Chester County, New York (August 23, 1831) as related in The New York Spectator, reported that a judge refused to admit the evidence of a man who declared he did not believe in God, on the grounds that the witness had destroyed beforehand all confidence of the court in his testimony. The newspaper explained:
<The court of commons pleas of Chester county (New York), a few days since rejected a witness who declared his disbelief in the existence of God. The presiding judge remarked, that he had not before been aware that there was a man living who did not believe in the existence of God; that this belief constituted the sanction of all testimony in a court of justice: and that he knew of no cause in a Christian country, where a witness had been permitted to testify without such belief.> 1831CC001
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1831CC001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). New York, August 23, 1831, Chester County. Alexis de Tocqueville, The Republic of the United States of America and Its Political Institutions, Reviewed and Examined, Henry Reeves, trans. (Garden City, NY: A.S. Barnes & Co., 1851), Vol. I, p. 334. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 2 vols. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, [1834, 1840] 1960), Vol. 2, p. 306. Gary DeMar, America's Christian History: The Untold Story (Atlanta, GA: American Vision Publication, Inc., 1993), p. 69.