Champlin, J. T. (1861). Veracity is always right. In J. T. Champlin, First principles of ethics: Designed as a basis for instruction in ethical science in schools and colleges (pp. 102-114). New York, NY, US: Woolworth, Ainsworth, and Company.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/12198-007
Veracity being something which is required of each man, irrespective of the claims of others, and not, like justice, something which each may claim of all others, on account of his special ownership in certain things, it presents itself as a duty, rather than as a right. But it is our duty to do only what is right. Veracity, then, as a duty in us, must be right on some ground or other; and, as the Tightness of it does not arise from the nature of the relations of men to any particular objects, it must arise directly from the nature of things themselves. Thus, in the most literal sense, the virtue of veracity has its ground in the nature of things; for veracity is barely speaking and acting out things as they are. It is merely truth, reality, reflected in our words and acts—a strict conformity, in all that we do and say, to things as they exist. It may always be said, that such a statement is true, and such a one false, because it is according to, or contrary to, fact, reality, nature. When one states that to be true which he knows to be false, the first thing which stares him in the face is, that he has falsified fact. The man who is attempting to pass off a lie for the truth is confronted continually by the reality as it is, and feels condemned in the presence of injured nature. The sections of this chapter address the following topics: The ground of the duty; The utility of veracity but a secondary ground of the duty, at most; Falsehood defined; Evils of falsehood; Is falsehood ever justifiable?; Promises, and the keeping of them; Promises confirmed by an oath; and finally, Propriety of oaths. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)