Ironclad oath

The Ironclad Oath was an oath promoted by Radical Republicans and opposed by President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War. The Republicans intended to prevent political activity of ex-Confederate soldiers and supporters by requiring all voters and officials to swear they had never supported the Confederacy. Given the temporary disenfranchisement of the numerous Confederate veterans and local civic leaders, a new Republican biracial coalition came to power in the ten Southern states during Reconstruction. Southern conservative Democrats were angered to have been disenfranchised.

I, A. B., do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have never voluntarily borne arms against the United States since I have been a citizen thereof; that I have voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto; that I have neither sought nor accepted nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever, under any authority or pretended authority in hostility to the United States; that I have not yielded a voluntary support to any pretended government, authority, power or constitution within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto. And I do further swear (or affirm) that, to the best of my knowledge and ability, I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God.

Congress originally devised the oath in July 1862 for all federal employees, lawyers and federal elected officials. It was applied to Southern voters in the Wade–Davis Bill of 1864, which President Abraham Lincoln vetoed. Former vice-president Andrew Johnson also opposed it after he became president in April 1865. Both Johnson and Lincoln wanted Southerners instead to swear to an oath that in the future they would support the Union. Lincoln's amnesty oath was integral to his ten percent plan for reconstruction. In 1864 Congress extended the provisions of the ironclad oath to its own members, but overlooked perjury when it came to seating Southern Republicans.

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