Tara Strauch Gets on Base after a Strike Out

Tara Thompson Strauch  wrote an ambitious dissertation with the title, “So Help Me God”: The Constitution, Freedom of Conscience and the American Oath Ritual  (January 1, 2013). A critical part of the dissertation, is also available in the book, Religion and the State: Europe and North America in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, See here (Ch. 8 – Oaths and Christian Beliefs in the New Nation: 1776 – 1789; pgs. 127 – 142).

In the Introduction (page 3) of her dissertation, Strauch whiffs at the ball with this swoosh:

When the same president [Barack Obama] stood to recite his first oath of office in 2009, it was a symbolic and important event, if a routine one. Forty-four different men had taken this oath of office; some kneeling, some standing, and some on airplanes.

The breeze you can feel blowing by is that no president, including George Washington, has factually been described as “kneeling” during the administration of the presidential oath. 

Fortunately for Strauch, one swoosh still gives the batter a chance (like when there's a strike three and the ball gets past the catcher) to get on base, and here’s a sample of where Strauch gets on base, big time (editorial note: In each of the following cases, where it is called for, I have signaled the strike out for "kneeling" and substituted "touching" which is shown within brackets) :

New Jersey’s liberal constitution still did not remove all religious concerns about oaths. Shortly after the Constitution was approved, Governor William Livingston received a petition similar to the [March 21] 1772 Pennsylvania act concerning the ritual actions of oaths. The General Assembly responded by writing an act titled “An Act for the ease and relief of such persons as are scrupulous of taking an oath with the ceremony of touching and kissing the Book of the Gospels, by allowing that of holding up the hand in lieu thereof” [passed Oct. 1, 1778].<81>  The Act noted that until this time “no other [manner] was deemed and admitted legal” which indicates that the colonial government had only allowed the kneeling [kissing] ritual for oath taking rather than raising the right hand.<10> By restricting oath-takers to kneeling [touching] and kissing the gospels, the New Jersey government kept scrupulous Congregationalists, Baptists, Mennonites, Quakers and others [like Dutch Reformers] from political participation without requiring a religious test. The fact that such a petition was sent to the governor indicates that some individuals did choose religious piety at the expense of political action and also underscores the religious nature of oaths for eighteenth-century Americans. By requiring the English oath ceremony, New Jersey had a de facto religious test regardless of its liberal constitution.

Governor Livingston had encouraged the assembly to pass this act. He noted that it was not the wording but the “English Ceremony of kissing the Book” which the petitioners found objectionable and that these citizens should be released from their concern, asking “can it be consistent with sound Policy, or the generous Spirit of our Constitution, to debar an honest Man, and that these citizens should be released from their concern, asking “can it be consistent with sound Policy, or the generous Spirit of our Constitution, to debar an honest Man, for a religious Scruple, from the Privileges of Society, which the most profligate and abandoned are permitted to enjoy in the fullest Latitude?”<83> Livingston recognized that the religious requirement for active citizenship was too high; it kept out those pious individuals who were likely virtuous and moral while allowing “profligate” and morally questionable individuals full access to the political system. Livingston argued that such an arbitrary law made little sense and did not restrict the electorate in a profitable way. After all, Livingston concluded, this change in ritual was “beyond Question altogether formal, and in no Respect essential to its Nature or Solemnity” because an oath ceremony was still required; the options for New Jerseyans were either kneeling [touching] and kissing the Gospels or raising their right hand towards God. Affirmations were restricted to those who could demonstrate that they belonged to a scrupulous sect. Yet, the change did demonstrate that citizens took their oaths and their oath rituals seriously. The need for new state governments allowed Americans the chance to evaluate the relationship between church and state as well as the judiciousness of their religious rituals. As the petitioners in New Jersey demonstrate, when citizens found this relationship lacking they sought solutions. 

Often, scholars have assumed that the only objections to oath-taking came from the Quakers or smaller religious sects.<84>  In this case, however, the concern was less about the oath than about its ritual. Those who had petitioned the General Assembly appeared not to have been adherents of an obscure religious sect, but rather the Congregationalists and Presbyterians affiliated with Princeton who had moved into the state in increasing numbers in the mid-eighteenth century. Unlike the requests made in other states to allow an affirmation rather than an oath, or to relieve the scrupulous sects,  there is no mention made of a specific religious denomination which was oppressed by this ritual. Typically, those requests mentioned the Quakers, Mennonites or Dunkers, who were adamantly against oaths. The act in New Jersey mentioned only that “certain well-disposed persons” were jeopardized by the law. In other words, the strict requirement about the form of the oath punished not only those citizens whose religious beliefs fell outside the bounds of typical English Protestantism, but even impacted citizens from mainstream denominations who were expected to be an active part of this new nation. While Livingston championed allowing all religiously scrupulous citizens access to the political system, the act indicated that the assembly was particularly concerned that Congregationalists and Baptists not be barred from the government. The effect of the act was to allow any number of religiously conscientious individuals full citizenship even if the intention of some (or many) politicians was to open political participation for a few.

So what's so "big time"?  Well, here's what. The New York and New Jersey legislatures both passed a 1778 statute for the purpose of alleviating The Usual Mode of Administering an Oath for those with conscientious scruples (see here for the NYS statute). The similarity between the two state statutes indicates that both states  "had a de facto religious test, " which strongly indicates that when on April 30, 1789, New York State Chancellor Robert R. Livingston administered the presidential oath to the Anglican/Episcopalian churchgoer George Washington according to The Usual Mode of Administering an Oath. Washington touched the holy book with his hand and kissed it when the oath was completed. There was no reported kneeling.