The party is over, on its last legs, and the Citizens’ Movement has begun
An initiative of The Center for American Studies at Concord, MA, USA: www.concord-ium.us
Where 1, 2, 3, 4 and more shots were fired "heard' round the world".
"As usual, you (Concordians) are years ahead of us,” Dennis Kucinich, Congressman, Presidential Candidate, Public Servant stated in 2021. Might the time be at hand?
The Old North Bridge, Minuteman National Park, Concord, Massachussets, United Sates of America
OUR, THE PEOPLES’ OATH OF OFFICE
AS THE 4TH — AND CRITICAL — CHECK & BALANCE
IN OUR “PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY,”
OUR CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLIC
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“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
Concluding lines of our Declaration of Independence
[Note: The word “pledge” is used here as a verb. That is, we speak of pledging an oath. The question being: What is an oath, a sacred oath*?
The further question being: What would you say, fellow citizens? What would be a sacred oath for you?
The background for this question follows, along with examples of oaths proclaimed by our servants, public servants.
* oath (n.)
Middle English oth, from Old English að "judicial swearing, solemn appeal (to deity, sacred relics, etc.), in witness of truth or a promise.” In reference to careless invocations of divinity, from late Old English.
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BACKGROUND
Article VI of our United States Constitution, the “Supreme Law of the Land,” reads:
“All federal officials must take an oath in support of the Constitution:
“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
The Constitution does not provide the wording for this federal oath, leaving that to the determination of Congress. Within our 50 states, oaths are outlined in our state constitutions. An example in New Hampshire follows:
“Name, of Town, State ______ do solemnly swear that I bear faith and true allegiance to the United States of America and the State of New Hampshire and will support the Constitution thereof. So help me God.”
The Constitution contains an oath of office for the president of the United States. For other officials, including members of Congress, that document specifies only that they "shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation to support this constitution."
While the oath-taking practice dates back to that First Congress, the current oath is a product of the 1860s, drafted during the Civil War.
At the outbreak of the Civil War in April of 1861, a time of uncertain and shifting loyalties, President Abraham Lincoln ordered all federal civilian employees within the executive branch to take an expanded oath.
At the conclusion of its emergency session that summer, Congress adopted legislation requiring executive branch employees to take the expanded oath in support of the Union.
In July 1862 Congress added a new section to the oath, which became known as the "Ironclad Test Oath."
The Test Oath required civilian and military officials to swear or affirm that they had never aided or encouraged “persons engaged in armed hostility” against the United States.
Government employees who swore falsely would be prosecuted for perjury and forever denied federal employment. Congress also revised the rest of the oath with language that closely resembles the modern oath.
That said, Congress did not extend coverage of the Ironclad Test Oath to its own members.
At the urging of Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, the Senate adopted a resolution in January 1864 to require all senators to take the Test Oath. The resolution also required senators to "subscribe" to the oath by signing a printed copy.
This condition reflected a wartime practice in which military and civilian authorities required anyone wishing to do business with the federal government to sign a copy of the Test Oath. The current practice of newly sworn senators signing individual pages in an elegantly bound oath book dates from this period.
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OATHS
I. Justice’s Oath
Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States are required to take two oaths before they may execute the duties of their appointed office. Those oaths are:
1) The Constitutional Oath
As noted below in Article VI, all federal officials must take an oath in support of the Constitution:
“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
The Constitution does not provide the wording for this oath, leaving that to the determination of Congress. From 1789 until 1861, this oath was:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States.”
During the 1860s, this oath was altered several times before Congress settled on the text used today, which is set out at 5 U. S. C. § 3331. This oath is now taken by all federal employees, other than the President:
“I, __[name]_______, do solemnly swear or affirm that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as ____[office held] ____, according to the best of my abilities and understanding, agreeably to the constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.”
In December 1990, the Judicial Improvements Act of 1990 replaced the phrase “according to the best of my abilities and understanding, agreeably to the Constitution" with "under the Constitution.” The revised Judicial Oath, found at 28 U. S. C. § 453, reads:
“I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as _________ under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.”
Retiring Chief Justice Warren E. Burger (in robe) administers the Constitutional Oath to his successor, Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist, in the East Room of the White House. Mrs. Natalie Rehnquist holds the Bible while President Ronald Reagan looks on.
2) Judicial Oath
The origin of the second oath is found in the Judiciary Act of 1789, which reads “the justices of the Supreme Court, and the district judges, before they proceed to execute the duties of their respective offices” to take a second oath or affirmation. From 1789 to 1990, the original text used for this oath (1 Stat. 76 § 8) was:
“I, _________, do solemnly swear or affirm that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as _________, according to the best of my abilities and understanding, agreeably to the constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.”
In December 1990, the Judicial Improvements Act of 1990 replaced the phrase “according to the best of my abilities and understanding, agreeably to the Constitution" with "under the Constitution.” The revised Judicial Oath, found at 28 U. S. C. § 453, reads:
“I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as _________ under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.”
The Combined Oath
Upon occasion, appointees to the Supreme Court have taken a combined version of the two oaths, which reads:
“I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as _________ under the Constitution and laws of the United States; and that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
III. Presidents’ Oath of Office
Article II, Section 1, Clause 8 reads:
Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Of note is the fact that the oath is taken before the president takes office.
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S1-C8-1/ALDE_00001126/
IV. Congressional Oath: Senate & Congress
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
V. WE, the People?
We arrive at the People, We, as addressed in the preamble to our United States Constitution:
“WE, THE PEOPLE of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Taking to heart the preamble, what, friends, would you say that our, the People’s solemn oath should be — as, to repeat, the 4th, and critical, check and balance in our “constitutional democratic-republic”?
We ask for the question, we believe, is essential to our creation, together, of a future worth envisioning.
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May the following words from Lincoln’s address on “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions” before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838 offer us nourishing food for thought:
In the great journal of things happening under the sun, we, the American People, find our account running, under date of the nineteenth century of the Christian era.
We find ourselves in the peaceful possession, of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate.
We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.
We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings.
We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them--they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors.
Their's was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; 'tis ours only, to transmit these, the former, unprofaned by the foot of an invader; the latter, undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation, to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know.
This task of gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.
How then shall we perform it?
At what point shall we expect the approach of danger?
By what means shall we fortify against it?
Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow?
Never!
All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us.
It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now, something of ill-omen, amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice . . . . It would be tedious, as well as useless, to recount the horrors of all of them . . . .
Here then, is one point at which danger may be expected.
The question recurs, "how shall we fortify against it?"
The answer is simple.
Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others. [Emphasis added.]
As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor.
Let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children's liberty.
Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap--let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges.
Let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs.
Let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice.
And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.
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The foregoing is the heart of the message. Those so moved are invited to read further:
https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/lyceum.htm
Your responses thereto?
What oath would you not only be inspired to write, inscribe, but to pledge your Self to — on behalf of
WE, the People?
Richard Hofmeister, Smithsonian Institution
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., administers the Constitutional Oath to Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, June 30, 2022.Dr. Patrick Jackson
holds the Bible.
Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States
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WE,
the People
for President...
and for all Constitutional Offices
