p. 4 | The Anti-Sunday-Law Convention of 1848 by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 6, 1908

The Anti-Sunday-Law Convention of 1848

By W. A. S.

In addition to the resolutions and speech of William Lloyd Garrison against Sunday laws, in 1848, which were reprinted in last week’s issue, some further facts concerning that Boston convention may be of interest.

To us it is very significant that in 1844, just as this advent movement was rising, the Sunday-law forces were springing into action. In the life of Garrison, by his son, it is stated:—

As far back as the summer of 1844, remarking the roving commission of the Rev. Justin Edwards, D. D., of Andover, for a year past, to enforce Sabbatarianism, he proposed a New England convention to discuss the Sabbath.

More than a score of names were attached to the call, among them Theodore Parker, Samuel May, Jr., Lucretia Mott, Parker Pillsbury, and others who were working for liberty and human rights. It was no doubt a motley company, theologically, but all were united in protesting against coercion of conscience.

In writing to Elizabeth Pease, of England, one of the veterans in Britain’s work for reform and liberty, Wendell Phillips said of Garrison’s convention call: “His new Sabbath Call is finely drawn up, I think. I did not sign it, though agreeing with its principles. These theological reforms have but a secondary interest for me.”

Some, however, understood well the far-reaching effect of all religious legislation. The call for the convention stated:—

The right of every man to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience is inherent, unalienable, self-evident. Yet it is notorious that in all the States, except Louisiana, there are laws enforcing the religious observance of the first day of the week as the Sabbath, and punishing as criminals such as attempt to pursue their usual avocations on that day. . . . There is, therefore, no liberty of conscience allowed the people of this country, under the laws thereof, in regard to the observance of a Sabbath day.

In addition to these startling facts, within the last five years a religious combination has been formed in this land, styling itself, “The American and Foreign Sabbath Union,” whose specific object is to impose the Sabbatical yoke yet more heavily on the necks of the American people. In a recent appeal made for pecuniary assistance by the executive committee of that union, it is stated that “the secretary (Rev. Dr. Edwards) has visited twenty of the United States, and traveled more than thirty thousand miles, addressing public bodies of all descriptions, and presenting reasons why, as a nation, we should keep the Sabbath—all secular business, traveling, and amusement be confined to six days in the week—and all people assemble on the Sabbath, and worship God.” . . .

That this combination is animated by the spirit of religious bigotry and ecclesiastical tyranny—the spirit which banished the Baptists from Massachusetts, and subjected the Quakers to imprisonment and death, in the early settlement of this country—admits of little doubt. . . .

We claim for ourselves and for all mankind, the right to worship God according to the dictates of our own consciences. This right, inherent and unalienable, is cloven down in the United States, and we call upon all who desire to preserve civil and religious liberty to rally for its rescue.

The convention met in the Melodeon (a hall where Theodore Parker’s congregation worshiped), March 23 and 24. Mingled with the protests against religious legislation was much no-Sabbath talk. Samuel May, Jr., of Boston, had this to say of the use made of the fourth commandment by the advocates of Sunday laws:—

I contend that it is little better than a fraud to give the name of Sabbath, in any case, to the first day of the week. “The seventh day,” said the Jewish law, the only law which ever established a Sabbath, “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” What right has any man or body of men, to alter this, and say, “The first day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God”? The Seventh-day Baptists are the only consistent Sabbatarians among the Christian sects of this country. Looking into the Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testaments, they find no other day prescribed as a Sabbath, but the seventh, and to that they adhere, and are consistent in doing so. All others who profess to hold sacred the authority of the Scriptures, are inconsistent with themselves, and undermine their own position, by maintaining that the first day of the week is the Sabbath.

Clearest of all on the principles of religious liberty were Garrison, of Boston, and C. C. Burleigh, of Philadelphia, the latter a lawyer who had thrown himself into the anti-slavery agitation. On the plea of majority rule in matters of conscience, Mr. Burleigh said:—

The majority must rule! Shall the majority rule in matters of conscience? Can you count consciences? Can you count moral principles? Can you count the impulses of the heart, the faculties of the soul, the multitudinous cords that bind the individual to the universal heart? If you can, you may count majorities in cases of conscience. . . . Can you speak of ballots and ballot-boxes, of the ayes and noes of the legislative hall, against this right of individual conscience?

It stands too high for legislative power to reach up to it.

On the religious tax assessment in the Sunday law the same speaker said:—

But we are told, “O, you are only required to abstain from work on the first day of the week; you may worship when you please! We do not infringe on your right of conscience; you may worship just as you will, on the seventh day, the fifth day, or the fourth day; but on the first day we require you not to work. You need not come to our meeting-house, to engage in our worship; you may worship at your own time, and place, and we do not impose any penalty at all upon you for that.” Indeed! Suppose that I entertain opinions differing from yours; and now I say to you, that if you will not conform to my notions, if you will not come when I think you ought, and listen to the sermon and the prayer, then I shall require of you to pay the penalty of the wages of ten days every year. That is the fine that I impose upon you, and you protest that it is wicked and unconstitutional, and that it is contrary to the rights of conscience. And so you turn round, and make me pay the wages of fifty-two days’ labor in every year, and call it perfectly right. The Jew, who is compelled to lie by on the first day of the week, is losing one-sixth part of the entire working period of his existence. So, too, with the Seventh-day Baptist; he loses one-sixth part of his whole working time. You demand, not a tithe, but a sixth part of his substance,—for what is his substance but the result of his labor? To demand that one-sixth part of his time shall be sacrificed, is the same as to say one-sixth part of his earnings, his income, of his property, of his means of subsistence and usefulness, shall be sacrificed;—a pretty heavy tax, I think, upon difference of religious opinion.

The report of the meeting was put out in a little pamphlet, “Proceedings of the Anti-Sabbath Convention.” The editors included in it the comments of the religious press on the convention, showing how intemperately it was denounced as an infidel and fanatical gathering. The religious views of the men who stood for the principles of liberty in those days were of every variety, but they sounded a true note for liberty and freedom of conscience. Abraham Lincoln paid tribute to “the logic and moral power of Garrison” as one of the greatest factors in the history of those times.

W. A. S.