section 15 on general principles of law and reason the oaths of soldiers that
they will serve a given number of years that they will obey the orders of their
superior officers that they will bear true allegiance to the government and so
forth are of no obligation independently of the criminality of an oath that for a
given number of years he will kill all whom he may be commanded to kill without
Without exercising his own judgment or conscience as to the justice or necessity of such killing,
there is this further reason why a soldier's oath is of no obligation, that is, that like
all other oaths that have now been mentioned, it is given to nobody, there being in no legitimate
sense any such corporation or nation as the United States, nor consequently in any legitimate
Since any such government as the government of the United States, a soldier's oath given
to or contract made with such a nation or government, is necessarily an oath given to
or a contract made with nobody.
Consequently, such oath or contract can be of no obligation.