Forced Oaths
The Supreme Court has interpreted this provision broadly, saying that any required oath to serve anything other than the Constitution is invalid. In the case of Ex parte Garland, the Court overturned a loyalty oath that the government had tried to apply to pardoned Confederate officials. As the officials had already received full presidential pardons (negating an argument based on their potential status as criminals), the Court ruled that forcing officials and judges to swear loyalty oaths was unconstitutional.
Read more about this topic: No Religious Test Clause
Famous quotes containing the words forced and/or oaths:
“It is unheard-of, uncivilized barbarism that any woman should still be forced to bear such monstrous torture. It should be remedied. It should be stopped. It is simply absurd that, with our modern science, painless childbirth does not exist as a matter of course.... I tremble with indignation when I think of ... the unspeakable egotism and blindness of men of science who permit such atrocities when they can be remedied.”
—Isadora Duncan (1878–1927)
“The oaths of a woman I inscribe on water.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)