I appreciate this correction and learning this.  I do not, however, this
it undermines my point.  Thanks

Paul Finkelman
President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
     and Public Policy
Albany Law School
80 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, New York   12208-3494

518-445-3386 
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Professor Finkelman wrote "It is worth remembering that that Davis, Lee,
and the other traitors took the same oath when they entered West Point
that American soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen/women take when
they enter military service today."  

I doubt this is so. Although I haven't done the week of primary research
required to nail this down, a quick look on the Internet and Lexis-Nexis
leads me to believe that Davis, Lee and other Confederates did not take
the current oath to "support and defend the Constitution from all
enemies foreign and domestic" on the plain at West Point nor upon their
commissioning as officers in the United States Army. I'm not even sure
they swore any oath when they entered West Point, or if so, what oath
they swore. 

The oaths of officers and enlisted men (and later enlisted women) have
changed several times, and from my cursory peek this morning, at the
time of  the commissioning of Lee, Davis et. al., they appear to have
sworn instead "to bear true faith and allegiance to the United States of
America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully against all their
opposers whomsoever, and to obey the orders of the president of the
United States of America ..."

Notice the use of plural pronouns to refer to the United States in the
nineteenth-century oath. Upon the interpretation of those words hung
hundreds of thousands of lives, white and black, free and slave, and the
freedom of millions of slaves.

Article 6, Paragraph 3 of the Constitution mandates that all government
officers (and I presume that included military officers) must swear
allegiance to the Constitution, so I'm not sure how that squares with
this particular army officers' oath, which does not include that
specific word. It was added, along with the "domestic" enemies in 1862,
after Confederates had departed.

Modern-day soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, and Coast Guardsmen are
often told they swear the same oaths that their grandfathers and
great-grandfathers swore. Nobody ever bothers to check these things.
Somebody ought to ... 


Gordon

G. W. Poindexter
assistant editor
Dictionary of Virginia Biography
The Library of Virginia
800 E. Broad St.
Richmond, Va. 23219
telephone (804) 692-3500
direct (804) 692-3651
FAX (804) 692-3736
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