Senator Douglas and the Clergymen.
By GEORGE A. BATES
In 1854 there were 3,050 ministers in New England, who were practical “National Reformers.” They believed that government was not an institution “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” and that governments do not “derive their just powers from the consent of the governed;” But they believed all power is of God; and that the ministry, as God’s representative on earth, is the fountain whence flows all power and authority. Then, as now, they attempted to dictate to Congress, civil policy. They claimed the right to reprove, rebuke, and denounce with all authority and doctrine. So against the “Nebraska bill” they exercised that right thus:— “To the Hon. Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, in Congress assembled— “The undersigned clergymen of different religious denominations in New England, as ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, hereby in the name of Almighty God, and in his presence, do solemnly protest against the passage of what is known as the Nebraska bill. We protest against it as a great moral wrong, exposing us to the righteous judgments of the Almighty.” But Congress would recognize them only as citizens, and not as judges to pronounce the verdict and dire decrees of Jehovah. For this offense twenty-five ministers, assembled in Chicago, passed resolutions charging Congress with disrespect to man and God. Here is their own statement of their divine prerogative:— “Resolved first, That the ministry is the divinely-appointed institution for the declaration and enforcement of God’s will upon all points of moral and religious truth; and that as such, it is their duty to reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with all authority and doctrine.” In a letter dated April 6, 1854, Stephen A. Douglas replied:— “I understand your position to be this: that you are ‘ministers of the gospel;’ that the ‘ministry is the divinely-appointed institution for the declaration and enforcement of God’s will upon all points of moral and religious truth;’ that this ‘divinely-appointed institution’ is empowered ‘to declare’ what questions of a civil, political, judicial, or legislative character, do involve ‘points of moral and religious truth;’ and that, clothed with ‘all authority and doctrine,’ this ‘divinely-appointed institution’ proceeds to issue its mandates to the Congress of the United States ‘in the name of the Almighty God.’ This being your position, I must be permitted to say to you, in all Christian kindness, that I differ with you widely, radically, and fundamentally, in respect to the nature and extent of your rights, duties, and powers, as ministers of the gospel. If the claims of this ‘divinely-appointed institution’ shall be enforced, and the various public functionaries shall yield their judgment to your supervision, and their consciences to your keeping, there will be no limit to your temporal power except your own wise discretion and virtuous forbearance. If your ‘divinely-appointed institution’ has the power to prescribe the mode and the terms for the organization of Nebraska, I see no reason why your authority may not be extended over the whole continent. “The will of the people, expressed in obedience to the forms and provisions of the Constitution, is the supreme law of the land. But your office as ministers is not provided for in the Constitution. Nowhere in the Constitution or laws of any of the States, or of the United States, is there to be found a provision constituting or recognizing you275and your brethren the ‘divinely-appointed institution for the declaration and enforcement of God’s will;’ and therefore, in your character as a body of ministers, you cannot claim any political power under our system of government. “The persecutions of our ancestors were too fresh in the memories of our revolutionary fathers, for them to create, recognize, or even tolerate, a church establishment in this country, clothed with temporal authority. So apprehensive were they of the usurpations of this, most fearful and corrupting of all despotisms, whether viewed with reference to the purity of the church or the happiness of the people, that they provided in the Constitution that ‘no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.’ Still fearful that in a process of time, a spirit of religious fanaticism, or a spirit of ecclesiastical domination (yet more to be dreaded, because cool and calculating) might seize upon some exciting political topic, and in an evil hour surprise or entrap the people into a dangerous concession of political power to the clergy, the first Congress under the Constitution proposed, and the people adopted, an amendment to guard against such a calamity, in the following words: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ “The doctrine of our fathers was, and the principle of the Constitution is, that every human being has an inalienable, divinely-conferred right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience; and that no earthly institution nor any institution on earth, can rightfully deprive him of that sacred and inestimable privilege. “I have wandered over distant and extensive portions of the globe, during the past year, where the successor of Mohammed proclaimed and enforced God’s will on earth according to the principles of inspired truth and obligation as recorded in the Koran; and, by the potency of his ‘divinely-appointed institution,’ held in the hollow of his hand and suspended on his breath, the lives, the liberties, and the property, of millions of men, women and children. When within his dominions and surrounded by his bayonets, I had neither the time nor the disposition to argue the question of his right to ‘reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with all authority and doctrine,’ in the name of the Almighty! But when I set foot on the shores of my native land, under the broad folds of our national flag, surrounded by the protecting genius of our American institutions, I did not feel like recognizing any such rightful authority of that ‘divinely-appointed institution,’ in temporal affairs, here or elsewhere. “Our fathers held that the people were the only true source of all political power. But what avails this position, if the constituted authorities established by the people are to be controlled and directed—not by their own judgment, not by the will of their constituents, but—by the divinely-constituted power of the clergy? “Your claims for the supremacy of this ‘divinely-appointed institution’ are subversive of the fundamental principles upon which the whole republican system rests. What the necessity of a Congress, if you can supervise and direct its conduct? Why sustain a vast and complex judicial system, to expound the law and administer justice and determine all disputes in respect to human rights, if your ‘divinely-appointed institution’ is invested with all authority to prescribe the rule of decision in the name of the Deity? If your pretensions be just and valid, why not dispense with all the machinery of human government and subject ourselves, freely and unreservedly, together with all our temporal and spiritual interests and hopes, to the justice and mercy of this divinely-appointed institution?” The Illinois “Little Giant” tore the whole wicked scheme. Let his words be read everywhere. GEORGE A. BATES. Green Vale, Jo Daviess Co., Ill.