Page:Revised and Amended Prescript of the Order of the ***.pdf/12

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Nemo tenetur seipsum accusare.

7th. Are you in favor of Constitutional liberty, and a Government of equitable laws instead of a Government of violence and oppression?

8th. Are you in favor of maintaining the Constitutional rights of the South?

9th. Are you in favor of the re-enfranchisement and emancipation of the white men of the South, and restitution of the Southern people to all their rights, alike proprietary, civil, and political?

10th. Do you believe in the inalienable right of self-preservation of the people against the exercise of arbitrary and unlicensed power?

If the foregoing interrogatories are satisfactorily answered, and the candidate desires to go further (after something of the character and nature of the Order has been indicated to him) and to be admitted to the benefits, mysteries, secrets and purposes of the Order, he shall be required to take the following final oath or obligation. But if said interrogatories are not satisfactorily answered, he shall be discharged, after being solemnly admonished by the initiating officer of the deep secresy to which the oath already taken has bound him, and that the extreme penalty of the law will follow a violation of the same.

FINAL OBLIGATION.

"I ———— of my own free will and accord, and in the presence of Almighty God, do solemnly swear or affirm, that I will never reveal to any one not a member of the Order of the * * *, by any intimation, sign, symbol, word or act, or in any other manner whatever, any of the secrets, signs, grips, pass-words, or mysteries of the Order of the * * *, or that I am a member of the same, or that I know any one who is a member; and that I will abide by the Prescript and Edicts of the Order of the * * *. So help me God."

The initiating officer will then proceed to explain to the new members the character and objects of the Order, and introduce him to the mysteries and secrets of the same; and shall read to him this Prescript and the Edicts thereof, or present the same to him for personal perusal.

ARTICLE VIII.

AMENDMENTS.

This Prescript or any part or Edicts thereof shall never be changed, except by a two-thirds vote of the Grand Dragons of the Realms, in convention assembled, and at which convention the Grand Wizard shall preside and be entitled to a vote. And upon the application of a majority of the Grand Dragons for that purpose, the Grand Wizard shall call and appoint the time and place for said convention; which, when assembled, shall proceed to make such modifications and amendments as it may think will promote the interest, enlarge the utility, and more thoroughly effectuate the purpose of the Order