The iron oath10/31/2022 ![]() ![]() The exclusions allowed the Republican coalitions to carry the elections in every southern state except Virginia. In March 1867, Radicals in Congress passed a law that prohibited anyone from voting in the election of delegates to state constitutional conventions or in the subsequent ratification who was prohibited from holding office under Section 3 of the pending Fourteenth Amendment: Those exclusions were less inclusive than the requirements of the Ironclad Oath. In 1867, the US Supreme Court held that the federal ironclad oath for attorneys and the similar Missouri state oath for ministers, teachers, and other professionals were unconstitutional because they violated the constitutional prohibitions against bills of attainder and ex post facto laws. The local registrar had to swear that he had never held office under Confederacy, nor given aid or comfort to it. The first Supplemental Reconstruction Act (March 23, 1867) required an oath of past loyalty in order for any man in the South to vote. The historian Harold Hyman says that in 1866, northern Representatives "described the oath as the last bulwark against the return of ex-rebels to power, the barrier behind which Southern Unionists and Negroes protected themselves." ![]() In 1864 Congress extended the provisions of the ironclad oath to its own members, but overlooked perjury when it came to seating southern Republicans. Lincoln's amnesty oath was integral to his ten percent plan for reconstruction. Both Johnson and Lincoln wanted Southerners instead to swear to an oath that they "in the future" would support the Union. President Andrew Johnson also opposed it. It was applied to Southern voters in the Wade–Davis Bill of 1864, which President Abraham Lincoln pocket vetoed. The oath was detested by ex-Confederates, some of whom called it "The Damnesty Oath." Ĭongress devised the oath in July 1862 for all federal employees, lawyers, and federal elected officials. A farmer who sold grain to the Confederate Army would be covered. To take the Ironclad Oath, a person had to swear he had never borne arms against the Union or supported the Confederacy: that is, he had "never voluntarily borne arms against the United States " had "voluntarily" given "no aid, countenance, counsel or encouragement" to persons in rebellion and had exercised or attempted to exercise the functions of no office under the Confederacy. ![]() The oath was a key factor in removing many ex-Confederates from the political arena during the Reconstruction era of the late 1860s. In 1864, Congress extended the provisions of the Ironclad Oath to its own members but overlooked perjury when it came to seating southern Republicans. Both Lincoln and Johnson wanted Southerners instead to swear to an oath that "in the future" that they would support the Union. After the assassination of President Lincoln, new President Andrew Johnson also opposed it. Statutes at Large, Thirty Seventh Congress, Second Session Civil War Ĭongress originally devised the Oath in July 1862 for all federal employees, lawyers and federal elected officials. And I do further swear (or affirm) that, to the best of my knowledge and ability, 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. B., do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have never voluntarily borne arms against the United States since I have been a citizen thereof that I have voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto that I have neither sought nor accepted nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever, under any authority or pretended authority in hostility to the United States that I have not yielded a voluntary support to any pretended government, authority, power or constitution within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto. ![]()
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