a plea for affirmation in parliament

A plea for affirmation in ParliamentAuthor(s): Holyoake, George JacobSource: Bristol Selected Pamphlets, (1882)Published by: University of Bristol LibraryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/60246790 .

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V

{From Mr. HOLYOAKE.]

A. PLEA

FOR

AFFIRMATION IN PARLIAMENT.

BY GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE.

"If we are to have any legislation on the subject, the simplest plan would be to allow anybody to substitute an affirmation for an oath without assigning his reason."—Lord Derby, Spttch at Liverpool, January 4th, 18S2.

LONDON:

HENRY CATTELL & Co., 84, FLEET STREET, E.C.

1S82. [price twopence.]

UNIVERSITY i OFBRIGPOLl

LIBRARY I



f itbCj

Ictitiorrt far ^ffinrxaibiL*

fjff HAT it is at all times important that public declarations should jj^ be so expressed that any one making them shall be able to say

what he means and mean what he says. In these days, when popular instruction is being advanced by national schools, it is yet more desi¬ rable that no public declaration 3hould be exacted the terms of which are unmeaning or untrue to those who make it, inasmuch as such declaration deteriorates the wholesome habit of national perspicuity, and is of the nature of a fraud upon the public understanding, which becomes more repugnant to the public sense as general intelligence increases.

Your Petitioner respectfully submits that the present Parliamentary oath is open to these objections so long as it is obligatory upon all members, irrespective of whatever personal and private beliefs they may hold.

Your Petitioner, therefore, prays, in the interests of public good faith, that a form of affirmation may be adopted, optional to all mem¬ bers of Parliament with whose convictions it may be more consonant than the present ecclesiastical oath.

George Jacob Holyoake.

* Presented to the House of Commons by Professor J. E. Thorold Rogers M V Session of 1880.

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'I I

A PLEA FOR

AFFIRMATION IN PARLIAMENT.

Since the days when Gibbon took the Christian oath in Parliament, a pardonable scorn has been expressed at those who, contemptuous towards superstition, are compliant in

public infraction of the truth, where inconvenience results. Yet Freethought, more than Faith, has need to regard conscience as higher than consequence, since, by setting aside mere authority, and proclaiming the right of indi- ridual judgment, Freethought would imperil society were it not bound, as by a sacred principle, to discountenanee doing evil that good may come.

It is not necessary for me to insist that I am in favour of Mr. Bradlaugh being admitted to Parliament. It can only occur in two ways—by oath or affirmation. He is in favour of one way; I of the other. So far, therefore, as any efforts of mine go, I make two chances for him where he otherwise would have but one.

Some ministers of religion have insisted on the right of any one to take the oath. They may be excused pro¬ moting, as an amusing triumph, the unwonted spectacle of last session, which saw an Atheist " fighting his way into the House" to kiss the Bible. It can be no longer said that Atheism is not devotional. Had, however, this novel and ardent protege taken the opportunity, which was open to him, of following Mr. Speaker and his chaplain into the House at the time of prayers, he might have created for us the droll sight of a Christian assembly preventing an Atheist entering it to pray. Affirmation would put an end to these unedifying dilemmas.

The late Lord Lyndhurst (as well as Lord Derby) was in



A PLEA : Exaction of the Oath a public immorality.

favour of abolishing oaths. There is good reason against them. Yet I am no fanatic against oaths. It is often an advantage to the ends of justice that a man should testify in that way which is most binding on his conscience. I knew of a case in which a debtor readily proceeded to make oath that he did not owe the sum of ^12. But upon the court being informed that he was a Catholic, a Catholic Bible was put into his hands, upon which he proceeded to swear; when, the Court observing that he had inverted the Bible, he was required to kiss that side upon which the cross was imprinted : he turned pale, laid down the book, and agreed to pay the debt, rather than take the oath in the form which touched his conscience.

