reports and other investigative material and information developed by the investigating department or agency shall be retained by such department or agency in each case.
• The Loyalty Review Board shall disseminate such information to all departments and agencies.

PART IV - SECURITY MEASURES IN INVESTIGATIONS

• At the request of the head of any department or agency of the executive branch an investigative agency shall make available to such head, personally, all investigative material and information collected by the investigative agency concerning any employee or prospective employee of the requesting department or agency, or shall make such material and information available to any officer or officers designated by such head and approved by the investigative agency.
• Notwithstanding the foregoing requirement, however, the investigative agency may refuse to disclose the names of confidential informants, provided it furnishes sufficient information about such informants on the basis of which the requesting department or agency can make an adequate evaluation of the information furnished by them, and provided it advises the requesting department or agency in writing that it is essential to the protection of the informants or to the investigation of other cases that the identity of the informants not be revealed. Investigative agencies shall not use this discretion to decline to reveal sources of information where such action is not essential.
• Each department and agency of the executive branch should develop and maintain, for the collection and analysis of information relating to the loyalty of its employees and prospective employees, a staff specially trained in security techniques, and an effective security control system for protecting such information generally and for protecting confidential sources of such information particularly.

PART V - STANDARDS

• The standard for the refusal of employment or the removal from employment in an executive department or agency on grounds relating to loyalty shall be that, on all the evidence, reasonable grounds exist for belief that the person involved is disloyal to the Government of the United States.
• Sabotage, espionage, or attempts or preparations therefor, or knowingly associating with spies or saboteurs;
• Treason or sedition or advocacy thereof;
• Advocacy of revolution or force or violence to alter the constitutional form of government of the United States;
• Intentional, unauthorized disclosure to any person, under circumstances which may indicate disloyalty to the United States, of documents or information of a confidential or non-public character obtained by the person making the disclosure as a result of his employment by the Government of the United States;
• Performing or attempting to perform his duties, or otherwise acting, so as to serve the interests of another government in preference to the interests of the United States.
• Membership in, affiliation with or sympathetic association with any foreign or domestic organization, association, movement, group or combination of persons, designated by the Attorney General as totalitarian, fascist, communist, or subversive, or as having adopted a policy of advocating or approving the commission of acts of force or violence to deny other persons their rights under the Constitution of the United States, or as seeking to alter the form of government of the United States by unconstitutional means.

PART VI - MISCELLANEOUS

• The Federal Bureau of Investigation shall check such names against its records of persons concerning whom there is substantial evidence of being within the purview of paragraph 2 of Part V hereof, and shall notify each department and agency of such information.
• Upon receipt of the above-mentioned information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, each department and agency shall make, or cause to be made by the Civil Service Commission, such investigation of those employees as the head of the department or agency shall deem advisable.
• The Security Advisory Board of the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee shall draft rules applicable to the handling and transmission of confidential documents and other documents and information which should not be publicly disclosed, and upon approval by the President such rules shall constitute the minimum standards for the handling and transmission of such documents and information, and shall be applicable to all departments and agencies of the executive branch.
• The provisions of this order shall not be applicable to persons summarily removed under the provisions of section 3 of the act of December 17, 1942, 56 Stat. 1053, of the act of July 5, 1946, 60 Stat. 453, or of any other statute conferring the power of summary removal.
• The Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of the Treasury with respect to the Coast Guard, are hereby directed to continue to enforce and maintain the highest standards of loyalty within the armed services, pursuant to the applicable statutes, the Articles of War, and the Articles for the Government of the Navy.
• This order shall be effective immediately, but compliance with such of its provisions as require the expenditure of funds shall be deferred pending the appropriation of such funds.
• Executive Order No. 9300 of February 5, 1943, is hereby revoked.

Harry S. Truman The White House, March 21, 1947

Harry S Truman, Executive Order 9835—Prescribing Procedures for the Administration of an Employees Loyalty Program in the Executive Branch of the Government Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/275962

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Loyalty, Disloyalty, and the Coronation of Charles II

• Edward Legon 3  
• First Online: 01 July 2020

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The coronation of Charles II in 1661 was a remarkable spectacle and, as historians have shown, elicited an extraordinary outpouring of loyalty to the new king across the Stuart realms. Not everyone shared this enthusiasm, however. This chapter offers an overview of evidence of hostility to the celebrations and seeks to identify the origins of such sentiment. While, in many cases, dissent connotes the ‘disloyalty’ which was ascribed to it by the new regime, this was clearly not always an accurate interpretation. To be sure, as the reign of Charles II unfolded, there was increasing potential for expressions of alienation from the political and religious settlements to be construed as sedition.

I am very grateful to the following for their advice and support: Ian Atherton, Richard Bell, Alden Gregory, Catherine Hinchliff, Wendy Hitchmough, Jason Peacey, Elaine Tierney, and Sarah Ward. I am particularly grateful to Jack Sargeant, who commented on a draft of this work, and to the anonymous reviewer.

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The Manner of Electing and Enstalling the Knights of the Most Noble Order of St George called the Garter (London, 1661); and A True Relation of the Ceremonies at the Creating of the Knights of the Honourable Order of the Bath, the 18 & 19 April 1661 (London, 1661). For an account of the events on 22 and 23 April, see J. Ogilby, The Entertainment of his Most Excellent Majestie Charles II, in his Passage through the City of London to his Coronation, etc. (London, 1662).

