It is difficult to speak of the whole system of expurgatory oaths for
past conduct without a shudder at the suffering and oppression they
were not only capable of effecting but often did effect. Such oaths
have never been exacted in England, nor on the Continent of Europe;
at least I can recall no instance of the kind. Test-oaths there have
always been limited to an affirmation on matters of present belief, or
as to present disposition towards those in power. It was reserved for
the ingenuity of legislators in our country during the civil war to
make test-oaths reach to past conduct.
The Court held that enactments of this character, operating, as they
did, to deprive parties by legislative decree of existing rights for
past conduct, without the formality and the safeguard of a judicial
trial, fell within the inhibition of the Constitution against the
passage of bills of attainder. In depriving parties of existing rights
for past conduct, the provisions of the constitution of Missouri
imposed, in effect, a punishment for such conduct. Some of the acts
for which such deprivation was imposed were not punishable at the
time; and for some this deprivation was added to the punishments
previously prescribed, and thus they fell under the further prohibition
of the Constitution against the passage of an _ex post facto_ law. The
decision of the Court, therefore, was for the discharge of the Catholic
priest.
Pages:
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200