But if our democracy is to flourish it must have criticism, if our government is to function it must have dissent. Only totalitarian governments insi… - Henry Steele Commager

Uncertain of principles, we fall back on emotion; unfamiliar with the past, we are afraid of the future. Increasingly we look to men, ideas, and institutions not from the point of view of how they work, but from the point of view of how they ought to work…

The American people have a stake in the maintenance of the most thorough-going inquisition into American institutions. They have a stake in nonconformity, for they know that the American genius is nonconformist.

With the Sedition and Espionage Acts … the "red hysteria" of the Twenties, the Alien Registration Act of 1940, the loyalty tests and purges of the mid-Forties, the establishment of un-American Activities Committees, intolerance received, as it were, the stamp of official approval. Loyalty was identified with conformity, and the American genius, which had been experimental and even rebellious, was required to conform to a pattern.