[Constitution, Jefferson's Manual, and the Rules of the House of Representatives, 105th Congress]
[105th Congress]
[House Document 104-272]
[The United States Constitution]
[Pages 78-82]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


 

                               ARTICLE VI.



Sec. 194. Validity of debts and engagements.

  \1\ All  Debts 
contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this 
Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this 
Constitution, as under the Confederation.




Sec. 195. Constitution, laws, and treaties the 
supreme law of the land.

  \2\ This  Constitution, and the Laws of the United 
States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, 
or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall 
be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be 
bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the 
Contrary notwithstanding.





Sec. 196. Oaths of public officers; and prohibition of 
religious tests.

  \3\ The  Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and 
the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and 
judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, 
shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but 
no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any 
Office or public Trust under the United States.



[[Page 79]]

discharge the duties of the office on which I am 
about to enter. So help me God.''


Sec. 197. Form of oath.

  The  form of the oath is prescribed 
by statute (5 U.S.C. 3331; I, 128): ``I, AB, do solemnly swear (or 
affirm) that 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 




Sec. 198. Administration of oath at organization.

  The  Act of 
June 1, 1789 (2 U.S.C. 25), provides that on the organization of the 
House and previous to entering on any other business the oath shall be 
administered by any Member (generally the Member with longest continuous 
service) (I, 131; VI, 6) to the Speaker and by the Speaker to the other 
Members and Clerk (I, 130). The Act, has at times been considered in the 
House as directory merely (I, 118, 242, 243, 245; VI, 6); but at other 
times has been observed carefully (I, 118, 140). The Act was cited by 
the Clerk in recognizing for nominations for Speaker as being of higher 
constitutional privilege than a resolution to postpone the election of a 
Speaker and instead provide for the election of a Speaker pro tempore 
pending the disposition of certain ethics charges against the nominee of 
the majority party (Jan. 7, 1997, p. ----).


  Previously it was the custom to administer the oath by State 
delegations, but beginning with the 71st Congress Members-elect have 
been sworn in en masse (VI, 8). The Clerk supplies printed copies of the 
oath to Members and Delegates who have taken the oath in accordance with 
law, which shall be subscribed by the Members and Delegates and 
delivered to the Clerk to be recorded in the Journal and Congressional 
Record as conclusive proof of the fact that the signer duly took the 
oath in accordance with law (2 U.S.C. 25). See Deschler's Precedents, 
vol. 1, ch. 2. The Speaker has requested that guests in the gallery rise 
with the Members during the administration of the oath of office to a 
Member-elect (Nov. 12, 1991, p. 31255).


[[Page 80]]



Sec. 199. Functions of the Speaker in administering the 
oath.

  The  Speaker possesses no arbitrary power in the administration of 
the oath (I, 134), and when objection is made the question must be 
decided by the House and not by the Chair (I, 519, 520). An objection 
prevents the Speaker from administering the oath of his own authority, 
even though the credentials be regular in form (I, 135-138). The Speaker 
has frequently declined to administer the oath in cases wherein the 
House has, by its action, indicated that he should not do so (I, 139, 
140). And in case of doubt he has waited the instruction of the House 
(I, 396; VI, 11). There has been discussion as to the competency of a 
Speaker pro tempore to administer the oath (I, 170), and in the absence 
of the Speaker a Member-elect waited until the Speaker should be present 
(I, 179), but in 1920 a Speaker pro tempore whose designation by the 
Speaker had been approved by the House, administered the oath to a 
Member (VI, 20). The House may authorize the Speaker to administer the 
oath to a Member away from the House (I, 169), or may, in such a case, 
authorize another than the Speaker to administer the oath (I, 170; VI, 
14). For forms used in this procedure see (VI, 14).




Sec. 200. Administration of the oath as related 
to the quorum.

  Members-elect  have been sworn at the beginning of a second session 
before the ascertainment of a quorum (I, 176-178), but when the Clerk 
called the second session of the 87th Congress to order, Members-elect 
were not sworn prior to ascertainment of a quorum and election of 
Speaker McCormack to succeed Speaker Rayburn, who had died during the 
sine die adjournment (Jan. 10, 1962, p. 5). Members-elect have also been 
sworn where a roll call or other ascertainment has shown the absence of 
a quorum (I, 178, 181, 182; VI, 21) but in one instance, however, the 
Speaker declined to administer the oath under such circumstances (II, 
875).




Sec. 201. Privilege of administration of the 
oath.

  A  proposition to administer the oath to a Member is a matter of 
high privilege (VI, 14), and the oath has been administered during a 
call of the roll on a motion to agree to rules at the time of 
organization (I, 173; VI, 22), before the reading of the Journal (I, 
172), in the absence of a quorum (VI, 22), on Calendar Wednesday (VI, 
22), before a pending motion to amend the Journal (I, 171), and after 
the previous question has been ordered on a bill reported back to the 
House from the Committee of the Whole (Oct. 3, 1969, p. 28487). A 
division being demanded on a resolution for seating several claimants, 
the oath may be administered to each as soon as his case is decided (I, 
623). Where a Member-elect whose right to a seat has been determined by 
the House presents himself to take the oath, his right to be sworn is 
complete and cannot be deferred even by a motion to adjourn (I, 622), 
but the Speaker has entertained the motion to adjourn after adoption of 
a seating resolution but before the Member-elect was present in the 
Chamber to take the oath (May 1, 1985, p. 10019).




