“He that imposes an oath, makes it, Not he that for convenience takes it: Then how can any man be said To break an oath he never made.” Said a Union man, when rumor was current that everybody would soon be made to swear loyalty to the Confederacy, he would take such an enforced oath “from the teeth out.” And so too, an ex-Confederate soldier, made to swear loyalty to the United States, muttered to his friend the words of Galileo when compelled to abjure the Copernican system: “It still moves!” Yet both the Unionist and the Confederate were conscientious, worthy citizens, who alike in times of peace, would esteem the oath before a court of justice as “a recognizance to heaven,” and again, to quote pithy lines from Hudibras, as-- Being “not purposed more than Law To keep the good and just in awe. But to confine the bad and sinful, Like moral cattle in a pinfold.” However, despite all ethical objections to the miscellaneous administration of the oath of allegiance, and the numerous instances of its futility in the war, its reputation still held good as a specific for curing disloyalty; or at least, as a certain preventive of ill consequences from that political sickness through men afflicted with it. Therefore the extensive use of it by Judge Humphreys in his court-room with Union citizens indicated no lower degree of intelligence in him, although in the opinion of some it might show his lack of judicial wisdom. Instances were not wholly wanting in which the use of that requirement was denied him, because the patient thought the prescribed dose too astringent for health of conscience, as may be seen by the following from the _Knoxville Whig_ of that period: