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 [log in to unmask]