Senator Crockett’s Religious Liberty Speech
By Editor
No one who sees this number of the SENTINEL should pass by the article on pp. 28-30, which is chiefly a reprint of a speech by the Hon. Robert H. Crockett, of the Arkansas Senate. We are very sure that whoever begins to read it will finish it. The circumstances of its delivery were these: In 1885 the Arkansas Legislature repealed that section of the Sunday law which granted to observers of the seventh day the privilege of laboring on Sunday without being molested. Immediately a bitter persecution began against those who conscientiously rested on the seventh day of the week, and labored the other six. At the last session of the Legislature, Senator Crockett introduced what might be called a religious liberty bill, and it was in support of this bill that he made the speech which we quote. The cause of religious liberty owes a great deal to Senator Crockett. He made this bill the object of his special care, and so successful were his efforts that it passed both Houses by a large majority. The effect of his noble efforts in behalf of religious liberty is not confined to Arkansas, whose citizens reap the immediate benefit; but his eloquent words will stir up honest people in all parts of the United States, to protest against the iniquity of interference by the State in matters purely religious. Senator Crockett is a grandson of Col. David Crockett, the hero of the Alamo, of whom he has shown himself to be a worthy descendant.