In 1833 the Quakers, who in the case of Archdale in 1699 had been held incapable of sitting in Parliament by reason of their refusal to swear, were allowed to affirm, first by resolution of the House, later by Act. This was done at the instance of a Quaker member, Sir Joseph Pease, who besides being rich enjoyed personally the respect latterly accorded to his sect by those which formerly persecuted it.
Then came the case of the Jews, first raised in the person of Baron Lionel Nathan de Rothschild, in 1850. There was now a triple Protestant oath, and an alternative Catholic oath, the theoretically dangerous church being allowed to swear in its own way; but for the small community of Jews there was no formula, and the Jewish banker had to choose between exclusion and swearing "on the true faith of a Christian." He omitted these words from his oath, and was accordingly declared disentitled to sit, the House at the same time formally resolving to take Jewish disabilities into its consideration at the earliest opportunity in the next Session. In 1851, another Jew, David Salomons, returned for Greenwich, refused to take the oath in the Christian form, formally resisted the Speaker's ruling against him, was formally removed, and was excluded from his seat. Not till 1858 was the relief given. In that year a single (Christian) oath was substituted for the triple asseveration of the past, and on the re-elected Baron Lionel again refusing it, he was allowed, by resolution of the House, to swear without the Christian formula. In 1859 he, with Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild and Salomons, was again sworn theistically. Finally, in 1866, by the Parliamentary Oaths Act, the oath was made simply theistic for all, the familiar expletive "So help me God" being held sufficient to associate the First Cause ethically with the proceeding in hand.
This movement was doubtless due to a certain semi-rational perception of the futility of oaths in general, as being a vain formality to honest men, and a vain barrier to others. Sir William Hamilton, a thinker so fervent in his instinctive Theism that he undid his philosophy to accommodate it, had in his day created a strong impression by his essays (1834-5), on the right of Dissenters to be admitted into the English universities, in which he emphatically reiterated the declaration of Bishop Berkeley—made when the oath test was in fullest use—that there is "no nation under the sun where solemn perjury is so common as in England." "If the perjury of England stand pre-eminent in the world," said Hamilton, "the perjury of the English Universities, and of Oxford in particular, stands pre-eminent in England." Doctrine like this had made for an abolition of oaths which could easily be classified as "unnecessary," and for the simplification of those retained; but though the very step of reducing the act of imprecation to a curt conventional form meant, if anything, the belittling of the act of imprecation as such, the Parliamentary formula had for half a generation remained unchallenged. John Mill had in 1865 sworn "on the true faith of a Christian," and a good many Agnostics and Positivists have since unmurmuringly invoked the unknown God. It was left for Bradlaugh to attempt a departure from the course of dissembling conformity. When he stood for Northampton in 1868 (as he stated in answer to Mr Bright on the second select committee of 1880), he had gravely considered the question of oath-taking, there being then no possibility of affirmation. Believing now that he had the right to affirm under the Act which permitted affirmation to witnesses, he felt bound to exercise it.
As every step in his action has been and still is a subject of obstinate misconception and wilful falsehood, the story must be here told with some minuteness. The usual statement is that he "refused" to take the oath of allegiance. He did no such thing. A professed Atheist, he had been the means of bringing about the legal reform which enabled unbelievers to give evidence on affirmation, albeit the form of enactment was, to say the least, invidious. A great difficulty is felt by many Christians in regard to the abolition of the oath, in that they fear to open the way for false testimony by witnesses who would fear to swear to a lie, but do not scruple to lie on mere affirmation. It is for Christians to take the onus of asserting that there are such people among their co-religionists; and they have always asserted it in the House of Commons when there is any question of dispensing with oaths. And it was on this plea that the first Act framed to allow unbelievers to give evidence on affirmation was made to provide that the judge should in each case satisfy himself that a witness claiming to affirm was not a person on whom an oath would have a binding effect. That is to say, he was to make sure that the witness was not a knavish religionist trying to dodge the oath, in order to lie with an easy mind. It was the duplicity of certain believers, and not the duplicity of unbelievers, that was to be guarded against, though, of course, the only security against the lying of believers in answer to the judge was that a known conformist would be afraid publicly to pretend that he had scruples against the oath. But the main effect of the clause, framed to guard against pious knavery, was to stigmatise unbelievers as persons on whom an oath would have "no binding effect." An ill-conditioned judge was thus free to insult Freethinking witnesses, and even a just judge was free to embarrass them by an invidious question, since the bare wording of the Act enabled and even encouraged the judge to ask them—not, as he ought to have done, whether the oath was to them unmeaning in respect of the words of adjuration, but—whether the oath as a whole would be "binding on their conscience."[121] While recognising the invidiousness of such a question, Bradlaugh always claimed to affirm in courts of law, though to him, as to most professed rationalists, the repetition of an idle expletive was only a vexation, and in no way an act of deception, when made the inevitable preliminary to the fulfilment of any civic duty. He had openly avowed his opinions, and if the oath was still exacted, the responsibility lay with those who insisted on it. On his return to Parliament he felt that not only would it be inconsistent for him to take the oath if he could avoid it, but it would be gratuitously indecorous, from the point of view of the believing Christian majority. Sitting in the house before the "swearing-in," he remarked to Mr Labouchere that he felt it would be unseemly for him to go through that form when he believed he was legally entitled to affirm. And in this belief, it must always be remembered, he had the support of the former Liberal law officers of the Crown, who had privately given it as their opinion[122] that he was empowered to affirm his allegiance under the law relating to the affirmation of unbelievers. With that opinion behind him, he was in the fullest degree entitled—nay, he was morally bound as a conscientious rationalist—to take the course he did. Other rationalists, real or reputed, were returned to the same Parliament. Professor Bryce, as candidate for the Tower Hamlets, had been assailed as an Atheist, and was yet returned at the head of the poll. Mr Firth had been similarly attacked, but was nevertheless carried in Chelsea. Neither of these gentlemen, however, made any public avowal, direct or indirect, of heresy. Mr John Morley, who was justifiably regarded as a Positivist or Agnostic on the strength of his writings, when elected later made no demur to the oath; and Mr Ashton Dilke, who afterwards avowed his heterodoxy in the House of Commons,[123] also took it without comment. It was left to Bradlaugh to fight the battle of common sense—I might say of common honesty, were it not that long usage has in these matters wholly vitiated the moral standards of the community, and honourable men are free to do, and do habitually, things which, abstractly considered, are acts of dissimulation.
§ 3.
Bradlaugh's first formal step after obtaining the opinion of the last Liberal law officers and privately consulting the officials of the House, was to hand to the Clerk of the House of Commons, Sir Thomas Erskine May, on May 3rd, a written paper in the following terms:—
"To the Right Honourable the Speaker of the House of Commons.
"I, the undersigned Charles Bradlaugh, beg respectfully to claim to be allowed to affirm as a person for the time being by law permitted to make a solemn affirmation or declaration, instead of taking an oath."
He had already explained, in answer to the questions of the Clerk, that he made his claim in virtue of the Parliamentary Oaths Act, 1866, the Evidence Amendment Act, 1869, and the Evidence Amendment Act, 1870, which "explains and amends" the Act of 1869. The Clerk formally communicated these matters to the Speaker (Sir Henry Brand), who then invited Bradlaugh to make a statement to the House with regard to his claim. Bradlaugh replied: