“I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”
But when the President is opposed to the Constitution, which one do you obey?
Well no, it wouldn't have prevented him from opposing secession, only from ordering the US Army to go start a war over it, a war that killed a half million Americans. So, maybe that wouldn't have been so bad?
and, more recently, it would have prevented Eisenhower from integrating public schools in Little Rock.
Well that was certainly the most important act in the history of country, even if mostly symbolic. Even if schools are almost as segregated today as then..
These principles, if they deserve to be called that, are nonsense and against the American tradition of government as it has been understood since the Whiskey Rebellion was suppressed by George Washington.
Which is probably about where we went wrong and the elitists (Washington was a huge distiller, hardly a disinterested party) started pushing around their "lessors" and invoking obscure Federal rules to make one and all bow to their control.