Pernicious Legislation.
By L’INCONNUE
A SUBSCRIBER sends us a copy of the St. Paul Weekly Press, with the following article marked for publication. The paper is a large and influential one, published in St. Paul, Minnesota; and the article is another index of the growing agitation on the Sabbath question. Do the readers of the Press, in general, think how much unnecessary legislation we have every winter? Each new member of our Legislature, seeing that his predecessor was not returned, thinks it must be an implied censure of his course; and forthwith resolves to make his “calling and re-election sure,” by some bright idea, such as perhaps a State road; which, if ever laid out, would have to be re-surveyed before it could be found, after the lapse of a year, or which passes into oblivion as soon as the commissioners are gone. Nor is this all; our statutes are encumbered262with a vast amount of incoherent trash, called general laws, which are not only useless but pernicious in the extreme. In some parts of the State, a law may be obeyed and enforced; while in others it is a mere “dead letter.” There are many enactments that seem to have been passed exclusively for the purpose of being condemned and disregarded. This is all wrong. Better be without law, than to have the majesty of the State insulted by a total disregard of her solemn enactments. Let each penal law have a provision for strict accountability for its enforcement; punishing severely the prosecuting attorney, judge, justice, sheriff, or other officer who allows the guilty to escape through his neglect of duty; or, as is so common, by “settling,” and paying the complaining witness, the whole or part of his supposed loss. A rank burglary was settled in this city, by the burglar paying some twenty-one dollars to complainant, not the people. Was the attorney, justice, or other officer cognizant of that fact? I cannot tell. But should the like again occur, I will find out. We have in common with the rest of the States, a Sunday law, or Sabbath law. This law provides for the punishment, by fine or imprisonment, of any one who shall, during the hours from 12 P. M. Saturday night to 12 P. M. Sunday night, labor even at his lawful occupation. Neither is there any provision exempting those who believe in any other Sabbath day, as the Seventh Day Baptists, the Seventh Day Adventists, &c. Even if such a provision had been inserted, the principle would have been just as bad. The constitution of the United States, or of this State, does not allow any infringement of the right of conscience. And man has just as good a right to solemnize Friday as Saturday, or any other day, and the Legislature has no power to make him observe any other day than the one of his choice. Nor has it the power to make him observe any day, if he chooses not to. No one can doubt the right of the Hindoos to emigrate to St. Paul, and build a temple to Buda, and set their idol therein, and on any day they choose, assemble there peacefully to worship it. But, says one, “would you allow every grog shop, gambling hell and brothel, to open and continue in full blast, while decent folks are at worship?” No! Neither would I legislate to allow them, for a paltry sum, to deal out their distilled damnation on any other day. Saturday is the day on which most of the shopping is done, and whisky drank. Think ye, that the law-abiding Seventh-day Baptist, Adventist or Jew, does not feel as keenly the desecration of his Sabbath, as ye do? Who gave you the power to say that after he—as in conscience bound—has kept sacred his Sabbath, he must then keep yours? A man may believe he is bound by conscience to work every day in the week. Can you make a law to compel him to break his conscience, and obey yours? If you have such right, then they who believe that the day is not far distant when we shall have an established religion, are not far from right. Is Sunday made Sabbath by man’s law, simply because God in the ten commandments ordained the Seventh day? Is this the reason we have Sunday laws, because bigoted men are not willing to run the chance of the seventh day being adopted by the masses? Do our Legislators lend their aid to such motives? No! the simple fact is, some wiseacre, to gain popularity, and a re-election, proposed the bill; and it being an act passed by Constantine, and each bigoted successor in temporal power, through kings to the rulers of kings—the people—the Legislature pass it, Governor signs it; and another “dead letter” is grafted on the legal tree, to assist in decaying and rotting its trunk, which, when it falls, may sweep away Constitution and all; and from the wreck may spring the absolute temporal and spiritual power, so faithfully prophesied by many of the different Christian sects. I have been always an observer of Sunday as Sabbath, and probably shall always remain so, my conscience not conflicting therewith. But I deny the power of constitution or laws to compel me to observe that or any other day. It has always been the habit of churches, from time immemorial, to court the aid of the temporal power to sustain a pet idea. But America has been ruled too long by liberal minds, to long allow herself to be such a tool of bigotry. If our legislators are wise, they will overhaul this “relic of barbarism,” as it truly is, and repeal it. We have more than a hundred voters in this county who keep Saturday for Sabbath. There are many hundreds more in other parts of the State. They are most of them, very peaceful, law-abiding citizens: besides being eminent for consistent Christianity. It would be a fine sight, would it not, to see, perhaps, the elder arraigned in court for working on the first day of the week, and having been fined, and no money to pay his fine, to see him associate with lawless outlaws, midnight brawlers, and petty thieves, and babbling drunkards, and lewd women, in the public jail. You may say the picture is overdrawn. I say it is not, if you carry out your law, and what use is there of the law unless to be obeyed? Enact as many laws as you like, but execute them.
L’INCONNUE.
Owatonna, Minn., March 1, 1867.