As the Vietnam war gained momentum through the 1960s, Dellinger joined two Roman Catholic priests, Philip and Daniel Berrigan, in producing a declaration of conscience for draft resisters.
Had a man delivered Smith's Declaration of Conscience speech, he was purported to have said, "he would be the next President of the United States".
Although a staunch anticommunist, she was nevertheless the first Republican senator to condemn Senator Joseph R. McCarthy's anticommunist witch-hunts, delivering a memorable "Declaration of Conscience" on the Senate floor in 1950.
In between, Stanford students and staff members read stirring passages from the letters and speeches of past U.S. presidents, from a sermon by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and from the 1950 "Declaration of Conscience" speech by U.S. Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, one of the most noted early challengers to U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
Margaret Chase Smith, a senator from Maine, the grand old dame of the Republican party, wore a rose every day, including on the first of June in 1950 when she gave the brave, brilliant "Declaration of Conscience" speech she is best know for, denouncing her fellow Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Maine has a long history of autonomous politicians: Margaret Chase Smith, who delivered her "Declaration of Conscience" on the Senate floor in 1950, criticizing Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee; William Cohen, the lone Republican in Bill Clinton's cabinet; or, for that matter, outgoing Senator Olympia Snowe herself.
In 1687, James issued the Declaration of Indulgence, also known as the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, in which he used his dispensing power to negate the effect of laws punishing Catholics and Protestant Dissenters.
In an interview with The Times on Monday, Deasy called his declaration a matter of conscience.
This declaration did not come about through an act of generosity or stirrings of conscience over the bitter fate of the Jewish people.
Feeling pangs of conscience?
