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 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 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, viz., that, like all
the 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 sense, 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 contract made with, nobody. Consequently such an oath or
contract can be of no obligation.