William Lloyd Garrison’s Protest Against Sunday Laws
By W. A. S.
[The time was 1848. The occasion, a convention in Boston, in response to a call issued by Garrison and a score of associates “To the Friends of Civil and Religious Liberty.” In that year an organization called the “American and Foreign Sabbath Union” had been particularly active in urging the enforcement of Sunday observance, and in the midst of the historic anti-slavery agitation of which Garrison was the leader, it was felt by friends of liberty that the occasion called for the sounding of a note in behalf of religious liberty. Truly a clarion note is sounded in the following resolutions introduced by Garrison. In order to give both the resolutions and the larger portion of his speech upon them, further facts concerning the convention and the circumstances must be deferred to another time. Though somewhat long, this trumpet call in behalf of true principles will, we are sure, be read with deep interest. It was of Garrison and his championship of civil and religious liberty, that John Bright, the English statesman, wrote to James Russell Lowell, “I know no nobler man than William Lloyd Garrison.”—W. A. S.] 1. Resolved, That they who are for subjecting to fine or imprisonment such as do not receive their interpretation of the Scriptures in regard to the observance of the first day of the week as the Sabbath, are actuated by a mistaken or malevolent spirit, which is utterly at variance with the spirit of Christ,—which, in various ages, has resorted to the dungeon, the rack, the gallows, and the stake, for the accomplishment of its purpose,—and which ought to be boldly confronted and rebuked. 2. Resolved, That the penal enactments of the State legislature compelling the observance of the first day of the week as the Sabbath are despotic, unconstitutional, and ought to be immediately abrogated; and that the interference of the State, in matters of religious faith and ceremonies, is a usurpation which can not be justified. 3. Resolved, That as conflicting views prevail in the community, which are cherished with equal sincerity, respecting the holiness of days, and as it is the right of every class of citizens to be protected in the enjoyment of their religious sentiments on this and every other subject pertaining to the worship of God, all classes should be united in demanding a repeal of the enactments alluded to, on the ground of impartial justice and Christian charity. 4. Resolved, That this convention recommends to all the friends of religious liberty throughout the country the presentation of petitions to the next legislature, in every State in which such laws exist, and protesting against their enactment as an unhallowed union of church and state. 5. Resolved, That if the legislature may rightfully determine the day on which people shall abstain from labor for religious purposes, it may also determine the place in which they shall assemble, the rites and ordinances which they shall observe, the doctrines which they shall hear, the teachers which they shall have over them, and the peculiar faith which they shall embrace; and thus entirely subvert civil and religious freedom, and enable bigotry and superstition, as of old, to—
“Go to their bloody rites again,—bring back
The hall of horrors and the assessor’s pen,—
Recording answers shrieked upon the rack,—
Smile o’er the gaspings of spine-broken men,
And perpetrate damnation in their den!” 6. Resolved, That as it has been found safe, politic, and beneficial to allow people to decide for themselves in all other religious observances, there is no reason to doubt that the same good results would attend their liberation from the bondage of a Sabbatical law; for “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Garrison’s Speech upon the Resolutions
Of all the assumptions on the part of legislative bodies, that of interfering between a man’s conscience and his God is the most unsupportable and the most inexcusable. For what purpose do we elect men to go to the General Court? Is it to be our lawgivers on religious matters? . . . This passing a law forbidding me or you to do on a particular day what is in itself right, on the ground that that day, in the judgment of those who make the enactment, is more holy than another,—this exercise of power, I affirm, is nothing better than usurpation. It is the spirit which in all ages has persecuted those who have been loyal to God and their consciences. It is a war upon conscience, and no religious conclave or political assembly ever yet carried on that war successfully to the end. You can not by enactment bind the consciences of men, nor force men into obedience to what God requires. Who wants to be persecuted on account of his own conscientious views? I will ask the first-day Sabbatarian: Do you claim a right to entertain your views, without molestation, in regard to the holiness of time?—Most assuredly. How do you make it out that the first day of the week is the Sabbath?—“I believe it to be so; if it is not, to my own Master I stand or fall. Under a government which avowedly tolerates all beliefs, I claim the right, as a first-day Sabbatarian, to keep that day as the Sabbath.” Well, I do not assail that right. I claim the right also to have my own views of the day; the right to sanctify the first, second, or third, or all days, as I think proper. Now I turn to that first-day Sabbatarian, and ask him how he dares to dictate to me to keep the day which he regards as holy, and to say, “If you do not obey me, I will put my hands into your pocket, and take out as much as I please in the shape of a fine; or if I find nothing there, I will put you in prison; or if you resist enough to require it, I will shoot you dead.” How dare he do this? If he is not a ruffian, is he a Christian? Talk of the spirit of justice animating the bosom of the man who comes like a highwayman with, “Do or die!” Who made him a ruler over other men’s consciences? In a government which is based on equality, we must have equal rights. No men, however sincere, are