What is an Oath?

Read Robert Freer’s article below and find out what an oath is and why it is so important to our Republic.

By Robert E. Freer, Jr., President of The Free Enterprise Foundation

Asked by an anxious citizen what kind of government the Constitutional Convention had decided to propose for the United States, Benjamin Franklin quipped, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Behind Franklin’s pithy retort stands a long tradition of thinking about republics, centering on one fact about them: they are so darn hard to maintain. Tyrannies of various kinds are more durable, which may be why they are what nations tend to fall into when they fail to “keep” a republic. And what does it take to “keep” a republic?

Our Founders generally agreed that it takes a virtuous citizenry; that the cornerstone of civic virtue is honesty and straightforwardness in political and commercial dealing; and that belief in a “Creator” who disapproves of lying and oath-breaking is a crucial underpinning of civic virtue. That is why the cleansing of the public square of all traces of religion which has characterized the demand of a vocal segment of our public is a threat to our ability as a nation to meet Franklin’s challenge – to “keep” our republic.

An oath is more than a promise. The very first definition (out of five) given for “oath” in the 1985 edition of the American Heritage Dictionary includes the words “often calling upon God or a god as a witness.” In the 1979 edition of Black’s Law Dictionary, the first definition of “oath” notes that the person taking or making one is “bound in conscience.” The third and fourth definitions mention “responsibility to God” and “a solemn appeal to the Supreme Being….”

The point should be clear: an oath is not merely a promise, but a promise to which the promiser calls God as a witness. Despite the secularization of our society, we still rely on oaths in certain situations that recall this older sense. For example, we place tremendous reliance on the competence of physicians, and on the veracity of trial witnesses; therefore, doctors take the Hippocratic Oath, and trial witnesses take an oath before they take the stand. Whether we realize it or not, these oaths reflect society’s desire to bring God into the picture, to help make sure that the trust we place in these oath-takers is not misplaced.

Our Creator’s role in this is critical because it accepts that the oath maker believes in accountability beyond this realm and lifetime to some power that is greater than all of us and to whom ultimately we must answer. I’m not saying that atheists and agnostics can’t be trusted, or even that they can’t take oaths. They can – as long as they are functioning within a society that, in some sense, still believes in a Creator to whom we all are accountable for our oaths. (Thus, for instance, the Constitution itself makes allowance for those who cannot in good conscience take oaths, such as Quakers, by allowing an “affirmation” as a substitute.)

Such a society will have expectations of its oath-takers that will, to some extent, make up for any lack of faith on the part of the oath-takers themselves. But when society itself ceases to take oaths seriously, these expectations break down. Our First Amendment, with its clause prohibiting any “law respecting an establishment of religion,” represents a fundamental option for personal rather than governmental pastoring. Note that this option is a perfect fit with Franklin’s remark: “A republic, if you can keep it” – not if the government can keep it for you.

Sadly, however, the establishment clause has often been interpreted to mean something verging on official state agnosticism. Thus, for instance, a city may have long-standing and popular tradition of theistic invocations at public school graduations; but the Supreme Court has held that the Establishment Clause prohibits this. Our ability to “keep” our republic may not stand or fall on whether there are prayers at public school graduations, but ultimately it does stand or fall on whether Americans may acknowledge – not just as individuals but also as a community, or rather, as a diverse set of communities – a Creator who protects civic virtue and honors oath keepers.

The faith that I extol is the glue that binds us together as a nation. Whatever our beliefs we can in such a republic regard our fellow citizen as trustworthy and build our world on that trust. Sadly The Court in recent years appears on a crusade to remove any vestige of founding values from the sustaining fabric of our society. We have seen a simple nondenominational grace before meals at VMI and The Citadel removed as establishing religion. This decision joins others in other courts questioning our pledge of allegiance, display of the ten commandments on courthouse walls, and if followed to their conclusion, we can expect “In God We Trust” to be removed from the coinage. Former Chief Justice Rehnquist has said, referring to the notions from which these decisions are spawned, “It is impossible to build a sound constitutional doctrine upon a mistaken understanding of constitutional history…The wall of separation between church and state is a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned” At least in the fashion the Court has ruled in recent years, I agree.

Copyright © 2007 by Robert E. Freer, Jr. All rights reserved

About the author: Robert E. Freer, Jr. is President of The Free Enterprise Foundation. He is a Visiting Professor, at The Citadel and elected in 2005 to be their first John S. Grinalds Leader in Residence. A regular contributor to the Mercury, He can be reached by E-mail at The Citadel . Copies of his earlier columns can be found The Free Enterprise Foundation.

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