Test Oath
Test Oath names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Test Oath an oath prescribed by the United States Congress July 2
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
an oath prescribed by the United States Congress July 2, 1862, to be taken by persons in the former Confederate States appointed to office under the National government. The text was as follows: "I, A. B., do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have never voluntarily borne arms against the United States since I have been a citizen thereof; that I have voluntarily given no aid, countenence, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto; that I have neither sought, nor accepted, nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever, under any authority or pretended authority in TESTUDINIDE hostility to the United States; that I have not yielded a voluntary support to any pretended within the United States, hostile or inimical government, authority, power, or constitution thereto . And I do further swear (or affirm) that, to the best of my knowledge and ability, I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or pur pose of evasion, and that I will well and faith- I am about to enter, so help me God." fully discharge the duties of the office on which made by dipping unsized paper into an TEST PAPERS, in chemistry, are alcoholic solution of a vegetable coloring matter which changes color when exposed to the action of an acid or alkaline solution. The paper, after being gently dried, is cut into slips of a suitable size. Hence, by dipping the appropriate test tain whether it is acid, alkaline, or neupapers into any solutio any solution, one can ascertral. Litmus and turmeric are most commonly used as the coloring matters; litmus for the detection of acids, and turmeric for that of alkalies. Test papers retted hydrogen, etc., and for such a are also employed for detecting sulphusolution of an appropriate substance. purpose the paper must be dipped in the Thus acetate of lead paper becomes black in presence of sulphuretted hydrogen, while starch paper becomes blue when touched with iodine. TESTUDINARIA (so named from the resemblance which the great, rugged, cracked root of the plant bears to the phant's foot or Hottentot's bread; a geshell of a tortoise), in botany, the elebut with the seeds winged only at the nus of Dioscoreaceæ, akin to Dioscorea , tip, instead of all round. Rootstock above ground sometimes four feet in diameter. Stems occasionally 40 feet long; flowers small, greenish-yellow. T. elephantipes tentot's bread. The rootstock is a large, is the common elephant's foot or fleshy mass, covered with a thick bark, Hottentots in time of scarcity made use cracked deeply in every direction. The of yam. of the fleshy inside of the root as a kind
Test Oath an oath prescribed by the United States Congress July 2
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
an oath prescribed by the United States Congress July 2, 1862, to be taken by persons in the former Confederate States appointed to office under the National government. The text was as follows: "I, A. B., do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have never voluntarily borne arms against the United States since I have been a citizen thereof; that I have voluntarily given no aid, countecounsel, or encouragement to persons neither sought, nor accepted, nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever, under any authority or pretended authority in TESTUDINIDE hostility to the United States; that I have not any pretended yielded a voluntary support to government, authority, power, or constitution within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto. And I do further swear (or affirm) knowledge and ability, that, to the best of my I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same that I take this obligation freely, without any nental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God."
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's in 1921 printed the 1862 "ironclad oath" as if it were simply a historical text, without noting that the courts and Congress had already dismantled it. The Supreme Court struck down comparable retrospective loyalty oaths in 1867 in Cummings v. Missouri and Ex parte Garland, holding them unconstitutional bills of attainder and ex post facto laws, and Congress repealed the backward-looking clauses — the ones about having "never voluntarily borne arms against the United States" — in 1884. What survives is the oath's second half: the promise to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic," which is still the oath sworn by federal civil servants and members of Congress today, now codified at 5 U.S.C. § 3331. Loyalty oaths returned in force during the Cold War, and the Court again narrowed them, notably in Elfbrandt v. Russell (1966), which held that mere membership in a subversive organisation could not be grounds for disqualification.
Written for this edition, 2026.