S. Pepys, The Diary of Samuel Pepys: A New and Complete Transcription , ed. R. Latham and W. Matthews, 11 vols. (London, 1983), ii, p. 83.

Ogilby, The Entertainment .

The Form of his Majesties Coronation-Feast to be Solemnized and Kept at Westminster-Hall Upon the 23 of April 1661 (London, 1661).

R. Strong, Coronation: A History of Kingship and the British Monarchy (London, 2005), p. 288.

Calendar of State Papers, Venice , 1659–1661 , ed. A. B. Hinds, 38 vols. (London: HMSO, 1931) (afterwards, CSP, Venice ), xxxii, p. 294.

A. Wood, The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, Antiquary of Oxford, 1632–1695 , ed. A. Clark, 5 vols. (Oxford, 1891–1900), i, p. 399.

J. Nicoll, A Diary of Public Transactions and other Occurrences, Chiefly in Scotland, from January 1650 to June 1667 (Edinburgh, 1836), p. 327.

Pepys, Diary , ii, p. 37.

CSP, Venice , xxxii, pp. 255–6.

TNA, SP 29/34/48.

TNA, SP 29/32/136.

A. Fanshawe, Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe, Wife of Sir Richard Fanshawe, Bart. (London, 1830), p. 133.

W. Dugdale, The Life, Diary, and Correspondence of Sir William Dugdale, Knight, Sometime Garter Principal King of Arms , ed. W. Hamper (London, 1827), p. 108.

CSP, Venice , xxxii, p. 294.

For an account that has emphasised loyalty to the monarch, see L. Madway, ‘“The Most Conspicuous Solemnity”: The Coronation of Charles II’, in The Stuart Courts , ed. E. Cruickshanks (Stroud, 2000), pp. 141, 57.

K. Sharpe, Rebranding Rule: The Restoration and Revolution Monarchy, 1660–1714 (New Haven and London, 2013), p. 160.

Strong, Coronation , p. 279.

M. Jenkinson, Culture and Politics at the Court of Charles II, 1660–1685 (Woodbridge, 2010), p. 48.

Ibid.; C. Stevenson, The City and the King: Architecture and Politics in Restoration London (New Haven and London, 2013).

B. Klein, ‘“Between the Bums and the Bellies of the Multitude”, Civic Pageantry and the Problem of the Audience in Late Stuart London’, The London Journal 17 (1992), 18–26; E. Tierney, ‘Strategies for Celebration: Realising the Ideal Celebratory City in London and Paris, 1660–1715’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sussex, 2012); and J. Peacey, ‘The Street Theatre of State: The Ceremonial Opening of Parliament, 1603–60’, Parliamentary History 34 (2015), 155–72.

R. Hutton, The Restoration: A Political and Religious History of England and Wales, 1658–1667 (Oxford, 1985).

M. Neufeld, The Civil Wars after 1660: Public Remembering in Late Stuart England (Woodbridge, 2013).

See, for instance, R. L. Greaves, Deliver Us from Evil: The Radical Underground in Britain, 1660–1663 (Oxford, 1986); R. L. Greaves, Enemies under His Feet: Radicals and Nonconformists in Britain, 1664–1677 (Stanford, California, 1990); and R. L. Greaves, Secrets of the Kingdom: British Radicals from the Popish Plot to the Revolution of 1688–1689 (Stanford, California, 1992).

J. Peacey, ‘Radicalism Relocated: Royalist Politics and Pamphleteering of the Late 1640s’, in Varieties of Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century English Radicalism in Context , ed. A. Hessayon and D. Finnegan (Farnham, 2011), pp. 51–68.

Pepys, Diary , ii, pp. 87–8.

CSP, Venice , xxxii, p. 286.

A. Halkett, The Autobiography of Anne Lady Halkett , ed. J. Gough Nichols (Westminster, 1875), p. 114.

TNA, SP 29/33/53.

TNA, SP 29/34/54.

By the King: A Proclamation, Requiring all Cashiered Officers and Souldiers of the late Army, to depart, and not come within Twenty Miles of the Cities of London and Westminster, until the Twentieth day of May next (London, 1661).

H. Townshend, Diary of Henry Townshend of Elmley Lovett, 1640–1663 , ed. J. W. Willis Bund, 2 vols. (London, 1930), ii, p. 72.

Ibid., p. 71.

A True Discovery of a Bloody Plot Contrived by the Phanaticks Against The Proceedings of the City of London, in Order to the Coronation of the High and Mighty King, Charles the Second… (London, 1661), p. 2.

CSP, Venice , xxxii, p. 284.

Bradrip was accused of saying ‘the day ha[s] been ours & why not againe[;] I hope it will’. Somerset Heritage Centre (afterwards SHC), Q/SR99, f. 16r.

Ibid., f. 13r.

Ibid., f. 14r. See also ff. 13r, 15r, 16r.

TNA, SP 29/34/88a.

Depositions from the Castle of York, Relating to Offences Committed in the Northern Counties in the Seventeenth Century , ed. J. Raine (Durham, 1861), p. 85.

Ibid., p. 94.

Ibid., pp. 86–7; and J. Hodgson, ‘An Account of the Troubles that befel me, after the month of October 1660, about my Imprisonments’, in H. Slingsby, Original Memoirs, Written During the Great Civil War; Being the Life of Sir Henry Slingsby, and Memoirs of Capt. Hodgson (Edinburgh, 1806), p. 168.

Ibid., pp. 167–8.

For speculation about the delays, see CSP, Venice , xxxii, pp. 223, 244–5; and Stevenson, The City and the King , p. 86.

