The Act of April 25th, 1863, requiring attorneys at law and litigants to file affidavits of allegiance to the Government of the United States as therein prescribed, is constitutional.

Sec. 3 of Article 11 of the Constitution, containing the form of oath to be administered to State officers, does not prohibit the Legislature from prescribing an oath to such officers in a different form of words from that therein used, if the meaning, object, and intent of the section be not violated.

An attorney at law is not a person holding an “ office of public trust,” within the meaning of those terms as used in the prohibitory clause of Sec. 3, Art. 11, of the Constitution.

The right to practice law is not a natural or constitutional right, but a statutory privilege, subject to the control of the Legislature. The exclusion of an attorney by a test oath is not in the nature of a punishment for a criminal , offense, but a denial of a privilege forfeited by failure to comply with a prerequisite condition.

Courts without any special statutory provision may strike from the rolls an attorney guilty of disloyalty or treasonable acts, under them general power of supervision over the morality of their own officers. They may also require an attorney to whom such offense is imputed, to purge himself therefrom by his own oath. ''

The right to practice law is not “ property,” nor in any sense a “ contract,” within the constitutional meaning of those terms.

Courts cannot declare a law void, upon the ground that it is contrary to “ the spirit and policy of the Constitution,” unless it is at variance with some express or clearly implied provision of that instrument.

The payment by a lawyer, of a United States license tax, imposed by the Revenue Law of 1862, does not entitle-him to practice his profession without taking the oath prescribed by the State law.

There is nothing in the Constitution which prohibits the Legislature from closing the doors of the Courts against traitors and their aiders and abettors, or which requires that this shall not be done until after conviction of the crime in a regular criminal trial; or which prohibits the Legislature from requiring of those litigating in the Courts, that they shall purge themselves by their own oath of the imputed offense before they shall claim their aid.

The citizen cannot demand protection from the Government without he renders to it the equivalent of obedience and support. When he refuses this obedience and support, and aids, assists, countenances, or encourages those who are struggling to overthrow the Government, he forfeits all right to the use of its Courts.

The State may exclude from its Courts those who are guilty of disloyalty to the nation of which the State is a part, as well as those disloyal to the State Government directly.

The Act of April 25th, 1863, requiring from litigants an oath of allegiance, operates not upon the right of action but upon the remedy alone, which is subject to legislative control, and the Act does not so burden the remedy as to render it useless or impracticable.