The True Story of My Parliamentary Struggle

by Charles Bradlaugh

188. But do you consider it so?—Most certainly I do not consider the most considerable portion of it an idle and empty form.

189. Some portion of it, I said?—I consider no portion of the essential Oath an idle and empty form.

190. That is to say, that you would take the Oath because the Statute says you must do so in order to take your seat?—That is not so. I take the Oath because the Statute says that I must do so, intending to be bound in my honor and conscience by the oath I take. Every Member takes the Oath because he must do so in order to take his seat, and he could not take it without it.

191. But you do not think that the forms of the Oath, as settled by law, adds anything to the binding of your conscience further than saying “I solemnly affirm”?—Your question presumes a form of thought which I have not enunciated.

192. Mr. John Bright: Do I understand you aright that you have never said that the oath, as you propose to take it, is less binding upon your conscience than it is supposed to be on the consciences of other men?—I have never said so; and in 1868, when I stood for election, there being then no form of affirmation possible for me, I had gravely considered the question.

193. It is within your knowledge that some men, and not a few men, who do not absolutely refuse to take an oath, still greatly prefer to make an affirmation?—If it would not be impertinent to say it, many Members of the House have told me so since this question has been pending.

194. Chairman: I think you said, when I informed you that the Committee thought that the letter should be put in, that it was a subject upon which you wished to make an observation?—I wish just to make the slightest observation upon that, and upon one or two points that arose in questions that have been put to me. If the Committee would allow me to think for a moment I believe I can compress it within very slight limits.

195. Sir Gabriel Goldney: Your statement to Mr. Justice Brett, I understood, you would think over?—No, that my answer did not apply to. If the Committee think that I ought to answer that question in the same way, the question as to the three words, or rather four words, that I answered to Mr. Justice Brett, I am quite in the hands of the Committee, and I should not decline to answer them.

196. Mr. Staveley Hill: The reason why I asked you what they were, and where they were to be found if you did not answer the question, was on purpose that one might look for them, because it must be a matter of public notoriety what the words were?—I should think it very possible. I have taken my objection, and if there is even a thought in the Committee that I had better answer the question, I should not object to do so.

197. Chairman: What are the observations which you wish to offer in consequence of your examination?—As the House will now have before it the statement, I ask the Committee in examining it to take it complete, not to separate one or two words in it and to take those without the countervailing words, and to remember that in this letter I declare that the oath, if I take it, would bind me, and I now repeat that in the most distinct and formal manner; that the Oath of Allegiance, viz.: “I do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria, her heirs and successors, according to law,” will, when I take it, be most fully, completely, and unreservedly binding upon my honor and conscience; and I crave leave to refer to the unanimous judgment of the full Court of the Exchequer Chamber, in the case of Miller v. Salomons, 17th Jurist, page 463, and to the case of the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway Company v. Heaton, 4th Jurist, new series, page 708, for the distinguishment between the words of asseveration and the essential words of an oath. But I also desire to add, and I do this most solemnly and unreservedly, that the taking and subscribing, or repeating of those words of asseveration, will in no degree weaken the binding effect of the oath on my conscience. I should like, finally, simply to submit to the Committee, and especially to the honorable and learned gentleman on the left of the Chairman, that there has not been from the beginning to the end of this matter, any declaration, either distinct or implied, that the Oath if taken by me would be less binding upon me than upon him; and I do submit to this Committee that this House has never sought to inquire or to distinguish in any fashion as to the religious views of its Members, except so far as any of them have found themselves obliged by their conscience to refuse to comply with some form that the House has put before them. On the contrary, in the Lords’ protest on the discussion of the Promissory Oaths Municipal Bill, Lord Holland and other Lords put it in the most distinct fashion that no sort of inquisition and no sort of inquiry ought to be tolerated involving any examination of a man’s theological views. Lord Holland added, in words better than I can command: “That there is no tribunal which he knows competent to make that examination, and that the purely secular and political duties called upon to be performed were not such as to entitle that examination to be made.” I thank the Committee for having listened to me, and I submit myself to their decision.