L. Von Ranke, The History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century , 6 vols. (Oxford, 1875), iii, p. 363.

See, for instance, D. Cressy, Dangerous Talk: Scandalous, Seditious, and Treasonable Speech in Pre-Modern England (Oxford, 2010), p. 93.

Essex Record Office, Q/SR 388/38.

Howell, State Trials , vi, p. 111.

Hertford County Records, Notes and Extracts from the Sessions Rolls, 1581–1698 , ed. W. J. Hardy, 4 vols. (Hertford, 1905), i, p. 137.

TNA, SP 29/40/10.

TNA, SP 29/32/104.

E. Ludlow, A Voyce from the Watch Tower, Part Five: 1660–1662 , ed. A. B. Worden (London: Camden Society, 1978), p. 286. For a discussion of the bishops’ failure to join the cavalcade, see Jenkinson, Culture and Politics , p. 69.

TNA, SP 29/33/97.

Z. Crofton, Berith Anti-Baal; Or, Zach Croftons Appearance Before The Prelate-Justice of the Peace, Vainly pretending to binde the Covenant and Covenanters to their good Behaviour (London, 1661), p. 42. Ironically, Crofton later petitioned the crown from prison, speaking of his wish to ‘partake of that generall joy [of] your approaching happy Coronacon’, TNA, SP 29/33/23.

See, for instance, R. Dowglas, The Form and Order of the Coronation of Charles the II, King of Scotland, together VVith the Sermon then Preached, by Mr Robert Dowglas &c. and the Oath then taken, with several Speeches made (Aberdeen and London, 1660); and A Phenix; Or, the Solemn League and Covenant (London, 1661).

Townshend, Diary , ii, p. 71.

E. Vallance, Revolutionary England and the National Covenant: State Oaths, Protestantism and the Political Nation, 1553–1682 (Woodbridge, 2005), p. 181.

‘An Act for Safety and Preservation of His Majesties Person against Treasonable and Seditious practices and attempts’, in The Statutes of the Realm , 10 vols. (London, 1810–28), v, pp. 304–6.

Memoirs of the Verney Family , ed. M. M. Verney, 4 vols. (London, 1899), iv, p. 10.

TNA, SP 29/33/73. For the account, see Ogilby, The Entertainment .

M. Foucault, ‘Film and Popular Memory: An Interview with Michel Foucault’, trans. M. Jordin, Radical Philosophy 11 (1975), 24–9.

Ludlow was referring here to publications such as Henry Bold’s, On the Thunder happening after the Solemnity of the Coronation of Charles the II, on St George’s Day, 1661 (London, 1661). For a further account of sympathetic interpretations of the storm, see G. Reedy, ‘Mystical Politics: The Imagery of Charles II’s Coronation’, in Studies in Change and Revolution: Aspects of English Intellectual History, 1640–1800 , ed. P. J. Korshin (Menston, 1972), pp. 19–42.

Ludlow, A Voyce , pp. 286–7.

R. L. Greaves, ‘The Tangled Careers of Two Stuart Radicals: Henry and Robert Danvers’, The Baptist Quarterly 29 (1981), pp. 34–5.

Eniautos Terastios Mirabilis Annus; Or, the Year of Prodigies and Wonders (London, 1661), p. 31.

Mirabilis Annus Secundus; Or, the Second Year of Prodigies (London, 1661), p. 59.

W. E. Burns, An Age of Wonders: Prodigies, Politics and Providence in England 1657–1727 (Manchester, 2002), pp. 35–7.

Ludlow, A Voyce , p. 286.

Halkett, The Autobiography , p. 115.

For a short account of the first anniversary of the coronation, see W. Shellincks, The Journal of William Schellinks’ Travels in England 1661–1663 , ed. and trans. M. Exwood and H. L. Lehmann (London: Camden Society, 1993), p. 83.

TNA, SP 29/250/96.

TNA, SP 29/259/75.

See, for instance, G. Burnet, A Modest and Free Conference Betwixt a Conformist and Non-conformist, about the Present Distempers of Scotland (Edinburgh(?), 1669), pp. 9–10.

The Speeches, Discourses, and Prayers, of Col. John Barkstead, Col. John Okey, and Mr Miles Corbet; Upon the 19th of April, being the Day of their Suffering at Tyburn (London, 1662), p. 43.

R. Josselin, The Diary of Ralph Josselin, 1616–1683 , ed. A. Macfarlane (Oxford, 1991), p. 23.

Ibid., p. 478.

R. Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae (London, 1696), p. 303.

P. Henry, Diaries and Letters of Philip Henry of Broad Oak, Flintshire, 1631–1696 , ed. M. H. Lee (London, 1882), p. 87.

Ibid., p. 85.

In his sermon before the Convention Parliament in 1660, Richard Baxter encouraged MPs to ‘stop not here, but proceed to Reformation , or else all the rest is but hypocrisie’: R. Baxter, A Sermon of Repentance: Preached before the Honourable House of Commons, Assembled in Parliament at Westminster, at their late solemn Fast for the settling of these Nations, 30 April 1660 (London, 1660), p. 39.

Henry, Diaries , p. 84.

See E. Legon, Revolution Remembered: Seditious Memories after the British Civil Wars (Manchester, 2019), chapter 7.

‘An Act of Free and Generall Pardon Indempnity and Oblivion’, in Statutes of the Realm , v, pp. 226–34.

The Manner of Electing , sig. A1v.

