139. Do you, in your own mind, attach any difference to the sanction?—I object that the question put to me asks me to make a distinguishment which the law does not make.
140. I do not wish to press anything to which you object; do you desire to tell the Committee that, in your own mind, there is no distinction drawn when you use the word “affirm” and when you use the word “swear”?—To me, on the Statute they have the same meaning; that is, they are a pledge that what I put after those words is binding upon me in the most complete degree.
141. I suppose you are aware of all the ordinary definitions of an oath contained in the law books?—I am afraid that would be saying more than I have any right to say. I am fairly well read, but not sufficiently to say that I know them all.
142. You know a great many of them, I suppose?—I have learnt a few.
143. You said to my honorable and learned friend, the Attorney General, that you regarded the word “swear” as a pledge given to a properly constituted authority, and that that was the meaning you attached to the word “swear”; what do you mean by the “properly constituted authority” that you referred to in that answer?—Whatever may be the authority established by Statute for the purpose of taking such an oath.
144. A human authority?—All authorities established by Statute for the taking of oaths are human authorities Any authority outside a Statute is illegal, and any person administering such an oath is indictable.
145. You are aware of the meaning of the expression “sanction of an oath”; what do you consider would be the sanction of the Oath if you took it?—I am not sure that I apprehend the meaning that is in your mind when you use the words “sanction of an oath.”
146. I will read the definition which is contained in Mr. Baron Martin’s judgment in the case of Miller v. Salomon’s, where it refers to the case of Omichund v. Barker, as reported in the “Law Journal”: “The doctrine laid down by the Lord Chancellor (Hardwicke) (Omichund v. Barker), and all the other judges, was that the essence of an oath was an appeal to a Supreme Being in whose existence the person taking the oath believed, and whom he also believed to be a rewarder of truth and an avenger of falsehood, and that the form of taking an oath was a mere outward act, and not essential to the oath which might be administered to all persons according to their own peculiar religious opinions, and in such manner as most affected their consciences.” You have listened to that statement?—Yes; and I have also read the judgment of the Court of Error in the following year, in which they say that the essential words of the oath are those without the appeal, and that the words “So help me, God” are words of asseveration, the manner of taking the oath; but the words preceding them are, it appears to me, an essential part of the oath; and in the case of the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway Company v. Heaton, it was held that the oath was completely taken without the addition of that appeal.
147. I am not at all upon the words “So help me, God,” which are the words referred to in the last case to which you referred. I am now upon what contains a promise that an oath is being taken when a man uses the word “swear”; do you object to the definition which I have read?—I object to that definition as overruled by the Court of Error in its final decision in error, confirmed by a subsequent decision of Lord Campbell in the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway Company v. Heaton, when it was held that the appeal was not a part of the oath.
148. Chairman: In both those cases I think the judges in holding that view had reference simply to the words “So help me, God”?—Simply to the words “So help me, God.”