The First Federal Law Began With a Promise to the Constitution

A short sentence, a detailed procedure

The formula was brief: the person would swear or affirm support for the Constitution of the United States. The procedural directions took considerably more space. Senators, the presiding officer of the Senate, representatives, the Speaker, and congressional clerks each had a place in the sequence. [1]

For a newly elected House, the act required the Speaker and members present to take the oath before entering on other business. Later arrivals were to take it before taking their seats. The document made timing part of the obligation, rather than leaving the ceremony as a loosely defined custom. [1]

The obligation reached into the states

Section 3 addressed state legislators and state executive and judicial officers. It also required a record or certificate of the oath in accordance with state procedures. Section 4 addressed officers appointed under United States authority before they acted in office. [1]

That is a useful distinction when reading the founding record. This law supplies an oath and a process for administering it. It does not establish that every alleged constitutional violation is automatically a crime, nor does an oath certificate prove that an official later honored the promise.

Read the two-page act

Crypt of Echoes preserves the statute pages and a separately identified reading transcription. Begin with chapter I on printed page 23 and follow its continuation onto page 24; the next act begins below it. The original scan lets readers check both the wording and the limits of this early accountability measure. [1]

Sources & archive records

1. An Act to regulate the Time and Manner of administering certain Oaths.

   1 Stat. 23–24, chapter I, approved June 1, 1789. Preserved statute scan and labeled reading transcription.

   Original publisher or repository