Did you realize that the words “So help
me God”, spoken by Presidents as they take the required oath or affirmation of
office, are not required to be spoken, nor are they even present in the
Constitution?
I acknowledge that most, if not all
Presidents, have spoken those words. But they have done so as a point of
personal choice, not requirement.
I present the Constitutional
requirement here:
"I do solemnly swear (or
affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United
States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the
Constitution of the United States."
These words are found in Article 2,
section 1, last paragraph.
The link to the full transcript of
the Constitution is provided at the bottom of this post.
I offer that bit of information
merely as an appetizer of the Constitution before I move on to the very tasty
entre which follows.
Queen Elizabeth II, addressing Parliament
for the first time, November 4, 1952, began with the following paragraph…
"I, Elizabeth, do solemnly and
sincerely in the presence of God profess, testify, and declare that I am a
faithful Protestant, and that I will, according to the true intent of the
enactments which secure the Protestant succession to the Throne, uphold and
maintain the said enactments to the best of my powers according to law."
This was not merely a point of
personal choice for her. This profession, testimony, and declaration was necessary
for her as she claimed the Throne.
There was at that time, and I believe
still exists, the Act of Settlement and Protestant Succession, which was passed
by Parliament in 1701. It requires the Monarch t be a member of the Church of
England and to declare an oath to the Protestant faith.
Contrarily, here in the United
States, there is no requirement that a person holding office of any level declare
any religious faith.
In fact, Article VI, last paragraph
concludes with the following provision…
“but no religious Test shall ever be
required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United
States.”
It may be true that most people who
lived in the United States at the time of the ratification of the Constitution
were Christians of some stripe or another. I know that there were also
Unitarians and Deists.
But this information regarding the
Protestant Succession Act, which I am sure those educated framers of our
government were aware of, tells us that if the framers had wanted to establish
a Christian form of government, they had precedent and example to do so.
Yet they chose to go to great
lengths to avoid establishing a religious government.
The Preamble of the Constitution has
no religious language.
The 1st Amendment
provides that there shall be no establishment of religion by the government.
There is the aforementioned “no religious
test” clause.
There are no stated prohibitions of
religion, which they could, had they chosen, to include.
In stark and resolute contrast to
the Protestant Succession Act of Parliament, 1701, The Constitution of the
United States respects your conscience as being inviolate.
It is an exceptional trait provided to
and by us. May it never be surrendered.
U S Constitution: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript
Queen Elizabeth II speech: https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1952/nov/04/the-queens-speech
Act of Settlement and Protestant
Succession: https://archive.org/details/sn-00683-Parliamant/mode/2up
