The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1849-07-23
NE " Q r Q EANSi
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MONDAY MORNING. JULY %, 1s40.
oaths Of Office.

oaihs Of Office
A recent attempt was made 10 the Rhode Island
Legislature to restore Thomas w. Dorr 10 his
political rights. The attempt however, failed
owing to the opposition Of the party in power in
the State Of Rhode Island. They refused to give
Mr. Dorr the right of suffrage until he takes the
oath Of allegiance to the Constitution
We do not intend TO comment on the strange
excuse which has been given for Withholding from
Mr. Dorr those rights which are granted to every
citizen Of Rhode island of a certain age and with
certain properly qualifications, independent Of any
oath he may take g support the constitution and
laws, We take ihe opportunity which this Rhode
Island incident furnishes TO express the opinion that
it would be better if all oaths of office were
abolished
Having derived the custom Of requiring an oath
from public servants on their entrance into office
from our British ancestors, we seem like them to
cling 70 the meaningless ceremony as if it con
lained the essence Of a duty or a right. The Gus
tom is perfectly in accordance with the theory, if
not with the practice, of the English constitution
inasmuch as the oath taken by an English Office
holder is an oath Of allegiance to the Sovereign
And as the .uphodeFs Of monarchy assert that it is
necessary to impose on the senses and imaginations
Of men by forms and ceremonies, it is perfectly
natural for a monarehial government to call in the
sanciiy Of an oath ia order to add to the soemnity
Of the tie which binds the subject to his sovereign
But why should this be done in the United States
Our officers take the oath TO support the Constitu
ton and the laws; but if the oath is violated is
the officer ever prosecuted for the crime Of perjury
Or is the lesser least the lesser in the eye
Of human law-meYged in the greaterl Is the
indictment for perjury suppressed BY the graver and
more henous charge Of treason!
We need merely suggest these inquiries in order
to show that the oath Of Office is useless as q
remedy that IS, if the officer violates the Consti-
tulion OF the laws prosecution for perjury on the
ground that be has violated his official oath, il
never resOEed in order 10 punish the offender or
take away from him the powers with which be
has been vested. Useless then as a remedy, can
we consider the official oath as beneficial by
restraining men from violations of the constitution
or the laws which they would otherwise have
attempted Do you think that the man who medi-
tates an attack on the laws Of his country will be
arrested in his crime by the fear Of offending his
God by the violation OF an oath. Would il be wis
dom in a government to own that a man might be
true in his allegiance to his God when he might
forget his duti4 to his eountry-ihat man might
separate his religion from his PATRIOTISM and though
his inclination might prompt him to violate the
laws, that the idea Of exciting the wrath Of an
outraged Deity Offended not at the treason but at
the PERJURY would keep him from the execution of
reasonable designsl
Without power, then, either as a remedy in case
the laws are violated, or as a preventive to an
Infringement Of the laws which might otherwise
be attempted, the oath of office becomes not only
useless, but is in reality blunder, and might by
many be tortured into something worse-a bIae-
phemy. To our eyes the name Of God seems desc.
Grated by an alliance with human statutes and
human constitutions. And in our abolition of
Oaths we would go even beyond the oaths Of Office
1t seems to US that all oaths are anomalies in our
system Of government; for the religious opinions
Of man are the essential elsments of his oath,
and our political institutions profess not ointerfere
with the theological tenets a man may hold. To
insist that man shall believe in the existence of
God before he is permitted to give his testimony in
court Of justice is to make Theism, under some
shape or other, the religion of the State And TO
require a to take an oath before entering into
Office has the effect either Of excluding from the
service of the republic all those who conscien.
tiously doubt the existence of God, or of tempting
ambitious men who may be skeptical to an act Of
arrant hypocrisy and deceit
Ailoaths which are prescribed by the statute book
are xaoeable to thatg grand deviation from good gov
eminent which mingled up religious with political
affairs. And never will we have government
thoroughly good, or religion perfectly pure. until
we have an entire and complete separation Of the
two, The least mixture ofthese elements deprades
religion and corrupts government-takes as much
from the heavenly and divine attributes of the one
as it does from the useful and beneficial operations
of the other. 1t becomes then to reflect whether
the system Of oaths is not injurious both to the
State and the Church If so, the sooner we do
away with the system the better it will be for
ourselves and posterity.