Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/490

 Oaths. peal to our sensibilities, or a strong assever ation. There is every variety of swearing, from the horrid profanity of the vulgar boatman, down to the gentle imprecation of the fair lady. The female swearer " wishes she may never stir," or what is infinitely more dread ful, " that she may never speak another word," while the more florid eloquence of a mascu line imprecation calls down utter destruction upon the soul of the speaker, or upon some unoffending member of his body. The lady contents herself with a vow, or with a sim pering appeal to "goodness," or to some other diluted appellative, under which she is pleased to disguise the sacred name; while the gentleman not only swears manfully, but compounds his oaths, from positive to super lative, until he exhausts the energies of the blasphemous vocabulary. Here and there you meet with a modest man whose imagina tion is not prurient in these figures of rhet oric, and who satisfies himself with " no mis take," "no two ways about it "—" you wont catch me in a lie, no way you can fix it," or another, who asserts that what he has said is "true as preaching," while you more fre quently encounter a bolder spirit, who main tains that he is willing to swear to what he has said, " on a stack of Bibles big as the Al legheny mountains." It is always difficult to trace a national propensity to its original source; but we think that much of the levity to which we have alluded may be fairly attributable to the spirit of our laws, and to the practice of our legal tribunals. Too little regard is paid to the .solemnity of an oath, and its sanctity has been degraded both in the frequency with which it is used, and the callous irreverence with which it is administered. The evil ex ists, first in the legislative assemblies of our country, who impose too many oaths; and secondly in our courts and magistrates, who permit the daily and hourly use of that, whose sanctity it is their special duty to pre serve inviolate.

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The great error committed by our legisla tures consists in degrading the dignity of an oath, by requiring it to be used on common and trivial occasions. Officers of every grade are required to take official oaths. The very lowest officer is not permitted to exercise the comparatively unimportant functions of his station, without being sworn; and even their deputies, where such are recognized, are re quired to perform the same ceremony. The principle is even carried further, and made to apply to persons, who without holding public offices, are for the time being, in the dis charge of public duties. Not only all officers, from the highest to the lowest in dignity, but persons discharging public trusts of every description, are required to take a solemn oath previous to entering upon the discharge of their duties. We doubt whether any ministerial officer, or any subordinate agent, ought to be required to take an official oath. No man should be employed in public business, whose character for integrity is not a sufficient pledge that he will discharge faithfully the trust committed to him. To administer an oath to a bad man is idle, for he will disregard it; it is unneces sary to require a good man to swear that he will do his duty, for he will do that at any rate. Most men are honest because it is their interest to be so. If regard for reputation, respect for public opinion, the fear of punish ment, and the desire to retain office, will not secure the fidelity of public agents, the sanc tion of an oath will throw but a slender re straint upon their vicious inclinations. The legislature should adopt the principle of placing full confidence in the man who is placed in a public trust, presuming him to be honest who is thus honored; or else, they should demand a higher security than the word or oath of the individual. In the first instance, they would act upon the supposition that appointments are judiciously made, and perhaps such a plan might lead to a greater degree of caution on the part of the appoint ing power; in the other, the government