A religious persecution. Lawyer Jackson's reply. Meaning of first amendment explained. Blaine's proposed amendment. religion or mode of worship. There is not complete religious liberty where any one sect is favored by the state and given advantage by law over other sects. 'Whatever establishes a distinction against one class or sect is, to the extent to which the distinction operates unfavorably, a persecution; and if based on religious grounds, a religious persecution. The extent of the discrimination is not material to the principle; it is enough that it creates an inequality of right or privilege." And all of that is just what this bill is and what it does. MR. E. HILTON JACKSON: The gentleman who replied concerning the federal decision did not seem to understand the matter properly. The Constitution of the United States provides, among other things, that no law shall be passed respecting the establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof. Now, if the State passes such a law, it is as much a violation of the Constitution of the United States as though the nation passed such a law, and it is possible for every one of these State laws to come under the review of the Supreme Court of the United States, as did the Minnesota law; and as far as any State law is concerned, under the principle laid down in regard to the Constitution of the United States, it becomes a federal question; and as a federal question it may be reviewed by the Supreme Court of the United States. It was upon that principle that the Minnesota law was reviewed, and it was speaking to that principle that Mr. Justice Fuller declared such laws had been declared by innumerable decisions of the courts to be constitutional. A. T. JONES: Mr. Chairman, it is plain that it is not I who "does not understand the matter properly." The first amendment to the Constitution is a prohibition upon Congress only, and not upon any State. So far as the first amendment goes, any State may establish any religion, and may forbid any other than this established religion, and may punish or persecute to the death all who refuse to conform to that State-established religion. Every State in the Union, except Rhode Island and Virginia, at the time of the establishment of the national Constitution, had an established religion; and as a matter of fact, the first amendment to the Constitution forbidding Congress to make any law respecting - not the" but "an establishment of religion," was expressly for the purpose of preventing Congress from interfering with those already State-established religions. Therefore, for the information of the gentleman, I repeat that the clause to which he referred, and misquoted, in the first amendment to the Constitution, is a prohibition upon Congress alone, and not upon any State 1 Had the amendment proposed by Mr. Blaine in 1875 carried (see page 349), the States as well as the federal government would have been forbidden by the national Constitution from making laws respecting religion or religious establishments. SHOULD LEISURE BE MADE COMPUL- In the case of Hennington v. Georgia, decided by the Supreme Court of the United States May 18, 1896, Justice Harlan, who wrote the opinion of the court, quoted approvingly the following from Chief Justice Bleckley, of the Supreme Court of Georgia, from which court the case was appealed, in support of the propriety and rightfulness of Sunday legislation: "Leisure is no less essential than labor to the well-being of man." 163 U. S., 229. Though granting the proposition to be correct, it does not follow that "leisure " should be made compulsory any more than that "labor" should be. Compulsory labor would be involuntary servitude, or slavery, against which this nation has set its seal, not only in the Declaration of Independence, but by a prolonged and bloody war, and by a direct prohibition in the national Constitution - the thirteenth amendment. How much less an invasion of inalienable rights would compulsory rest be, since rest is but the complement of labor? And if this compulsory rest has religious motives behind it, as is the case with every Sunday law, how much less a violation of the Constitution and of religious rights would it be? See the first amendment. The logic of compulsory rest will not hold. 775 Compul sory rest an invasion of rights. SENATOR HEYBURN ON SUNDAY LEGIS- SPEECH IN UNITED STATES SENATE ON THE JOHNSTON DISTRICT MR. HEYBURN: Mr. President, I have always been opposed to this class of legislation. In the very early days of the settlement of this country we had a great deal of it, and on the statute books in many of the States there are now provisions, which are termed "blue laws," that are ignored. There are some now in existence relative to the District of Columbia that are not observed or enforced. We cannot make people good by legislation. You can punish them for being bad. The spirit upon which this is based, I suppose, is the commandment that "six days shalt thou labor." I have never known any one to propose legislation for the enforcement of that part of the commandment or trouble his mind about it, and yet, I presume, it is just as important, and was intended to be just as operative, as the following provision against performing any labor on the seventh day. MR. GALLINGER: Does the senator think that the language "six days shalt thou labor" is a command that men and women shall labor six days? Opposed to it. A theological question. Advocates free discussion of measure. MR. HEYBURN: It says "thou shalt labor." MR. GALLINGER: I think the senator has given that a far-fetched interpretation. I am sure the theologians will not agree with him. MR. HEYBURN: I am not a theologian. It may be fortunate for all except myself that I am not. I have due regard for the observance of the Sabbath, and I believe it should be observed, but I do not believe in legislation compelling one to do it. This measure is of more than passing importance. I had not thought it would pass without considerable discussion. I have heard it suggested that it was a delicate question upon which to speak. I do not feel it to be such. A man who can not discuss his religion has none; a man who is afraid to discuss it has none. I do not think this is an appropriate place to discuss religious questions, except so far as they may be relied upon as a basis of legislation, but I cannot refrain from expressing my regret that it is proposed in Congress to deal with the questions involved in this bill. I think I opposed a similar bill on a former occasion, and it was charged in certain places that I was an irreligious person and that I did not believe in orderly conduct on the Sabbath day. There is no foundation for that charge. I have always been a person of strong religious convictions. My ancestors have always been largely interested in religious principle and the development of it. I have followed in their footsteps, and it is because of that, at least in part, that I do not approve of this class of legislation. It was such legislation as this that wrote