The following Letters are in favour of Lord Derby's proposal " to allow anybody to substitute an affirmation for an oath without assigning his reason." At the same time, Lord Derby is of opinion that the House should allow any one to take the oath who " consents to go through the accustomed form." This means that the House should allow the oath to be taken as a mere " form." What this implies I have stated in the First Letter. It means also that the House may go on exacting the observances of the " accustomed form." This is a very serious thing to those who have pride in the truth of their word, and to whom the terms of the oath are contrary to their belief and teaching. For the House of Commons to compel a member to kiss the Bible, in which he does not believe, under penalty of excluding him from his seat, is an act of public immorality. It is true that it is done in every Legislature in the world ; but England would do well to set the example of exempting its representatives from this humiliation. It is an act of offensive intolerance to impose an ecclesiastical oath upon gentlemen not having ecclesiastical convictions. There were until 1869 thousands of persons in England who, like the Unitarians, did not believe in an Avenging Deity (which is the essence of the oath), and there were numerous philo-



FOR AFFIRMATION IN PARLIAMENT. Excusable swearing still a form of deceit.

sophical thinkers who believed that the sin and shame of falsehood had inevitable penal consequences in this life— not inflicted by supernatural visitation. Such persons con¬ tinually took the oath, rather than incur ecclesiastical odium and legal outlawry, who excused themselves by vain devices, and found apologists who invented ingenious and evasive theories of the oath, which poisoned the sense of public veracity in the entire community. All this ceased when affir¬ mation was made optional where conscience dictated its use.

Some years ago, when a son of mine was killed, I was prevented tendering evidence against the man who caused his death because I could not take the oath. Had I taken it, I might have hoped that the occasion excused me ; but I could not have pretended that I had done an honest thing. I could not have hidden from myself, nor persuaded myself to increase, the evil by trying to efface in the minds of others the character of the act. A member taking the oath in Pailiament from necessity is not a worse evil—save in its greater conspicuousness—than was common in all law- courts a few years ago. But since Quakers, Catholics, and Jews won regard by refusing to swear, it would be a satis¬ faction to see Freethinkers not less scrupulous nor less courageous, especially where the consequences can be but a brief delay, since the Government have undertaken to deal with the question on the first opportunity.

The late John Stuart Mill did me the honour to promote my candidature in the Tower Hamlets in 1857, and sub¬ scribed to my election expenses. I informed him that, should I be elected, I should not be able to take the oath. His answer was emphatic: " You must not take it." The address I had issued to the electors said : " Public justice requires that the oath, like marriage, should be a civil or religious rite, at the option of those concerned."

After Mr. Mill's election for Westminster I wrote to him (August 1st, 1869), saying: "Might I ask you one day to tell me on what grounds you were able to take the oath as



A PLEA : The right of the Author to publish his Plea.

M.P. Because I could not take it I am aware it by no means follows that you could not; but, as you never act without reasons, I should be instructed by knowing yours." He never made answer, either by note or in conversation; but his interest in the question of affirmation continued, to promote which he had sent money more frequently and more readily than any one else.

Sir John Trelawny and Mr. W. Coningham stood next. Mr. J. A. Roebuck wTas the one member who not only voted for, but could be depended upon to make a speech in favour of, the Affirmation Bill, as often as it wras before the House. After he made his .amous appeal to Sir George Cornewall Lewis I expressed my thanks to him, when he said: " Do not thank me; I have only done what Jeremy Bentham taught me to do."

It is but just to the reader to say that many ministers and others whom I honour, take an entirely different view from myself upon this question of the oath ; but, since they insist upon their views, there is no reason why I should not insist upon mine.

For fully forty years I have advocated a law of Secular Affirmation. My imprisonment in 1840 was occasioned by my refusing to give an answer the contrary to what I thought true. After my bail was accepted by the authorities I remained in prison four weeks rather than swear to my own recognizances, because the terms of the oath were the reverse of my convictions. Captain Mason, the Governor of Glou cester Gaol, told me that I need have no scruple where I had no belief. But I thought otherwise, I have thought so ever since, and think so still. Therefore, it will not appear either surprising or unseemly in me to plead in favour of affirmation in Parliament, when there is a fairer chance than ever of its concession. In law-courts toleration is now per¬ fect. Any witness known not to be a Christian can affirm, and is believed upon his word ; but if he hold the Christian faith, he must be sworn.



