ChosenRebel's Blog

The Athenian Oath was a pledge that all Athenian citizens swore to uphold. I had never heard of it until my brother and his wife visited last week, and we went to visit the Laura Engals Wilder homestead, two hours Southeast of our present home in Pleasant Hope, MO. We saw it in the museum, and I have since found out that there are a few cities and towns that have adopted it as their own motto and pledge.

It is a good pledge. Could you imagine if every citizen of America would make a similar pledge to their local town or city? Maybe it is just the kind of thing that would help the United States pull together and make the nation “a more perfect union.”

We will never bring disgrace on this our City
by an act of dishonesty or cowardice.
We will fight for the ideals and Sacred Things of the City
both alone and with many.
We will revere and obey the City’s laws,
and will do our best to incite a like reverence and respect
in those above us who are prone to annul them
or set them at naught.

We will strive unceasingly to quicken the public’s sense of civic duty.
Thus, in all these ways,
we will transmit this City not only, not less,
but greater and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.”