Oath of Office

The smallest book that I own has the most meaningful title of any. The title is “The Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States of America.“ It includes the twenty seven Amendments to the Constitution, and the Constitution itself includes the Oath of Office that binds.

The book fits in a shirt pocket, and I do not need a public library for reference. In fact, two comprehensive dictionaries at hand also include the Declaration and Constitution. The at-hand content frames an entire history of one country, our country.

Its dream codified into law, though flawed in practice at its very roots, remains the Olympian Torch that lights the way for a free world, and its peoples wishing to be governed by just law. That’s the dream. It has been a rough road at times, and at no time, Civil War aside perhaps, more than now.

How difficult the run-up to and writing of each document has been are embodied, for example, in Dumas Malone’s six-volume series “Jefferson and His Time” (1948 – 1981) and Jack Rakove’s “Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in Making of the Constitution” (1996). Both won Pulitzer Prizes.

Article. II. Section. 1. of the Constitution speaks directly to the Oath of Office in respect to the President: “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.’”

And Article. VI. Includes: “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;”

A child can understand these Oath words, so clearly are they written. They are unambiguous.

Yet, they seem today not to have been heard by adults who have sworn to them. Have been sworn to them! And perhaps, too, they have not been heard by those administering the Oaths. And, maybe, also, by a public that has been witness to the swearing itself.

If the Oath has little or no currency, then neither does the Constitution itself. Is the Torch simply extinguished by that single act of ignoring the Oath of Office in these United States of America?

It is a sobering thought that I have mulled for some time, as we are in the midst of a celebration no less of the 250th year of the writing of the Declaration of Independence. Why do we celebrate that, if the Oath to the Constitution is merely rote, as it appears to be in our own difficult days of governance? And they are difficult, by any prior standard.

Shall I then retire my littlest book from my personal library if moot? With all my heart, I hope not.