On general principles of law and reason, the oaths of soldiers, that
they will serve a given number of years, that they will obey the orders
of their superior officers, that they will bear true allegiance to the
government, and so forth, are of no obligation. Independently of the
criminality of an oath, that, for a given number of years, he will kill
all whom he may be commanded to kill, without exercising his own
judgment or conscience as to the justice or necessity of such killing,
there is this further reason why a soldier's oath is of no obligation,
viz., that, like all the other oaths that have now been mentioned, _it
is given to nobody_. There being, in no legitimate sense, any such
corporation, or nation, as "the United States," nor, consequently, in
any legitimate sense, any such government as "the government of the
United States," a soldier's oath given to, or contract made with, such
nation or government, is necessarily an oath given to, or a contract
made with, nobody. Consequently such oath or contract can be of no
obligation.