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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Sir , Hackney , March 5 , 1827 . From some of the publications sent me by my friends the Universalists of America , which I referred to in my former letter , ( p . 176 , ) and which I have since received , I learn that the competency of unbelievers , and even of some Christian believers , to serve as Jurors and to give evidence in courts of justice , lias been called in question in the United States of America .
The first case of this kind is thus related in The Philadelphia Universalist Magazine , Vol . II . p . 315 , in an extract from The American Watchman and Delaware Advertiser of Jan . 7 , 1823 : " In a trial in the court of Oyar and Terminer , held at Newcastle in November last , of a man indicted for * * * * , one of the Jury impannelled was , on his being called , challenged by the Attorney-General , who proceeded to shew cause for the challenge , by propounding to him , under the direction of the court , the following questions , and requiring his answers thereto :
" Q . 1 . Do you believe in the obligation of an oath ? " A . 1 . An honest man , to speak the truth , requires not an oath to bind him ; and a dishonest one will not be bound by an oath . " Q . 2 , Do you believe in the existence of a God ? " A . 2 . It appears reasonable to believe , that all things are governed by a superior intelligence rather than by a blind fatality . " The same question being repeated and a more direct answer required , Juror replied , " 2 . I do believe in the existence of a God .
" Q . 3 . Do you believe in a future state of rewards and punishments ? ¦ " A . 3 . I am ignorant of them . The subject is beyond my comprehension . " The Court , on hearing the answers of the Juror to the questions proposed , decided that he was incompetent to serve as one of the Jury . He was consequently rejected , although it was the prisoner ' s wish that he should pass between him and his country . *'
Another case of judicial bigotry , in which a witness was rejected on account of heresy , is described ( in an extract from the Boston Patriot ) in the Boston Universalists * Magazine , Vol . VII . pp . 113 , 114 . " In a case tried before Judge Hallowell and a special Jury , in the District Court of Philadelphia , Nov . 14 , a man was offered as a witness for the defendant , who , on being interrogated by the plaintiff '' s counsel as to his defendant , who , on being interrogated by the plaintiffs counsel as to his
religious belief , declared , that he did not believe in a future state of rewards and punishments after this life , but that the only punishment for sin was in the present state of existence . The Judge , after argument , refused to admit him to be qualified as a witness . He quoted in support of his opinion the decision of the Supreme Court of New York , as delivered by Chief Justice Spencer , that * no testimony is entitled to credit , unless delivered under the solemnity of an oath or affirmation which comes home to the conscience of
the witness , and will create a tie arising from his belief that perjury would expose him to punishment in the life to come ; on this great principle rest all our institutions , and especially the distribution of justice between man 1 , ,, A J J J ana . man . Upon this judgment , so unworthy of a functionary in a Free State , the editors of the work from which I have taken the extract , make the following remark , — " By the above decision , the honourable Judge informs the public , that had the man whom he would not admit to be sworn , been dishonest enough
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QUESTION OF THE COMPETENCY OF HERETICS AND UNttELIEVERS AS JURORS AND WITNESSES IN AMERICAN COURTS ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1827, page 262, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1795/page/30/
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