Sec. 202. Challenge of the right to take the oath.

  The  right 
of a Member-elect to take the oath is sometimes challenged and the 
Speaker requests the Member-elect to stand aside temporarily (VI, 9-11, 
174; VIII, 3386). This usually occurs at the time of organization of the 
House. The challenge proceeds from some Member, but the fact that he has 
not yet taken the oath himself does not debar him from making the 
challenge (I, 141). The Member challenging does so on his responsibility 
as a Member or on the strength of documents (I, 448) or on both (I, 443, 
474). And where an objection was sustained neither by affidavit nor on 
the responsibility of the Member objecting, the House declined to 
entertain it (I, 455).



[[Page 81]]

held that the House might direct contested 
names to be passed over until the other Members-elect had been sworn in 
(I, 154). Motions and debate are in order on the questions involved in a 
challenge, and in a few cases other business has intervened by unanimous 
consent (I, 149, 150). By unanimous consent the consideration of a 
challenge is sometimes deferred until after the completion of the 
organization (I, 474), and by unanimous consent also the House has 
sometimes proceeded to legislative business pending consideration of the 
right of a Member to be sworn (I, 151-152).


Sec. 203. Consideration of an objection to the taking of 
the oath.

  It  has been held, although not uniformly, that in cases where 
the right of a Member-elect to take the oath is challenged, the Speaker 
may direct the Member to stand aside temporarily (I, 143-146, 474; VI, 
9, 174; VIII, 3386). The Member so challenged is not thereby deprived of 
any right (I, 155). Similarly, the seating of a Member-elect does not 
prejudice a pending contest, brought under the Federal Contested 
Elections Act (2 U.S.C. 381-396), over final right to the seat (Jan. 7, 
1997, p. ----). When several are challenged and stand aside the question 
is first taken on the Member-elect first required to stand aside (I, 
147, 148). In 1861 it was 




Sec. 204. Relation of credentials to the right to 
take the oath.

  Although  the House has emphasized the impropriety of swearing in 
a Member without credentials (I, 162-168), yet it has been done in cases 
wherein the credentials are delayed or lost and there is no doubt of the 
election (I, 85, 176-178; VI, 12, 13), or where the governor of a State 
has declined to give credentials to a person whose election was 
undoubted and uncontested (I, 553). A certificate of election in due 
form having been filed, the Clerk placed the name of the Member-elect on 
the roll, although he was subsequently advised that a State Supreme 
Court had issued a writ restraining the Secretary of State from issuing 
such certificate (Jan. 3, 1949, p. 8). Where the prima facie right is 
contested the Speaker declines to administer the oath (I, 550), but the 
House admits on his prima facie showing and without regard to final 
right a Member-elect from a recognized constituency whose credentials 
are in due form and whose qualifications are unquestioned (I, 528-534). 
If the status of the constituency is in doubt, the House usually defers 
the oath (I, 361, 386, 448, 461). In the 99th Congress, the House 
declined to give prima facie effect to a certificate of election, the 
results of the election being in doubt, and referred the issue of 
initial as well as final right to the Committee on House Administration 
(H. Res. 1, Jan. 3, 1985, p. 380-7). After a recount of the votes was 
conducted by that committee, the House on its recommendation declared 
the candidate without the certificate entitled to the seat (H. Res. 146, 
May 1, 1985, p. 9998). The House also may defer the oath when a question 
of qualifications arises (I, 474), but it may investigate qualifications 
after the oath is taken (I, 156-159, 420, 462, 481), and after 
investigation unseat the Member by majority vote (I, 428).



[[Page 82]]

the Constitution. In Bond v. Floyd, 385 U.S. 116 (1966), the Supreme Court 
held that the exclusion by a State legislature of a member-elect of that 
body was unconstitutional, where the legislature had asserted the power to 
judge the sincerity with which the Member-elect could take the oath to 
support the Constitution of the United States. In the 97th Congress, the 
House declared vacant a seat where the Member-elect was unable to take the 
oath because of illness, where the medical prognosis showed no likelihood 
of improvement to permit the Member-elect to take the oath or assume the 
duties of a Representative (H. Res. 80, Feb. 24, 1981, pp. 2916-18).


Sec. 205. Sanity and loyalty as related to the 
oath.

  Questions  of sanity (I, 441) and loyalty (I, 448) seem to pertain to the 
competency to take the oath rather than to the question of 
qualifications, although there has been not a little debate on this 
subject (I, 479). In one case a Member-elect who had not taken the oath, 
was excluded from the House because of disloyalty, where the resolution 
of exclusion and the committee report thereon concluded that he was 
ineligible to take a seat as a Representative under the express 
provisions of section 3 of the 14th amendment (VI, 56-59). This action 
by the House was cited in the Supreme Court decision of Powell v. 
McCormack (395 U.S. 486, 545 fn. 83) which denied the power of the House 
to exclude Members-elect by a majority vote for other than failure to 
meet the express qualifications stated in 






Sec. 206. Decisions of the Court.

  Decisions  of the Supreme 
Court of the United States: McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 
316 (1819); Ex parte Garland, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 333 (1867); Davis v. 
Beason, 133 U.S. 333 (1890); Mormon Church  v. United States, 136 U.S. 1 
(1890).