Sunday Laws and Religious Liberty
THE following is the Sunday plank from the Prohibition platform of the Massachusetts Prohibition convention:— “Resolved, That we hold the religious liberty of our people among its highest possessions, and that chief among the blessings to be secured are the rest and peace of the Sabbath.” We find it somewhat difficult to classify this utterance. It is certainly one of two things, either the result of a compromise, or it is an exceedingly awkward attempt to make it appear that religious liberty demands the passage and enforcement of Sunday laws! But such laws do, in the very nature of the case, of necessity infringe religious liberty. Suppose that the Catholic Church say that it was an infringement of religious liberty? Were to insist on the passage of a law forbidding labor on good Friday, would not every Protestant Certainly; but it would not be nearly so much so as is a Sunday law, for Good Friday occurs only once a year, while Sunday is a weekly festival, and it is just as much a religious institution as is Good Friday. They both belong to the church, and it is just as oppressive to enforce the observance of one as of the other.