ply?

The President swears "to execute the office of president," and
"to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United
States." The judges "to discharge the duties incumbent upon them
agreeably to the constitution and laws of the United States."

All executive, legislative, and judicial officers, both of the
several States and of the General Government, before entering on the
performance of their official duties, are bound to take an oath or
affirmation, "_to support the Constitution of the United States_."
This is what every office-holder expressly _promises in so many
words_. It is a contract between him and the _whole nation_. The
voter, who, by voting, sends his fellow citizen into office as his
representative, knowing beforehand that the taking of this oath is
the first duty his agent will have to perform, does by his vote,
request and authorize him to take it. He therefore, by voting,
impliedly engages to support the Constitution. What one does by his
agent he does himself. Of course no honest man will authorize and
request another to do an act which he thinks it wrong to do himself!
Every voter, therefore, is bound to see, _before voting_, whether he
could himself honestly swear to _support_ the constitution. Now what
does this oath of office-holders relate to and imply? "It applies,"
says Chief Justice Marshall, "in an especial manner, to their conduct
in their official character." Judge Story, in his Commentaries on the
Constitution, speaks of it as "a solemn obligation to the due
execution of the trusts reposed in them, and to support the
Constitution." It is universally considered throughout the country,
by common men and by the courts, as a promise to do what the
Constitution bids, and to avoid what it forbids. It was in the
spirit of this oath, under which he spake, that Daniel Webster said
in New York, "The Constitution gave it (slavery) SOLEMN GUARANTIES.
To the full extent of these guaranties we are all bound by the
Constitution. All the stipulations contained in the Constitution in
favor of the slaveholding States ought to be fulfilled; and so far
as depends on me, shall be fulfilled, in the fulness of their spirit
and to the exactness of their letter."

It is more than an oath of allegiance; more than a mere promise that
we will not resist the laws. For it is an engagement to "support them";
as an _officer_ of government, to carry them into effect. Without
such a promise on the part