LOUISIANA, Mo. — An unassuming Northeast Missouri priest won a victory for freedom of speech just by saying Mass.

Father John Cummings was arrested after services at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Louisiana on Sept. 3, 1865.

His crime? Failing to take the new state constitution’s loyalty oath, which was enacted after the Civil War. Many saw it as a vindictive measure to keep former Confederates from holding jobs.

At his first court hearing, Cummings refused to enter a plea and only spoke long enough to recite the Apostles’ Creed.

The case was the first to test the constitutionality of the law. Cummings lost at Missouri’s highest court, but won a narrow 5 to 4 victory at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Writing for the majority, Justice Stephen Field said the oath was of “objectionable character” and tended to subvert the presumption of innocence.

Justice Hugo Black would later call the decision “one of the constitution’s great guarantees of liberty.”

Father Cummings served St. Stephen’s parish at Indian Creek near Monroe City before falling ill and dying in June 1873.  He is buried in St. Louis, not far from the grave of Dred Scott, a slave who battled for freedom in a landmark legal case.

St. Joseph in Louisiana is still used for services.