May 25, 1888. Joint resolution. PROPOSED RELIGIOUS EDUCATIONAL SENATE RESOLUTION 86, INTRODUCED IN THE FIRST SESSION OF JOINT RESOLUTION PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following amendment to the Constitution of the United States be, and hereby is, proposed to the States, to become valid when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the States, as provided in the Constitution: First amendment idea extended to States. The prohi bition of section 1 directly violated. A twin measure to Sunday bill. ARTICLE SECTION 1. No State shall ever make or maintain any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. SECTION 2. Each State in this Union shall establish and maintain a system of free public schools, adequate for the education of all the children living therein, between the ages of six and sixteen years inclusive, in the common branches of knowledge, and in virtue, morality, and the principles of the Christian religion. 1 Only four days after introducing his famous Sunday-rest bill, Senator Blair introduced into the Senate of the United States this proposed religious educational amendment to the Constitution. Like the Sunday bill itself, this was a proposition to undo the work of the founders of this government in separating religion from civil government, and make it a subject of state concern and control,— an attempt to establish the Christian religion as the legal and legally rec Sectarian teaching But no money raised by taxation imposed by law, or any money or other property or credit belonging to any municipal organization, or to any State, or to the United States, shall ever be appropriated, applied, or given to the use or purpose of any school, institution, corporation, or person, whereby instruction or training shall be given in the doctrines, tenets, belief, not to be ceremonials, or observances peculiar to any sect, denomination, organization, or society, being or claiming. to be, religious in its character, or such peculiar doctrines, tenets, belief, ceremonials, or observances be taught or inculcated in the free public schools. SECTION 3. To the end that each State, the United States, and all the people thereof, may have and preserve governments republican in form and substance, the United States shall guarantee to every State, to the people of every State and of the United States, ognized religion of the nation. While apparently after the order of the amendment proposed by Senator Blaine in 1875 (see page 349), its real object was the very reverse. 66 The incongruity of the measure is apparent. Section 2 provides that each State shall do what section 1 explicitly says they shall not do. The real import and inevitable logic of section 2 is that each State shall establish" the 'Christian religion; " not directly, but through its school system,- by teaching "the principles of the Christian religion" in its schools. And section 3 provides that this " system" shall have the support and maintenance" of the "United States." This meant that the Constitution of the United States was to compel every State in the Union to establish a religion, and that the United States was then to see to it that this religion thus established was supported and maintained. It meant that the Constitution was going to compel every State to do what the first amendment to the Constitution explicitly forbids Congress doing, and that the national government would back them up in doing this. That the idea in this was to establish the Christian religion as the religion of the nation, and this to the exclusion of all other religions, is further confirmed by the following communication of the author of the measure to the New York: "Mail and Express." written about this time: supported. National government over maintain back of and the system. Unlike Blaine amendment. States to establish the Christian religion. Laws to enforce. Senator Blair's letter to New York "Mail and Express." Animus of bills exposed. the measure. the support and maintenance of such a system of free public schools as is herein provided. SECTION 4. That Congress shall enforce this article. by legislation when necessary. "I yet believe that instead of selecting a final toleration of socalled religions, the American people will, by constant and irresistible pressure, gradually expel from our geographical boundaries every religion except the Christian in its varied forms. I do not expect to see the pagan and other forms existing side by side with the former, both peaceably acquiesced in, for any length of time. I do not think that experience will satisfy the American people that the inculcation of any positive religious belief hostile to the Christian faith, or the practice of the forms of any other worship, is conducive to the good order of society and the general welfare. There may not be any exhibition of bigotry in this. I believe that religious toleration will yet come to be considered to be an intelligent discrimination between the true and the false, and the selection of the former by such universal consent as shall exclude by general reprobation the recognition and practice of the latter. The people are considering these subjects anew. They are questioning whether there be not some mistake in theories of religious liberty, which permit the inculcation of the most destructive errors in the name of toleration, and the spread of pestilences under the name of liberty which despises the quarantine." Quoted in American Sentinel," July 10, 1890. This communication to the official organ of the American Sabbath Union, the publisher of which, Col. Elliott F. Shepard, was then president of the union, casts no small sidelight upon the real character and animus of the two religious measures introduced by Senator