p. 19 | The Spirit of the Revolution Against Sunday Observance by Civil Law

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 7, 1911

The Spirit of the Revolution Against Sunday Observance by Civil Law

By S. B. H.

That our forefathers clearly saw in Sunday laws an opposition to the spirit of the Revolution, is evident from the House report on Sunday Mails submitted March 4, 5, 1830, in which it is stated:—

“If the measure [Sunday Observance bill] recommended should be adopted, it would be difficult for human sagacity to foresee how rapid would be the succession, or how numerous the train of measures which follow, involving the dearest rights of all,—the rights of conscience. It is perhaps fortunate for our country that the proposition should have been made at this early period while the spirit of the Revolution yet existed in full vigor.”

And that our forefathers were following Christian principles when they refused to place the name of God in the Constitution is demonstrated in the House Judiciary Committee report of the Forty-third Congress, first session, in which it was stated:—

“That, upon examination even of the meager debates by the fathers of the republic in the convention which framed the Constitution, they find that the subject of this memorial was most fully and carefully considered, and then, in that convention, decided, after grave deliberation, to which the subject was entitled, that, as this country, the foundation of whose government they were then laying, was to be the home of the oppressed of all nations of the earth, whether Christian or pagan, and in full realization of the dangers which the union between church and state had imposed upon so many nations in the Old World, with great unanimity that it was inexpedient to put anything into the Constitution or frame of government which might be construed to be a reference to any religious creed or doctrine.

“And they further find that this decision was accepted by our Christian fathers with such great unanimity that in the amendments which were afterward proposed, in order to make the Constitution more acceptable to the nation, none has ever been proposed to the States by which this wise determination of the fathers has been attempted to be changed. Wherefore, your committee report that it is inexpedient to legislate upon the subject of the above memorial, and ask that they be discharged from the further consideration thereof, and that this report, together with the petition, be laid upon the table.”

S. B. H.