the annals of bloodshed and persecution. oppression and intolerance in the religious history of the world where a part of the people undertook to be sponsors for the conscience of another part. A false charge. Such legislation wrote annals of Special privileges granted. An individual question. This legislation grants special privileges to people who are members of religious societies. More than half the world and more than half the people in this city are not members of any religious society. It grants a special privilege to those who are which is withheld from those who are not. The law in this land, general and local, was intended to insure perfect freedom and independence to the citizen in regard to the observance of religious principles. So, as a matter of principle, I am opposed to such legislation. Who is to say what is a sacred concert? A concert that is sacred to one person or one class of persons is not sacred to another. . No man has the right to set himself up as the moral standard of all the community or of any part of the community except himself. As to the use of the Sabbath day, every man, so far as personal acts that do not include any acts of lawlessness are concerned, should be the guardian of his own morals. It was never intended that the law should lay down the rules that should constitute a good man, and say that all men must live up to those rules. That never was the intention of the lawmakers, and we discovered it very soon after we became a nation and had organized government, and we abandoned that times. kind of legislation. It was the legislation that resulted in whipping people at the tail of the cart, placing them in the stocks, branding A relic of them upon the hands, and so forth. That was this kind of legislation persecuting under which some person or coterie of persons undertook to set themselves up as the censors of the morals of the people. I thought that age had passed. I never expected to see it revived, and I never expected to see an attempt made in the Congress of the United States to prescribe rules that are intended, I presume, to supplement the ten commandments, and I suppose every year, according to the temper of a part of the people, we shall have new prohibitions and restrictions. If you are going into this question, go into it to the limit, and compel the people to live like the old Puritans of New England did when they were not allowed to have fire in their churches, and when they had to take their luncheons with them and eat them in cold sheds or where they might. If you are going to be erratic in legislation, be erratic according to some established rule, the rule of our ancestors. If you are going to recognize the rule that is recognized, or, at least, I thought it was, in all parts of this country, of religious freedom of personal action so long as it violates no law of the land and no contractual right of any one if you are going to uphold that kind of religious freedom-you can not pass this bill. A plea for consistency. Bill can not pass an religious maintain freedom. No to pass it. What authority have we, whence do we derive authority, under the Constitution to enact legislation that will interfere with the per- authority sonal action of a citizen that is in violation of no law applicable to the whole country? Where else in the United States does such a law as this exist? Are we going to have one code of morals in force by virtue of a law of Congress in the District of Columbia and allow people to go right outside into the State of Maryland and perform the acts that they are not allowed to perform in the District of Columbia? MR. GALLINGER: Why not? MR. HEYBURN: The senator asks me why not. Are we going to convert the District of Columbia, then, into a sanctuary, into a great church, so that the citizen must get out of the District of Columbia in order that he may enjoy the ordinary and reasonable freedom of a citizen? MR. GALLINGER: The senator must know that in a large number of the States, though not in all the States, laws very similar to this are now on the statute books. The senator must know that in regulating the liquor traffic we have prohibition in one State and local option in another State, and I do not suppose that that is an anomaly which would come under the senator's condemnation. I see no absurdity or contradiction in legislating for the District of Columbia on any matter different from what Maryland or Virginia or any other State may think it wise to do. So I think the senator's contention is not well grounded on that point. Senator Gallinger laws. cites State Would favor na tional law. Accountability to God. Mind created free. Test of good religion. MR. HEYBURN: Would the senator be in favor of enacting a law such as this, if we had the power, that should be applicable to the whole nation? MR. GALLINGER: I would on this subject. I do not know that I would take the exact phraseology of this bill; but I would in a general way. "Congressional Record," May 26, 1911, pages 1569-1571. WHAT EMINENT MEN HAVE SAID. GEORGE WASHINGTON: "Every man who conducts himself as a good citizen, is accountable alone to God for his religious faith, and should be protected in worshiping God according to the dictates of his own conscience." Reply to the Baptists of Virginia, 1789. THOMAS JEFFERSON: "Almighty God hath created the mind free; all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy Author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercion on either, as was in his almighty power to do." Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, 1785. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: "When religion is good it will take care of itself; when it is not able to take care of itself, and God does not see fit to take care of it, so that it has to appeal to the civil power for support, it is evidence to my mind that its cause is a bad one." Letter to Dr. Price. JAMES MADISON: "Religion is not in the purview of human government. Religion is essentially distinct from government and exempt from its cognizance. A connection between them is injurious government. to both." Letter to Edward Everett, 1823. Religion distinct frcm Keep them separate. What history shows. A satanic gift. U. S. GRANT: "Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contribution. Keep the church and state forever separate." Speech at Des Moines, Iowa, 1875. MACAULAY: "The whole history of the Christian religion shows that she is in far greater danger of being corrupted by the alliance of power than of being crushed by its opposition." Essay on Southey's Colloquies." " DR. PHILIP SCHAFF: "Secular power has proved a satanic gift to the church, and ecclesiastical power has proved an engine of tyranny in the hands of the state." Church and State," page 11. JOHN CLARK RIDPATH: "Proscription has no part nor lot in the modern government of the world. The stake, the gibbet, and the rack. thumbscrews, swords, and pillory, have no place among the machinery of civilization. Nature is diversified; so are human faculties, |