ABSTRACT
Unanimity was restored to the Court's views on church and state problems when it decided that Maryland could not constitutionally require an office holder to swear to his belief in God before being permitted to enter upon his office. American politics being what it is, a devotion to God, to country, and to mother is usually readily professed by every actual and potential office holder. Mr. Justice Black, on behalf of six of his brethren, wrote the opinion for the Court reversing the judgment of the Maryland high court. Justices Frankfurter and Harlan concurred in the result. Black quickly disposed of the notion on which the Maryland courts had based their conclusions, that Zorach had repudiated the grounds of decision stated in Everson. Nothing decided or written in Zorach lends support to the idea that Court there intended to open up the way for government, state or federal, to restore the historically and constitutionally discredited policy of probing religious beliefs.
