Oaths 6 – Debating the Test Oath at the Constitutional Convention

So, you might ask, “Didn’t the Constitutional Convention have a point in stating that a religious test oath wouldn’t work?” Here’s a portion of the debate on the matter.

One of the arguments at the Convention was that religious test oaths are ineffectual.

“In one of his famous letters of ‘a Landholder,’ published in December, 1787, Oliver Ellsworth, a member of the Federal Constitutional Convention and later Chief Justice of this Court, included among his strong arguments against religious test oaths the following statement:

” ‘In short, test laws are utterly ineffectual; they are no security at all, because men of loose principles will, by an external compliance, evade them. If they exclude any persons, it will be honest men, men of principle, who will rather suffer an injury than act contrary to the dictates of their consciences. . . .’ ”

But was this a logical & consistent position to take in regard to an oath? What about an oath to the Constitution? Couldn’t we, no, don’t we have people today who fraudulently take an oath to uphold the US Constitution? And don’t we want to exclude “honest men” who don’t hold to faith in the bible & Christ?
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