Ogilby, The Entertainment , pp. 18–24.

Josselin, The Diary , p. 479.

Ibid., p. 480.

Yorkshire Diaries and Autobiographies , ed. C. Jackson (Durham, 1877), p. 153.

E. Boteler, Gods Goodnesse in Crowning the King. Declared in a Sermon in the Church of Kingston Upon Hull, on the Happy Day of the Coronation of His Sacred Majesty Charles the Second, April the 23d, 1661 (London, 1662), sigs. A4r-v.

Yorkshire Diaries , ed. Jackson, p. 160.

SHC, Q/SR99, f. 15r.

Depositions from the Castle of York , ed. Raine, pp. 86–7.

Hodgson, ‘An Account of the Troubles’, pp. 167–8.

J. Tilley, The Old Halls, Manors, and Families of Derbyshire: Volume 3, The Scarsdale Hundred (London, 1849), p. 79.

TNA, SP 29/32/145.

T. Woodcock, Extracts from the Papers of Thomas Woodcock (Ob. 1695) , ed. G. C. Moore Smith (London: Camden Society, 1907), pp. 62–3.

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Legon, E. (2020). Loyalty, Disloyalty, and the Coronation of Charles II. In: Ward, M., Hefferan, M. (eds) Loyalty to the Monarchy in Late Medieval and Early Modern Britain, c.1400-1688. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37767-0_12

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Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri-Kansas Conflict, 1854-1865

Shadow War: Federal Military Authority and Loyalty Oaths in Civil War Missouri

By Christopher Phillips , University of Cincinnati

In February 1862, the Missouri provisional government’s new state treasurer, George Caleb Bingham , saw a troublesome development in his war-torn state. Garrisoning federal troops, especially in the western portion of Missouri, were subjecting civilians "to a kind of winnowing process by which the 'tares' were to be separated from the wheat — the loyal from the disloyal portion of the inhabitants."

The statement of a single individual . . . was to be taken as conclusive [and] it was not, for a moment, deemed necessary, that any investigation, in form, should take place. . . . [before they] drew a line, sufficiently legible, between Unionists and Secessionists.

With an artist’s eye for detail, Bingham’s “winnowing” was in fact a reference to measures implemented by the federal military to accomplish sharp categorizations among a deeply divided populace in an ostensibly loyal state, many of whom claimed themselves neutral in the contest.

The Dominion System

The American Civil War, especially in border slave states like Missouri, prompted hardened, albeit sometimes erratic, definitions of loyalty and disloyalty from a population with a wide array of political stances. In 1861 and 1862, border state citizens like Bingham witnessed the development of a dominion system – an integrated, if imperfectly implemented, knot of counterinsurgency measures conducted mostly by low-level, often volunteer post commanders and assisted by civilian informants. They included:

• Military districting and garrisons;
• Oaths and lists of civilians categorized as “loyal” and “disloyal;”
• Civilian assessments, or levies;
• Martial law, or the suspension of civil authority in favor of military rule;
• Provost marshal system, or the use of military personnel to preserve order among civilians, along with other functions, during the war (began informally in Missouri and other border states in 1861);
• Trade restrictions and the permit system, which allowed military personnel and civilian boards to regulate which civilians engaged in legal commercial activity.

With Abraham Lincoln ’s assent, military leaders at the local level implemented these measures as a broader strategy to establish control of the “chaos of incendiary elements,” as one commander referred to the often armed local populations, whose true loyalties were often uncertain and changing. This contest for definitions in fact allowed little room for neutrality, as citizens were caught in the web of restraints that aligned along the binary of loyalty and disloyalty. The outcome directly affected societal harmony and authority in Missouri and all of the border states for the duration of the war.

Soldiers performed professionally under the best of circumstances, but overzealously or even murderously under the worst. Administering the dominion system required interaction between federal troops, militia or home guard, and unionist citizens. Garrisoning towns, especially small ones, often required the commandeering of the communities’ physical structures and private homes for the army’s use. Damage or destruction often followed, as did the confiscation of private property.

Once the garrisoning of local towns was accomplished, ferreting out and suppressing perceived disloyalists—their primary task—required search patrols of varying sizes. Soldiers performed professionally under the best of circumstances, but overzealously or even murderously under the worst. In either case, cavalry patrols regularly roamed the countryside on self-styled “scouts” looking for disloyalists, saboteurs, and guerrillas.

However patriotic the motives of soldiers and officers, many had arrived in Missouri from free states with preconceived notions of its propertied inhabitants as wealthy, proslavery, disloyal southerners. Distinctions between loyal and disloyal property owners often evaporated in the minds of the occupying troops. Many soldiers evinced distrust or disdain for the mass of residents, especially slaveholders. One cavalry officer, Wyllis C. Ransom, an abolitionist hard-liner who had recently moved to Kansas from Wisconsin, concluded that the broadest portion of the border populace was disloyal.

“At the outbreak of the war,” Ransom recalled,

The people of the rural districts of the western part of the state of Missouri were divided into three classes—The first comprising one quarter were loyal to the United States but for the most part, of necessity, secretly so, and were soon compelled to join the Union armies or to seek the protection of Union communities. Another quarter were open in their hostility to the government, and showing their faith by their work, were soon found with [James] Rains or Price in the armies of the Confederacy. The remaining half were secretly hostile to the United States through professedly friends, non-combatants or neutrals. It was from the last class that the cruel wars of Missouri were mostly realized.

