“Not from the heavy soil
where blood and sex and oath
rule in their hallowed might,
where the earth itself,
guarding the primal consecrated order,
avenges wantonness and madness —
not from the heavy soil of the earth,
but from the spirit's choice and free desire, needing no oath of legal bond,
is friend bestowed on friend.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), The Friend

Original

Nicht aus dem schweren Boden wo Blut und Geschlecht und Schwur mächtig und heilig sind, wo die Erde selbst gegen Wahnsinn und die geweihten heilgen uralten Ordnungen hütet und schützt und rächt, — nicht aus dem schweren Boden der Erde, sondern aus freiem Gefallen und freiem Verlangen des Geistes, der nicht des Eides und des Gesetzes bedarf, wird der Freund dem Freunde geschenkt.

Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), The Friend

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer 161

German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi 1906–1945

Ken Kern American writer

p, 125
The Owner-Built Homestead (1977)

“There is no constitutional or legal requirement that the President shall take the oath of office in the presence of the people, but there is so manifest an appropriateness in the public induction to office of the chief executive officer of the nation that from the beginning of the Government the people, to whose service the official oath consecrates the officer, have been called to witness the solemn ceremonial.”

Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901) American politician, 23rd President of the United States (in office from 1889 to 1893)

Inaugural address (1889)
Context: There is no constitutional or legal requirement that the President shall take the oath of office in the presence of the people, but there is so manifest an appropriateness in the public induction to office of the chief executive officer of the nation that from the beginning of the Government the people, to whose service the official oath consecrates the officer, have been called to witness the solemn ceremonial. The oath taken in the presence of the people becomes a mutual covenant. The officer covenants to serve the whole body of the people by a faithful execution of the laws, so that they may be the unfailing defense and security of those who respect and observe them, and that neither wealth, station, nor the power of combinations shall be able to evade their just penalties or to wrest them from a beneficent public purpose to serve the ends of cruelty or selfishness.