FOR AFFIRMATION IN PARLIAMENT. First Letter to the Daily News.

OATH OR AFFIRMATION?

TO THE EDITOR OF THE " DAILY NEWS."*

Sir,—The time is near when the question of oath or affirmation will again perplex Parliament, as it does most members who have recently addressed their constituents. Numerous petitions have been signed for presentation, which simply pray that the junior member for Northampton may be permitted to take his seat, expressing no preference, but leaving it to the judgment of the House whether it shall be done by oath or affirmation. May one who never took an oath, either under prospect of advantage or pres¬ sure of peril, give reasons in favour of the method of affir¬ mation? The objections to the method of the oath are very strong. Honour in taking an oath consists in taking it in the sense iu which it is tendered. The spirit of the oath is in its terms. He who does not accept the terms does not take that oath, but takes some other, whose un¬ expressed terms arc in his mind only, and unknown to those who administer it. In the last session the member in question claimed to take the oath, he having made it known that " it included words of an idle and meaningless character to him." Had he taken it without giving this information—whatever any one might think—no one could object, as that would be for a member to impose his con¬ science upon the oath-taker. But when the oath taker has avowed his non-acceptance of its terms, and then asks to take the oath, he imposes his conscience upon all who assent to it. If there be hypocrisy in taking an oath in one sense, when its terms express another, he who does it transfers the hypocrisy to those who permit it, for they thereby sanction it. It was honourable in the member to confess his disqualification of conviction ; but, having done so, the oath was henceforth impossible to him. Mr. Glad¬ stone put this in unanswerable terms when he said : "In the court of conscience the repetition of the words does not constitute an oath, unless the man who repeats the words

* Inserted December 22nd, 1S81.



A PLEA: Belief in an Avenging Deity the essence of the Oath.

is able to give to every one of them its full sense and full force." There is no precedent in any Court of any person being allowed to make oath when it was known and admitted by him that its theological terms were " unmeaning to him." The meaning of the oath is a matter of common know¬ ledge. It is never administered except to those who believe, or profess to believe, or are believed to believe, in an Avenging Deity. The newspapers continually report cases in which the highest judges and the ordinary magistrates alike question witnesses, even children, as to whether they "know where they will go to " if they speak untruly. If a witness does not believe that God will punish him personally and seriously for departure from the truth or concealment of the truth, such witness is ordered "to stand down," and he or she is commonly dismissed in terms of opprobrium and contempt, as was the case with Mrs. Maden, a teacher in Rochdale.* It has always been one of the tenets of the common law that no person can be depended upon to speak the truth from the love of it, or from any sense of self-respect; he must have a clear sense of supernatural responsibility, which alone is believed capable of inducing veracity in his testimony. It would, therefore, be meanness in the House of Commons to permit grave judges to exact this belief from children and women, and permit grown and respon¬ sible men—representative legislators—to take the oath who announce that they have not the belief insisted upon in the case of the people.

No English gentleman would think of going into a Turkish court and make a Mohammedan oath. He would be understood by the act to have changed, not only his reli¬ gion but his nationality. No person would think of pre¬ senting himself to be sworn in a Roman Catholic court avowing that he disbelieved the solemn words he had to utter. The profanation would not be suffered. Is a Protes-

* Mrs. Maden offered to take the oath, but the defendant's counsel elicited from her that, while she believed in the Bible, and believed that falsehood would be punished, she disbelieved in a future state ; whereupon Mr. C. Temple, the judge, non-suited he'-, gave costs to the defendant, and told Mrs. Maden "that, if people would outrage public opinion, they must take the consequences " So he deprived her of her pianoforte, for which she sued the defendant in this case. (December, i860.)