Not surprisingly, Ransom’s 6th Kansas Cavalry was the subject of numerous complaints lodged by western Missourians of theft and wanton destruction.

In the fall of 1863, Brigadier General John McNeil, a Canadian-born, St. Louis Yankee notorious for his role in the “ Palmyra Massacre ” the previous year, included a stern dictum on qualified loyalty in a general order he issued in southwestern Missouri. “The citizen who has chosen the position of neutrality and who claims or has claimed to have ‘done nothing on nary side,’ is not loyal.”

Many Union troops soon confronted personal disputes, feuds, slights, and political differences that, after festering for years prior to the war, quickly broke open. Major General John M. Schofield complained that the war in Missouri was largely “the result of old feuds, and involves very little, if at all, the question of Union or disunion.” Open conflict offered what one local called an “evening-up time . . . [when] many a man became a violent Unionist because the ancient enemies of his house were Southern sympathizers.” Class resentments certainly drove many such complaints against prominent landowners. Slaveholders in particular were targets. As one Missourian of moderate means later sneered, “the cry of ‘disloyal’ could be very easily raised against any man who happened to have a superabundance of property.”

Local Unionists’ targeting of prominent residents figured into federal troops’ rejection of nuanced political stances. Widespread military arrests, often made “on the slightest and most trivial grounds” (including for simply writing to those in the Confederate army or states), occurred throughout the border slave states. Without oversight, prisoners jammed courthouse jails and other sites of confinement, “arrested without any cause, except that they were reported secessionists,” as one St. Louis resident reported.

Prisoners jammed courthouse jails and other sites of confinement, “arrested without any cause, except that they were reported secessionists."

The historian Mark E. Neely, closely examining the federal government’s arrest records during the war, has concluded that some 13,000 civilians were arrested throughout the nation, the largest portion of whom were in the border states. His figures do not even include Missouri, where fragmentary evidence suggests a “formidable if not staggering” number of civilians likely were detained. Indeed, in excess of 2,000 were incarcerated at St. Louis’s Gratiot Street prison alone from April 1862 to October 1863. Neely also acknowledges that poor record-keeping would likely ratchet up any such estimate in Missouri.

Home guard and state militia members who supported or replaced the garrisoning troops were contributors to this shadow war. A resident of Elk Fork, Missouri, complained that his local home guard “came from all parts of the County and Some of them have little grudges at their fellow Citizens and they make use of their opportunity to avenge themselves.” Lincoln himself heard complaints that “arrests, banishments, and assessments are made more for private malice, revenge, and pecuniary interest than for the public good.”

The abuses by both federals and Confederates, militia and home guard were pronounced enough for John C. Frémont and Sterling Price , leading “antagonist forces” in the field in November 1861, to issue an unusual joint proclamation . It pledged that “future arrests or forcible interference by armed or unarmed parties of citizens . . . for the mere entertainment or expression of political opinions shall hereafter cease . . . and that the war now progressing shall be exclusively confined to armies in the field.” Six weeks later, Major General Henry Halleck pledged to disband home guard units in Missouri, “as rapidly as I can supply their places” with state militia.

Oaths of Allegiance

Following on the heels of these widespread arrests, formalized oaths of allegiance became the most ubiquitous symbols of federal authority. The widespread assumption that disloyal majorities of secessionists and neutralists were cowing loyalists in the border states made oaths virtual tools of the occupying troops. Even many unionists objected to being forced to take the federal oath, but others saw some utility to the oaths. One soldier wrote home to his aunt that when administering the oath, “It just sutes me to hear them grumble.” But unionists’ objections surprised him. “It dont hurt a union man to take the Oath,” he admitted, “but we find once in a while one that hates to take the Oath but durst not say anything Once in a grate while they are catched by some of us that over hear their conversation and then put them under an arrest.”

Many citizens who took the oath did so duplicitously. One woman spat that “every one has been required to take the oath—they are then called Loyal—What a mockery.” Others refused entirely. The oath supporting the provisional government, enacted in December 1861 and required of public officials, was especially reviled because many condemned the convention as extralegal. They claimed that they had taken one already when assuming their positions, and taking the “convention oath” suggested their disloyalty.

This was, of course, exactly the point. Their refusal to cooperate implied the rejection of the legitimacy either of the state or federal governments. Residents’ refusal to take either the federal or state oath smoked them out, as it were, especially with the final words: “SO HELP ME GOD.” One southeast Missourian knew well that many of his neighbors feigned neutrality, and taking the oath would unmask their ideological beliefs. “They believe this war is waged against slavery,” wrote Joseph C. Maple, who nevertheless condemned “the Republican mode of carrying on war. . . . Hence they do not wish to take an oath which will cut them off from giving aid to the South.”

The oath sharpened these blurred lines to the great advantage to the government, as one Missourian saw it. “The doubtful men, thinking they were getting to the strong side, [are] joining the rebels, but I believe we are really better off having them avowed against us than as pretended neutrals.” Those so exposed were arrested, publicly listed, and required to post bond in order to gain their release, with sureties (from a few hundred dollars to many thousands) and the affidavits of Unionists who guaranteed their future good behavior. In 1862 in the Liberty, Missouri , district, near the Kansas border, provost marshals required 612 persons to post bonds totaling some $840,000. The provost marshal in Palmyra, near the Mississippi River, reported taking in as much as one million dollars that year.

