The Sabbath Union and its Work.
The Cuyahoga County Sabbath Convention was held at Music Hall, Friday morning, under the auspices of the American Sabbath Union. What a nice, smooth-sounding name that is, to be sure! “American Sabbath Union!” How it lulls the people to sleep with a sense of perfect security; for surely these exceptionally nice people who compose the “American Sabbath Union” can do nothing which the average American citizen dare criticise! And yet nothing more forcibly illustrates the dire necessity of patriotic instruction in the school-room, from the lecture platform, and from that most influential of all public teachers, the independent, fearless, and honest newspapers of the country. The Cuyahoga County Sabbath Convention is one of the most thoroughly un-American gatherings, both in point of purpose and sentiments expressed, that has ever taken place in this city. The object of the convention, plainly and simply stated, is to compel the citizens of Cleveland, the State of Ohio, and the United States of America, to observe the Sabbath, commonly called Sunday, according to the dictates and rules laid down by the American Sabbath Union. Of course the Constitution of the United States plainly provides that Church and State shall be forever kept separate, but the Sabbath Union does not ask for a union of Church and State. Oh, no! It simply demands of the National Government that it enforce upon the people the strict observance of a National Christian Sabbath. The whole spirit of the convention may be summed up in the expression of Judge Dickey, who in a fine (?) burst of eloquence expressed the ridiculous and insolent sentiment that if people who emigrate to this country do not conform to the “American Sabbath,” they should be refused admittance. According to this patriotic idea the observance of the “American Sabbath,” as provided by the rules laid down by the American Sabbath Union, is the chief qualification of American citizenship. The American Union wishes to be distinctly understood on this question. It denies that there is or ever has been such an institution as an American Sabbath. The Sabbath and all religions are prominent in the Constitution of the United States only by their entire absence. The Christian Sabbath has absolutely no authority whatever to bind the conscience of an American citizen. The Constitution guarantees perfect religious liberty and equality before the law of all its citizens. That the rights of citizens in this respect are so often infringed upon, and sometimes openly denied, is simply because they have allowed such religious organizations as the “American Sabbath Union” to influence legislation, with hardly a protest. If the people want their rights they must assert them. Unless they do this, and promptly, they will awake some fine morning to find themselves bound hand and foot with religious fetters as galling as ever caused our fathers to flee from their native land and found a new world, a Constitution and Government having for its watchword the perfect and absolute religious liberty of the individual, and the everlasting separation of Church and State! The population of this country is made up of “every nation under the whole heaven,” and each one has a right to enjoy his own religion without asking permission of prophet, priest, or king, or even a majority of his neighbors. The fact that the Christians are more numerous does not give them license to trample on the rights guaranteed the citizen by the Constitution, nor authority to force the people into religious observances at the dictation of the American Sabbath Union or any other religious organization.—American Union, Cleveland, O.