The Jan. 6th Committee on Why Oaths Matter

Rep. Bennie Thompson opened his committee’s hearings on the Jan. 6 insurrection by discussing not just the recent memory of the Capitol riot, but something that happened over 150 years earlier: the Civil War. He was born, he said, in “a town … midway between Jackson and Vicksburg, Mississippi”—both sites of major Union victories that helped turn the tide of the war in 1863. “I’m from a part of the country where people justify the actions of slavery, Ku Klux Klan, and lynching,” Thompson explained. “I’m reminded of that dark history as I hear voices today try and justify the actions of the insurrectionists of January 6, 2021.” And he pointed to the oath of office sworn by himself and his fellow committee members, and highlighted its origin story: “The words of the current oath taken by all of us—that nearly every United S

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