However unpopular they were, oaths and bonds had an obvious practical value. Identifying secessionists was a challenge, perhaps the challenge for federal authorities. Lists of those who took or refused the oaths were essential identification tools for federal commanders in local areas. Their reliance on oaths and lists to suppress local disloyalists, who were spread throughout their districts, stemmed in part from vulnerability. The small, town-based garrisons were hard-pressed to keep order so far from the army.

Taking or Forsaking the Oaths

Local residents who took the oath disingenuously believed doing so kept their true loyalties hidden. A resident wrote that some of the residents around him “say that they did not mind taking the oath as they did not consider it binding on them, in fact they would rather take the oath than not as it gives them protection and they can get passes to go where they please.” As such, department commanders and provost marshals routinely required accompanying verification of letter writers’ own loyalty in order to solicit a response to their claims or grievances. Mistakes occurred frequently, eliciting remonstrances that required commanders to discern the legitimacy of the listed names and whether the information they had received on such individuals was politically contrived.

Taking the oath presented a crisis of both honor and conscience for many citizens, even neutralists. It was the most visible symbol of personal coercion. For many white Missourians, these oaths were at best superfluous, as they were already residents of a loyal state, and at worst unconstitutional for assuming guilt before innocence and abrogating First Amendment rights. They resented that local commanders and provost marshals forced the oaths on residents who did nothing more than speak out against the military occupation or in favor of Southern rights. “There are a number of influential citizens in this vicinity of rebel proclivities,” wrote one cavalry colonel, “who although they have not committed any overt act . . . in conversation they have defended the cause of the South in a very noisy and offensive manner.”

Unionists, government troops, and the home guard used the oath against neutralists, Southern sympathizers, and secessionists who refused to take it.

Despite capricious and even corrupt determinations of loyalty and disloyalty, Lincoln left to department commanders the discretion to make such decisions, recognizing that this was the single most critical point with which to keep order in the border states. As the president wrote his department commander in Missouri, assessing the loyalty of residents “must be left to you who are on the spot.”

Oaths visibly divided local communities. Civilians who took the oath or posted bond, or both, often found themselves exposed. Visitors known to be disloyal often attracted the attention of armed federals. One bonded Missourian wrote in October 1862, after sending away one such visitor, “I was fearful that some of the Negroes about the house might see him. The danger was greater to us than to him. He saw that he was an unwelcome visitor, and left as abruptly as he came.”

Reprisals often followed, resulting in societal divisions that in some cases worked to the government’s advantage. Unionists, government troops, and the home guard used the oath against neutralists, Southern sympathizers, and secessionists who refused to take it. Yet disloyal residents often chastised those neighbors who did take it, whether feigned or not, as cowards or disloyal to the Southern Cause.

Shunning was only the most benign form of retribution made against oath-takers. Many others were insulted, threatened, and even attacked for their capitulation to Yankee aggression. Worse, they were turned in to garrison commanders as disloyalists. In July 1862, Miami, Missouri, merchant John Scott found himself arrested for disloyalty by armed state militia with guns pointed, only to learn after his bonded release that a neighbor, “one of the most violent and uncompromising secessionists, intolerant to Union men, getting ready to go to the Southern army and having [secession] flags on house and business building,” had reported him following a private disagreement between them.

Complaints from prominent unionists about the occupiers’ strident measures were plentiful, questioning their severity, capriciousness, and especially corruption. Most important, the federals’ presence seemed to many to be fueling the insurgency in Missouri. Reverend William G. Eliot, a prominent St. Louis Unionist, nonetheless questioned the ability of the military to “assort and classify these, so as to indicate the dividing line of loyalty and disloyalty . . . is a task of great difficulty.” He saw only harm to the public weal. “The bitterness of feeling,” wrote the concerned clergyman, “will renew the personal hostilities which were beginning to disappear, and, thus fanned, the secession element will refuse to die.”

View a video clip of Pulitzer Prize winner Mark E. Neely, Jr. discussing Lincoln's interpretation of the Constitution at the Kansas City Public Library.

On August 25, 1863, in the aftermath of William Quantrill’s brutal guerrilla raid on Lawrence, Kansas , the centrality of definitions of loyalty and disloyalty in Missouri would eclipse all other locales during the Civil War. Recognizing the unreliability of hitherto differentiations between the loyal and disloyal, Brigadier General Thomas Ewing , commanding the District of the Border, issued General Order No. 11 . The orders required nearly all residents of four of Missouri’s western border counties (Cass and Bates counties, virtually all of Jackson, and the northern half of Vernon County), living more than a mile from the four military posts in the area, to come to those posts to be certified as loyal by military authorities.

What resulted was the national government’s first-ever forcible removal of white, propertied citizens from their homes. Of the some 40,000 people who had inhabited the area at the start of the war, whether unionist or not, none could stay in their homes. As one newspaper reported, anyone who remained “not within the protection of a Military Station . . . and is not molested is [seen as] a rebel or rebel sympathizer.” The resulting population displacement and destruction of property (lest it fall into rebel hands) prompted the nickname “Burnt District,” as an apt description of the region.

In early 1862, even before Order No. 11 took the dominion system to new extremes, Missouri’s provost marshal general, Bernard G. Farrar, wrote from his headquarters in St. Louis, “It is now purely a question of power not one of law. ” At nearly the same time, that state’s lieutenant governor, Willard P. Hall, spoke similarly to conditions in his state. “Amidst armies,” he asserted, “the law is silent.” Both men’s candid views of the authority of an occupying army among an increasingly hostile citizenry were placed, curiously, within the context of instructions to desist in arresting civilians around the state merely on suspicion of disloyalty. But their views precisely defined the circumstances in Missouri and other border slave states, where martial authority and civil laws grappled for supremacy, plunging civilians deep into the shadow world of war.

