Where the Line Should Be Drawn.
THE Examiner (Baptist) says:— “The constitutional convention of the Territory of Idaho has adopted a bill of rights containing a section providing that ‘no person shall be denied any civil or political right or privilege on account of religious opinions.’ But the provision was qualified by the further statement that ‘the liberty of conscience hereby secured shall not be construed to justify polygamous practices, nor to permit any person, organization, or association to directly or indirectly aid or abet, counsel, or advise any person to commit the crime of bigamy or polygamy.’ Under the territorial law hitherto prevailing, as interpreted by the highest court of the Territory, all Mormon residents of Idaho have been disfranchised, even monogamous Mormons not being permitted to vote. “The disfranchisement of a Mormon, simply for being a Mormon, is an interference with the rights of conscience that are guaranteed to every citizen by the constitution of the United States, and if the law in question had been interpreted by the Supreme Court, it would no doubt have been pronounced unconstitutional. The Federal Constitution does not, however, prevent a State from abridging the religious liberty of its citizens, but public opinion is strongly adverse to such abridgment under any circumstances.323The proposed constitution of Idaho will, therefore, more nearly represent public opinion than the territorial law that has hitherto prevailed. The people of this country demand the suppression of polygamy, but against Mormonism as a religious system they are no more disposed to proceed than against Romanism, or Mohammedanism, or Judaism.” We have no fault to find with this sentiment. Polygamy ought to be prohibited, not because it is immoral, but because in its very nature it is uncivil; it cannot be practiced without encroaching upon the civil rights of others than the ones engaging in it; it bitterly wrongs innocent children and well-nigh helpless women; it concerns the relations of man to his fellows and is therefore a proper subject of civil law. But when the Examiner intimates, as it does in the paragraphs quoted, and as it has more recently said that,— “The principle of religious liberty requires only one thing: That all religious beliefs should be placed on an equality before the law, so that no one should be either favored or punished because of his opinions, whether privately held or publicly expressed, so that in their public expression breaches of the peace are not provoked.” It simply draws the line in the wrong place. The principle of religious liberty requires that the civil law shall leave all perfectly free so far as their duties to God are concerned. The civil law may, according to the words of our Saviour in Matt. 22: 21, require all to render to Cæsar (civil government) the things which are Cæsar’s, but it should also leave all free to render unto God the things that are God’s.