Those Who Came Before Us

A week ago last Sunday there was an article in our Salt Lake Tribune by Kimberly Mangun entitled Clinton and Obama were not the first. She notes in the article that Hillary Clinton is not the first woman to run for president nor is Barack Obama the first African American to do so.

Their have been others before them who challenged racial and gender norms and helped pave the way for them. Over twenty years ago Reverend Jesse Jackson ran for president on the Democratic ticket.

Before Jackson, Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman elected to Congress, ran for president in 1972. Chisholm realized that even though she probably wouldn't win in the conventional sense, her candidacy would change the face and future of America.

One century before Chisholm in 1872 Victoria Woodhull who chose Frederick Douglass has her running mate was nominated for president by the Equal Rights Party. An interesting side note is that this was during the time of Reconstruction and only two years after the 15th Amendment was passed, so Douglass could vote but Woodhull couldn't.

All this is to remind us that although there is a good chance we might have the first woman or the first African American as the next president of the United States, there are other courageous individuals who came before them who helped to make this a reality.

For each of us there have been courageous pioneers who came before us to whom we owe a great depth of gratitude for paving the way for us to accomplish our dreams. May we do so for others.

Sacredness of an Oath

Last Thursday in my BYU doctoral law class our professor, Dr. Scott Ferrin, show us a video about the Supreme Court. Even though I had always known that government officials were sworn in to office and that they usually had a hand on the Bible when doing so, the Bible hadn't really caught my attention with any great interest until seeing this video. I started to wonder when and how that tradition came to be so I did some researching and discovered all kinds of interesting tidbits that I had previously just taken for granted.

The oath or affirmation of office of the President of the United States was established in the United States Constitution and it's mandatory for a President upon beginning a term. The wording:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Abiilty, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States
is prescribed by the Constitution (Article II, Section I, Clause 8).

Although it not present in the text of the Constitution, it has become standard practice for modern presidents to add "so help me God" at the end of the oath. Also, by way of convention, most raise their right hand and hold the other on a Bible (or other book of their choosing) while taking the oath although neither of these is required by law.

An oath is either a promise or a statement of fact calling upon something or someone that the oath maker considers sacred as a witness to the binding nature of the promise. To swear is take an oath. Many people take an oath by holding in their hand or placing over their head a book of scripture or a sacred object, thus indicating the sacred nature of the oath. The earliest English settleers in America brought over the tradition of this witness oath.