Loyalty by oath ; an essay on the extortion of love

This interesting and well-written pamphlet comes out of an era of required loyalty oaths, and is thus dated. However, the issue may be perennial; it is about oaths and whether they work to induce real loyalty and love. Of course not. They use fear, which fails to promote trust or truth. Oaths do

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not work, but they do endanger freedom and good government, and undermine respect for truth and the presumption of innocence, and the habit of truth-telling.
Quakers have refused to swear to the truth because they were always to speak truth, and avoid the Biblical injusction against swearing. Requiring swearing to an oath is a preparation for totalitarianism. For readers interested in this, this pamphlet is a useful exploration.

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