Suggested Reading: 

Ash, Stephen V. When the Yankees Came: Conflict and Chaos in the Occupied South, 1861-1865 . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.

Fellman, Michael. Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the Civil War . Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Neely, Mark E., Jr. The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties . New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Cite This Page: 

Phillips, Christopher. "Shadow War: Federal Military Authority and Loyalty Oaths in Civil War Missouri" Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri-Kansas Conflict, 1854-1865. The Kansas City Public Library. Accessed Sunday, April 7, 2024 - 17:29 at https://civilwaronthewesternborder.org/essay/shadow-war-federal-military...

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Disloyalty to government.

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Definition of disloyalty

• faithlessness
• inconstancy
• perfidiousness
• unfaithfulness

Examples of disloyalty in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'disloyalty.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

15th century, in the meaning defined above

Dictionary Entries Near disloyalty

disloyalist

Cite this Entry

“Disloyalty.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disloyalty. Accessed 7 Apr. 2024.

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Statement by the President on the Government's Employee Loyalty Program

November 14, 1947 I DEEPLY appreciate the willingness of the members of the Loyalty Review Board, established within the Civil Service Commission, to give of their service to that Board. Their acceptance involves real personal sacrifice. At the same time, they will have the satisfaction of knowing that they are contributing to the solution of one of the most difficult problems confronting our Government today. I believe I speak for all the people of the United States when I say that disloyal and subversive elements must be removed from the employ of the Government. We must not, however, permit employees of the Federal Government to be labeled as disloyal or potentially disloyal to their Government when no valid basis exists for arriving at such a conclusion. The overwhelming majority of Federal employees are loyal citizens who are giving conscientiously of their energy and skills to the United States. I do not want them to fear they are the objects of any "witch hunt." They are not being spied upon; they are not being restricted in their activities. They have nothing to fear from the loyalty program, since every effort has been made to guarantee full protection to those who are suspected of disloyalty. Rumor, gossip, or suspicion will not be sufficient to lead to the dismissal of an employee for disloyalty. Any person suspected of disloyalty must be served with a written notice of the charges against him in sufficient detail to enable him to prepare his defense. In some unusual situations security considerations may not allow full disclosure. It would have been possible for the Government to remove disloyal persons merely by serving them with the charges against them and giving them an opportunity to answer those charges. I realize fully, however, the stigma attached to a removal for disloyalty. Accordingly, I have ordered the agencies of the Government, except where a few agencies find it necessary to exercise extraordinary powers granted to them by the Congress, to give hearings to persons who are charged with disloyalty. Loyalty boards are being set up in each agency for this purpose. They are definitely not "kangaroo" courts. The personnel of these boards is being carefully selected by the head of each agency to make sure that they are judicious in temperament and fair-minded. Hearings before the boards will be conducted so as to establish all pertinent facts and to accord the suspected employee every possible opportunity to present his defense. The employee is to be given the right to be accompanied by counsel or a representative of his own choosing. After the heating has been completed the loyalty board in each department can recommend the retention or the dismissal of an employee. But the matter does not rest there. The employee may appeal the findings of the loyalty board to the head of the department, who can either approve or disapprove the board's recommendations. If the head of the department orders the dismissal of the employee, he has still another avenue of appeal: namely, to the Loyalty Review Board within the Civil Service Commission. This Board is composed of outstanding citizens of the United States. These citizens have no ax to grind. They will not be concerned with personalities. Their judgment will be as detached as is humanly possible. I expect the Civil Service Commission to function in a very real sense as a staff agency of the President for the purpose of doing everything it can to help him see to it that all aspects of this program are carried forward in an expeditious and satisfactory manner. I am looking to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the conduct of all loyalty investigations which may be necessary in connection with the operation of the program. I am looking to the Loyalty Review Board to develop standards for the conduct of hearings and the consideration of cases within the various departments and agencies. With the cooperation of the staff of the Civil Service Commission, the Board should make sure that there is complete understanding of and adherence to these standards in all the departments and agencies. The question of standards is of deep concern to me. Under the Executive order inaugurating this program, provision has been made, for example, for furnishing to the Loyalty Review Board by the Attorney General the name of each foreign or domestic organization, association, movement, group, or combination of persons which he, after appropriate investigation and determination, has designated as totalitarian, fascist, communist, or subversive. The Executive order in turn provides that the Loyalty Review Board shall disseminate such information to all departments and agencies. This provision of the order has been interpreted by some to mean that any person who at any time happened to belong to one of these organizations would automatically be dismissed from the employ of the Federal Government. This interpretation completely overlooks the fact that, under the provisions of the Executive order, "the standard for the refusal of employment or the removal from employment in an executive department or agency on grounds relating to loyalty shall be that, on all the evidence, reasonable grounds exist for belief that the person involved is disloyal to the government of the United States." Membership in an organization is simply one piece of evidence which may or may not be helpful in arriving at a conclusion as to the action which is to be taken in a particular case. The Government has a great stake in these loyalty proceedings. The Government, as the largest employer in the United States, must be the model of a fair employer. It must guarantee that the civil rights of all employees of the Government shall be protected properly and adequately. It is in this spirit that the loyalty program will be enforced. NOTE: In his statement the President referred to Executive Order 9835 "Prescribing Procedures for the Administration of an Employees Loyalty Program in the Executive Branch of the Government" (March 21, 1947; 3 CFR, 1943-1948 Comp. p. 627).