FOR AFFIRMATION IN PARLIAMENT. What the Heretic-Oathtaker says to the House.

tant assembly less scrupulous as to truth and reverence He who proposes to take the oath without holding the belief of the oath says in effect to the House : " The terms of the oath are, as I have made known to you, unmeaning to me, and I assume that they are unmeaning to you also, or I could not expect your permission to utter them. I am aware, you say, that the oath is a solemn appeal to God. But that is a mere farce of the lawr, and I am ready to go through that farce, with your consent. If you had any actual belief in God yourselves, or in what you call his holy name, you could not authorise my uttering it as an empty word, and invoking his presence in this assembly to witness my attestation, as though I had belief in his righteousness and fear of his displeasure, when I have nothing of the kind. That would seem to you a mockery and a profana¬ tion. If you really regarded truth as an element of the oath, I could not propose to take it, and thus affront public veracity. It is because I believe you to be without sincerity in this matter that I present myself to take the oath, and expect the House to sanction it."

This is what is in the mind of any one who proposes to take the oath as a form. In Mr. Bradlaugh's declaration of May 21st, 1880, he himself said : "It would be an act of hypocrisy to voluntarily take this form if any other had been open to me." The necessity does not change its character. To do what is intrinsically dishonourable (as an act of hypocrisy would be) because of an immediate advan¬ tage which might come otherwise, is hardly an excuse, and certainly not a justification. The House of Commons will, therefore, consult its own self-respect by passing a law ren¬ dering honest affirmation optional to all members who have conscientious objections to the oath. I do not lose sight of the fact that Mr. Gladstone considers that law and Parliamentary custom have made the oath permissive, and that the House of Commons is not a court. But if the question is put to the House, as the petitions presented to it assume, it will be competent to the House to decide its sense of fitness thereunto. As respects heresy, I have as much to answer for as Mr. Bradlaugh. I protest as strenu-

.ously as any one against his exclusion from the House of Commons on the ground of speculative opinion—which no one acquires by choice, and no one can change at will. If the



IO A PLEA : Second Letter to the Daily News.

House should permit him to take the oath, the honest claim of affirmation will be betrayed; for no Government will see any necessity, or have any pretext, to introduce a Bill legalising affirmation if they have reason to believe that Atheists have no scruple about taking the oath. Then, for all persons who have the sentiment of good faith, there will be open only one door to the Legislature—the door of hypocrisy, through which it is a shame and a humiliation to enter.—Faithfully yours,

George Jacob Holyoake.

OATH OR AFFIRMATION?

TO THE EDITOR OF " THE DAILY NEWS."*

Sir,—No writer is justified in asking the privilege of journalistic space unless he has a case which he can submit to question. Such question as has arisen in your columns in answer to my lttter,t which appeared in your issue of December 22nd, requires but a very few words from me. Were Mr. M. D. Conway in danger of his life in China, I should doubtless break a saucer to save him, providing the Confucians would permit me. But I should regret the necessity, since in no country would I willingly treat truth as a superstition; nor should I think such an extreme in¬ stance a reason for disregarding the obligation of good faith in public professions at home. By taking a " saucer" oath I should obtain in Chinese eyes a validity for my word not really belonging to it. However I might excuse the act, it would still be deceit, nor ought it to be called by any other name. There is no virtuous vagueness in unveracity, and he who in peril uses it would not be justified in carry¬ ing it into common life, where Lord Bacon has warned us " truth is so useful that we should make public note of any departures from that excellent habit." Major Evans Bell, from whom I dissent with misgiving, argues that because the Prince of Wales may sign himself my " obedient humble servant," while not feeling himself bound to act so, the

* Inserted January 10th, 1882. + See p. 12.



FOR AFFIRMATION IN PARLIAMENT. II The Argument of the Letters re-stated.

terms of the oath may be likewise regarded as a form of words merely. As to that, I think all " forms " which are unreal are unwise and hurtful. But the superscription of the Prince is known to be but a form, and accepted as such, while the oath is an obligation. But if the Prince went into a public court and swore in the name of the Deity that he really was my " obedient humble servant," I should think him a very shabby prince if the solemnity went for nothing. As I have known Major Bell expose himself to what his friends believed to be fatal peril, from a noble sense of self-imposed duty alone, to which neither oath, nor contract, nor any conventional superscription called him, I no more imagine him than 1 do Mr. Conway, to really mean what their letters seem to imply. Mr. Pryce's letter* relates to a point I have not discussed. Mr. Todhunter allows my argument to be " ingenious." It is of small value unless it is also ingenuous and palpable.