Blair. It showed that while apparently pious and Christian, the spirit of religious bigotry, despotism, and intolerance was behind them, and ingrained in their very make-up. A hearing on the proposed amendment was held before the SenHearing on ate Committee on Education and Labor, of which Mr. Blair was chairman, February 15, 1889, at which a large number of ministers appeared and spoke in its favor, among them Rev. T. P. Stevenson, corresponding secretary of the National Reform Association. Another hearing on it was held February 22, many ministers again championing it, and two representatives of the Seventh-day Adventists, J. O. Corliss and A. T. Jones, opposing it. By the latter the position was taken that "to the family and the church, and to these alone, the Author of the Christian religion has committed the work of teaching that religion, and if these fail, the failure is complete." As with the Sunday-rest bill, this resolution died with the fiftyfirst Congress. Fate of resolution. DISTRICT SUNDAY-REST BILL. Jan. 6, 1890. HOUSE BILL NO. 3854, INTRODUCED IN FIRST SESSION OF A BILL TO PREVENT PERSONS FROM BEING FORCED Title of bill. TO LABOR ON SUNDAY.1 Labor Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That it shall be unlawful for any person or corporation, or employee of any person or corpora- prohibited. tion in the District of Columbia, to perform any secular labor or business, or to cause the same to be Title to 1 Following closely the re-introduction of the Blair Sunday-rest bill and the Blair Educational amendment into Congress (December 9, 1889), this bill for a Sunday law for the District of Columbia was introduced into the House. Its title, "A Bill to Prevent Persons from Being Forced to Labor on Sunday," was both a misnomer and bill misleading, for no one in the District was being "forced to labor misnomer. on Sunday, nor is there anything in the bill dealing with any such offense. Instead of being a bill to prevent persons from being forced to labor on Sunday, it was, in reality, a bill to force people to rest on Sunday. As with the Blair Sunday bill, not only the compulsory observance of a religious rest day but the exemption in favor of conscientious observers of another day, showed it to be religious, and therefore unconstitutional,- that it entered the sacred precincts of conscience," the sanctuary of the soul;" and, as pointed out in the Sunday Mail Reports of 1829 and 1830, if enacted, would, in a man"constitute a legislative decision of a religious controversy, in which even Christians themselves are at issue." See pages 250, 237. ner, At the hearing given on the measure February 18, 1890, the chief speakers favoring it, as at the hearing on the Blair bills, were ministers, Rev. George Elliott, Rev. J. H. Elliott, and Rev. W. F. Crafts, - a representative of the Knights of Labor. Mr. H. J. Shulteis, and Mrs. Catlin, of the W. C. T. U., also favoring it. Opposing it were J. O. Corliss, A. T. Jones, and W. H. McKee, representatives of the Seventh-day Adventists, and Mr. Millard F. Hobbs, Master Workman of the District Knights of Labor. Religious and therefore unconstitutional. Feb. 18, 1890. Hearing Fine $100. No one forced to labor on Sunday. performed by any person in their employment on Sunday, except works of necessity or mercy; nor shall it be lawful for any person or corporation to receive pay for labor or services performed or rendered in violation of this act. Any person or corporation, or employee of any person or corporation in the District of Columbia, who shall violate the provisions of this act, shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by a fine of not more Speaking upon the title of the bill, Mr. Corliss said: 'No one in the District of Columbia, or in any other part of the United States, is being forced to labor on Sunday. If he were, he has redress already, without the enactment of this bill into law, and that by the Constitution of the United States. Article 13 of amendments to that instrument, declares that neither slavery nor invol untary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the person shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.'" To show that the title was not only disingenuous, but that the legLegislation islation itself was unnecessary, Mr. Jones read the following from Mr. Crafts's 'Sabbath for Man," page 428: unnecessary. Not for the laboring man. Title a pretense to cover real purpose. "Among other printed questions to which I have collected numerous answers, was this one: Do you know of any instance where a Christian's refusing to do Sunday work, or Sunday trading, has resulted in his financial ruin?' Of the two hundred answers from persons representing all trades and professions, not one is affirmative." Continuing, Mr. Jones said: "Then what help do the people need? And especially what help do they need that Congress can afford? Wherein is anybody being 'forced to labor on Sunday'? Where is there any danger of anybody's being forced to labor on Sunday? Ah, gentlemen, this effort is not in behalf of the laboring men. They do not need it. By Mr. Crafts's own published documents it is demonstrated that they do not need any such help as is proposed in this bill. That claim is only a pretense under which those who are working for the bill would hide their real purpose. Nobody in this District, nor in the United States, nor in the world around, is being forced to labor on Sunday. It is certain that in this land everybody is free to refuse. This evidence also, coming from the source whence it does come. demonstrates that the title of the bill does not define its real object, but is only a pretense to cover that which is the real purpose secure and enforce by law the religious observance of the day." to |