© Adobe StockTHe Constitution of the United States ripped asunder
In Herman Melville's final novella,
Billy Budd, a ship's captain named Edward Vere orders the hanging of a sailor he knows to be morally innocent. Billy Budd struck a superior officer and killed him, but only because he was falsely accused of mutiny and could not speak in his own defense. Vere is not confused about any of this. He tells the drumhead court exactly what he believes: that Billy is innocent in the eyes of God and nature. Then he argues for the death sentence anyway, on the grounds that the Mutiny Act — the law of the British crown — demands it. The sailor's allegiance is to the King. The King's law has spoken. Billy hangs, and his last words are
"God bless Captain Vere." Melville gives us no resolution. The novella ends with the question it opened:
what does it mean when institutional allegiance and moral reality point in opposite directions, and a man with authority chooses the institution?That question is the operational question facing American military officers right now, and it has been for most of the past eighty years. The difference between Vere's situation and theirs is the difference that should change everything.
Vere's allegiance was to a king. An American officer's allegiance is to a document. The oath of a commissioned officer of the United States
reads:
"I, [name], do solemnly swear that 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 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."
There is no mention of the president. There is no pledge of personal loyalty to any individual or administration. The enlisted oath adds obedience to the president and officers, but the commissioned officer's oath does not.
An officer swears to the Constitution, and to nothing above it. The president is not the king. That distinction is not accidental, and it is not ceremonial.
Comment: The 'Key Developments' are timely, succinct and informative.