My argument was that no one who cannot accept the terms of an oath can offer to take it without assuming the insincerity of those who administer it; and those who on appeal permit it, assent to the doctrine that a gentleman may, in the highest assembly in the land, solemnly use terms which express a grave meaning to others and none to him. It is not well for the morality of a people that even private men should be given to understand that they may unlink truth from their speech, under prospect of personal advantage. But in leaders whom we are called upon to honour, and in legislators to whom we must trust national character and public interests, we have a right to expect downright veracity. This is all the answer I have to give to those who demur to my argument. Since, however, each admits that optional affirmation in the case I discussed is desirable, it is a clear admission that the oath in such case is wrong, otherwise something else in its place would not be desirable. The exculpatory fertility which justifies a questionable oath will be heard no more, when the Govern¬ ment can find opportunity of passing an Act to render affir¬ mation legal where the belief requisite for an oath is absent.—Yours very faithfully,

George Jacob Holyoake. * Mr. Pryce and Mr Todhunter, two other correspondents in the

Eai'y Nri.es.

UNIVERSITY » ofear •

; U8RAH* |



12 A PLEA FOR AFFIRMATION IN PARLIAMENT. Objections to the Plea.

[Any answer to opponents, hmvever fairly intended, is still somewhat of the nature of an imposition upon the reader unless he has before him what the opponents actually did say. Therefore I subjoin the Two Letters replied to on preceding pages.']

OATH OR AFFIRMATION? TO THE EDITOR OF "THE DAILY NEWS."

Sir,—Although agreeing with Mr. G. J Holyoake that the affirma¬ tion is preferable to the oath, it appears to me that in Mr. Bradlaugh's case he has left out of view an important element. The oath has an antiquarian and a present significance : the former relates to its terms, the latter to its intent. It were not difficult to prove that the oath, in its antiquarian character which survives in its terms, rests not cm belief in a God, but in an oath-guaranteeing deity—a deity who, being sum¬ moned by the oath-taker, becomes the third party to a contract, bound to visit its non-fulfilment with special judgments. All those who dis¬ believe in this paiticlilar sense of the oath are in the same case with Mr. Brad laugh, whether Theists or not. If they take the oath, it is because of its intent—to proclaim a purpose of fulfilling a certain duty they have undertaken. It is this public declaration, through a form of conventional solemnity, and not the terms, which binds the honour and conscience. If Mr. Holyoake were in China, and the life of an honest countryman depended on his breaking a saucer before testifying, he would probably break it, nor feel that he had sanctioned the primi¬ tive and superstitious sense of the act.—I am, &c,

Moncure D. Conway. TO THE EDITOR OF "THE DAILY NEWS."

Sir,—I cannot but regret that one so well endowed, both by his positive and his negative qualifications and by what the Americans call a "record" in every way honourable, as my good friend Mr. G. J. Holyoake, to put forth an opinion likely to carry weight with widely divergent parties in Church and State, should, in the letter which you published on the 22nd, furnish the Tories both with authority and argument for the continued exclusion from Parliament of Mr. C. Brad- laugh. In my humble opinion, with all re=pect for the authority, the argument is worthless. From the point of view avowed by Mr. Brad- laugh, there is not the slightest "hypocrisy" in his taking the oath. He offers to go through a legal form and to repeat a legal formula, having frequently, as I understand, done so before equally without disguise, declaring that, while accepting the obligation of the oath, he considers some of the words to be unmeaning and superfluous, just in the same way you or I, or Mr. Holyoake, or, for the matter of that, the Duke of Cambridge or the Prince of Wales, would on proper occa¬ sion sign his name to a statement that he was "the most obedient humble servant" of some one whose behests he was treating, and always intended to treat, with contempt, and who might be distinctly in an inferior or subordinate position. The words are worse than superfluous—they are false ; but they are official and customary, and aristocrats and Republicans alike accept them. I might give several other illustrations, but this appears to me to be sufficient, and your space is limited.—Faithfully yours, Evans Bell.



a plea for affirmation in parliament

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