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Judge Rejects Trump Dismissal Effort in Classified Documents Case

Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that the former president cannot escape prosecution by arguing that the Presidential Records Act allowed him to claim secret government material as his own property.

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By Alan Feuer

A federal judge on Thursday rejected for now one of former President Donald J. Trump’s central efforts to dismiss charges that he had mishandled classified documents after leaving office.

The judge, Aileen M. Cannon, ruled that Mr. Trump could not escape prosecution by arguing that he had converted the highly sensitive records he took from the White House into his personal property under a law known as the Presidential Records Act.

In a terse three-page order , Judge Cannon said that the statute, which was put in place after the Watergate scandal to ensure that most records from a president’s time in office remained in the possession of the government, “does not provide a pretrial basis to dismiss” the case.

The decision was a victory of sorts for the special counsel, Jack Smith, who has persistently argued that the Presidential Records Act should have nothing to do with the criminal prosecution of a former president accused of removing national security documents from the White House and then obstructing efforts to retrieve them.

But it may not be the final word on the subject.

Last month, Judge Cannon made a curious request to Mr. Trump’s lawyers and Mr. Smith’s prosecutors, asking them to send her proposed jury instructions about how the Presidential Records Act might affect the central allegation against Mr. Trump: that he took “unauthorized possession” of the documents by removing them from the White House.

Judge Cannon seemed to be exploring the idea that if the act really did permit Mr. Trump to make the documents personal, then he could not be said to have had “unauthorized possession” of them.

But in court papers filed this week, Mr. Smith pushed back hard against that move . He repeated his position that the Presidential Records Act did not permit Mr. Trump to make the documents his own and had absolutely no relevance to the case — even when it came to writing jury instructions.

In his filing, Mr. Smith asked Judge Cannon to follow a normal course of action and decide the legal question of whether the Presidential Records Act was relevant to the case in the context of Mr. Trump’s motion to dismiss, not in conversations about jury instructions. (Jury issues are usually hashed out on the eve of a trial and Judge Cannon has not set a trial date.)

In her ruling on Thursday, Judge Cannon agreed with Mr. Smith that the act was not enough to dismiss the case outright. But she appeared to disagree with him when it came to jury instructions, suggesting that those discussions would continue and that Mr. Trump might eventually be able to raise a Presidential Records Act defense at trial.

Mr. Smith’s demand for the “finalization of jury instructions” before “the presentation of trial defenses and evidence” was “unprecedented and unjust,” she wrote.

Legal experts have expressed concern that if Judge Cannon crafts instructions for the jury based on Mr. Trump’s interpretation of the Presidential Records Act, it could be seen as an attempt to nudge eventual jurors toward an acquittal.

Jury instructions that adopt Mr. Trump’s position on the act could also give the judge sufficient legal wiggle room to acquit Mr. Trump herself at the end of a trial by declaring the government had failed to prove its case.

But in her order, Judge Cannon defended her decision to ask both sides for their dueling takes on jury instructions.

Her request, she wrote, should be interpreted as “a genuine attempt, in the context of the upcoming trial, to better understand the parties’ competing positions and the questions to be submitted to the jury in this complex case of first impression.”

Mr. Trump’s lawyers had first advanced their claims based on the Presidential Records Act in court papers two months ago , arguing that the law allowed him to designate even secretive briefing materials prepared for him by the military and intelligence community as private records that he could do with as he pleased.

But from the start, their position was legally dubious.

Judge Cannon herself balked at the idea during a hearing last month in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla., telling the lawyers that their expansive interpretation would effectively “gut” the act. And during an earlier stage of the classified documents case, the federal appeals court that sits over the judge agreed, writing that Mr. Trump “neither owns nor has a personal interest in” the documents at issue.

While Judge Cannon’s order was largely silent on the reasons she reached her decision, it could have a follow-on effect on another one of Mr. Trump’s attempts to have the classified document case dismissed.

In a separate motion, Mr. Trump’s lawyers have claimed that he is immune from prosecution for any official acts he took as president. Later this month, the Supreme Court will consider that assertion in the context of Mr. Trump’s other federal case, in which he stands accused of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.

His lawyers have argued that the official act that provides Mr. Trump immunity in the classified documents case is his claimed conversion into personal property, under the Presidential Records Act, of the materials he is charged with removing from the White House.

Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump.  More about Alan Feuer

Our Coverage of the Trump Documents Case

The justice department has filed federal criminal charges against former president donald trump over his mishandling of classified documents..

The Indictment: Federal prosecutors said that Trump put national security secrets at risk  by mishandling classified documents and schemed to block the government from reclaiming the material. Here’s a look at the evidence .

The Co-Defendants: While Trump plays the leading role in the case, the narrative as laid out by prosecutors relies heavily on supporting characters  like Carlos De Oliveira  and Walt Nauta .

Obstruction: The Mueller report raised questions about whether Trump had obstructed the inquiry into the ties between the former president’s 2016 campaign and Russia. With prosecutors adding new charges  in the documents case, the subject is back .

The Judge: Judge Aileen Cannon , a Trump appointee who showed favor to the former president earlier in the investigation, has scant experience  running criminal trials. Can she prove her critics wrong ?

A Slow Pace: Cannon has allowed unresolved issues to build up on her docket, and that appears to have kept her from making a prompt decision on the timing of the case. It is one of several factors that have stirred concern about her decision-making .