Washington, DC, 1999.
Preceding element provides place and date of transcription only.
For more information about this text and this American Memory collection, refer to accompanying matter.
The National Digital Library Program at the Library of Congress makes digitized historical materials available for education and scholarship.
This transcription is intended to have an accuracy of 99.95 percent or greater and is not intended to reproduce the appearance of the original work. The accompanying images provide a facsimile of this work and represent the appearance of the original.
I
A. B. DO solemnly swear, that I DO renounce, refuse, and abjure, any Allegiance, or Obedience to George the III. King of Great-Britain;—and that I will to the utmost of my Power, support, maintain, and defend the INDEPENDENCE of all the
United-States of America,
as the same was set forth by the
Continental Congress,
in their Declaration of the fourth of July 1776. And, I DO promise that I will bear Faith and true Allegiance to the State of New-Hampshire during my Residence therein; and will disclose and make known to some Magistrate acting under said state, all Treasons and Conspiracies, which I shall known to be against the
United-States,
or any one of them, as Independant of the Crown of Great-Britain. And these Things I DO swear according to the plain and common sense of the Words, without any Equivocation, or secret Reservation whatsoever; upon the true Faith of a Christian. So help me GOD.
Exeter: Printed, 1776, by Robert Luist Fowle.
New Haven: Reprinted, The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Company, 1909, in an edition of 125 copies, of which this is No.
I
A. B. DO solemnly swear, that I DO renounce, refuse, and abjure, any Allegiance, or Obedience to George the III. King of Great-Britain;—and that I will to the utmost of my Power, support, maintain, and defend the INDEPENDENCE of all the
United-States of America,
as the same was set forth by the
Continental Congress,
in their Declaration of the fourth of July 1776. And, I DO promise that I will bear Faith and true Allegiance to the State of New-Hampshire during my Residence therein; and will disclose and make known to some Magistrate acting under said state, all Treasons and Conspiracies, which I shall known to be against the
United States,
or any one of them, as Independent of the Crown of Great-Britain. And these Things I DO swear according to the plain and common sense of the Words, without any Equivocation, or secret Reservation whatsoever; upon the true Faith of a Christian. So help me GOD.
INDIANA UNIVERSITY
is happy to present this facsimile of the First Oath of Allegiance to guests attending the Dedication of the Lilly Library, October 3, 1960. Charles Evans lists it from this unique copy, (Exeter, N.H., 1776) in his
American Bibliography, Volume
5, as item 14905, and in his Preface says: “When we compare the earliest printed document of the Oath of a Free Man [Massachusetts, 1639, no original surviving] with another Oath taken by the freemen of New Hampshire in 1776, we find the same true ring in both: the same steadfastness in the truth as they saw the light; the same trust in God; the same personal honor and honesty with man.”