Oath Of Abjuration, usually, an oath by which one renounces allegiance. But anciently in England, and before 21 James I., ch. 28, § 17, one who had been guilty of a felony, and who had fled for safety to the sanctuary of a church or churchyard, might upon confession of his crime take an oath before a coroner that he would abandon or renounce the country for ever, and thereupon he was permitted to leave it in safety. The statute just named took away the privilege of sanctuary, and with it this privilege of abjuration. Formerly too, in England - for example, under the statute of 35 Elizabeth, ch. 1 - any person above the age of 16 years who refused to hear divine service or incited others to abstain from attending it, and by speech or in writing denied her majesty's authority in causes ecclesiastical, was required to conform and make submission to the church, or else to abjure the realm forthwith and for ever, before the justices at the assizes or in sessions. - The oath of abjuration in respect to the sovereign came into use in England after the restoration, and was changed from time to time until in the 6 George III. it took the form which it retained till 1858. All clergymen and public officers were required to take it on coming to their places, together with the separate oaths of allegiance and supremacy.

The statute of 21 and 22 Victoria, ch. 48 (1858), displaced these three oaths by a single one which embraced the elements of all of them. It ended with the words, "and I make this declaration on the true faith of a Christian.1' In ordinary cases Jews had been excused from adding these words, but until 1858 no statute authorized their omission from the parliamentary oath; so that when in 1850 Baron de Rothschild, and in 1851 Mr. Salomons, had come into the house and refused to take the oath in its full form, they were declared incapable of sitting as members. The statute of 21 and 22 Victoria, ch. 49, however, authorized the houses to dispense with the obnoxious words in the case of Jews, and this authority was thereupon exercised in favor of Baron de Rothschild; and in 1860 a standing order on the subject was made to avoid the inconvenience of special resolutions in separate instances. But the statute of 29 and 30 Victoria, ch. 19 (1860), removed all difficulty by dropping the embarrassing clause altogether from the parliamentary oath. - Under the United States statute relating to naturalization, the subject of a foreign state who seeks to become an American citizen is required to declare on oath or affirmation, before the court to which he applies, that he absolutely and for ever renounces and abjures all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign power, authority, or sovereignty whatever, and particularly, and by name, to the foreign prince or potentate, state, or sovereignty of which he has been hitherto a subject.