to wield forceful authority over others who6dissent from them, in regard to faith and observance. The case is so plain that it does not need an argument; and I am confident that, in the course of a few years, there will not be a Sabbatical enactment left unrepealed in the United States, if in any part of Christendom. It belongs to the tyrannical legislation which formerly sent men to the stake, in the name of God and for his glory, because they did not agree in the theological views of those who burned them. In this country one pharisaical restriction after another, imposed by legislation, has been erased from the statute-book, in the progress of religious freedom. We now come to this Sabbatical observance as the last, perhaps,—a powerful one at any rate. If the Sabbath day be of God, it does not need legislation to uphold it. There is no power which can prevail against it. . . . Why should we attempt to legislate upon a question of this kind? Observe how many differences of opinion prevail, honestly and sincerely, in the world, respecting it. Does any one doubt that the Seventh-day Baptists are sincere? Are they not honest, courageous, self-sacrificing men, those who stand out against the law and public sentiment, for conscience’ sake? The men, even though they err, who are true to their consciences, cost what it may, are, after all, those who are ever nearest to the kingdom of God. They desire only to know what is right, and they have the spirit in them to do what is right. The great mass of the first-day Sabbatarians—do they not claim to be conscientious and sincere? And the Quakers, who regard no day as in itself, or by divine appointment, more holy than another,—who will question their honesty or sincerity in this matter? Here, then, are widely conflicting sentiments; but which of these parties shall resort to the arm of violence to enforce uniformity of opinion? The case is easily settled by making it our own, my friends. It is, as truly stated in the call [for the convention], based upon the declaration of Jesus, ‘Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.’ Now there is no Seventh-day Baptist who would wish to be proscribed for his views, of course. There is no first-day Sabbatarian who wishes a majority to get into the legislature to pass laws against the observance of the first day of the week as the Sabbath, or who would not vehemently protest against it. ‘Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,’ and the religionist who is not prepared for this, is to be associated with the scribes and Pharisees of a persecuting age. He is one who joins in the crucifixion of Jesus as a blasphemer. . . . We tolerate everything, except the opinions of men with regard to the first day of the week! Having very successfully gone thus far, I think we may take the next step, and finish the whole category of religious edicts enforced by penal law. Some of you doubtless remember what a hue and cry was raised by the religious press and the clergy, at the proposition to amend that portion of the constitution of Massachusetts, which required persons to be taxed for the support of public worship somewhere. But the spirit of religious liberty came up, and said, ‘That is tyranny, and the law ought to be,—ay, must be—repealed.’ What was the response of the evangelical press?—‘This is an infidel movement! This is an attempt to overthrow Christianity!’ And it prophesied that just as surely as the proposed amendment should be adopted, public worship would be sadly neglected. Well, the constitution was altered, in this respect, notwithstanding this selfish outcry. Is there less of public worship than formerly? The clergy have never been so well sustained as they now are, and no one laments the change. Now, the outcry raised against the repeal of all Sabbatical laws, as an infidel movement, is as absurd, as preposterous, as libelous, as the other, and will be found so when those laws cease to be in force. . . . What a tremendous outcry was raised in England when Daniel O’Connell, in behalf of Ireland, demanded the passage of the Catholic Emancipation act by the British Parliament! The Protestant clergy and the Protestant press cried out against it. It will never do, they said; the cause of religion will suffer. Where now is the Catholic test?—Gone; its ashes are not to be found; but has any injury followed from its repeal? So with regard to the unrighteous restrictions imposed upon the Jews; they were justified on the ground of Christian vigilance and security. But, during the present Parliament, the Jew in England can now take his position anywhere in the government, as well as the Christian. Does any one suppose Christianity will suffer by this? Christianity, as taught by its Founder, does not need any governmental safeguards; its reliance for safety and prosperity is not on the rack or the stake, the dungeon or the gibbet, unjust proscription or brutal supremacy. No—it is the only thing under heaven that is not afraid; it is the only thing that repudiates all such instruments as unholy and sinful. . . . Let us be careful how we trample on human liberty or human conscience. Said the apostle, ‘Every one of us shall give account of himself’—not to the Legislature of Massachusetts, not to the Congress of the United States, but—‘to God.’ . . . It is not profane men, immoral men, who are especially interested in this movement. Far otherwise. They are glad, indeed, of any holiday on which to indulge their animal propensities; but they who go forward in a cause like this must be reformers in principle, and they will assuredly find the evil in the world not with them, but against them. They will find priestcraft on the one hand, and the rabble on the other, joining in a common persecution. Jesus was crucified, not by the chief priests and scribes and Pharisees alone, but it needed the populace to join with them; and then they could nail him to the cross, as they did, between two thieves, for this among other reasons, that he was not of God, because he did not keep the Sabbath day.