“A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority,” Key Anti-Vietnam War Protest, Published
“A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority” was one of the most powerful and principled indictments of the Vietnam War by the anti-war movement.
The Call declared that “the war is unconstitutional and illegal. Congress has not declared a war as required by the Constitution.” Additionally, “this war violates international agreements, treaties and principles of law which the United States Government has solemnly endorsed.” The Call was published in the New York Review of Books, The Nation, and other publications.
The Call was also part of the evidence against Dr. Benjamin Spock and four colleagues who were indicted by the government for conspiracy to obstruct the draft, on January 5, 1968. In that regard, the crucial passage in the Call was “We will continue to lend our support to those who undertake resistance to this war. We will raise funds to organize draft resistance unions, to supply legal defense and bail, to support families and otherwise aid resistance to the war in whatever ways may seem appropriate.”
The Vietnam War created a number of civil liberties crises. They include (1) the lack of a Congressional Declaration of War as required by the Constitution (June 3, 1970); (2) threats to freedom of the press in the Pentagon Papers case (June 30, 1971); (3) spying on the anti-war movement by the CIA (August 15, 1967); (4) threats to freedom of expression, for example high school student protests (February 24, 1969); censorship of television programs (February 25, 1968); and directly and indirectly some of the events that led to the Watergate Scandal (May 9, 1969; January 27, 1972).
Read the “Call”: http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/resist.html
Learn more about the Spock case: Jessica Mitford, The Trial of Dr. Benjamin Spock (1969)
Learn more: Michael Ferber, The Resistance (1971)
Read first-hand accounts of 1960s-1970s radicals: Clara Bingham, Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year America Lost its Mind and Found its Soul (2016)