p. 1 | Untitled article by W. H. M.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · February 25, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 8

Derivation of Tennessee Sunday Laws

By W. H. M.

FROM evidence adduced in previous articles on discrepancies in the Constitution of the State of Tennessee, and inconsistencies between its Constitution and code, it is clear that the Constitution of that State is divided against itself, and that statutory precedents have there positively antagonized constitutional principles.

Natural justice is eternal and invariable, its expression will be found in abstract principles, axiomatic in form and unvarying in application. These principles are not the development of a native sense of equity natural to the human mind and heart. Except for the gospel of Jesus Christ the concept “All men are created equal,” and its necessary correlative of natural justice, could never have developed into a potent force in human affairs, but would only have existed, if at all, as a dormant philosophic abstraction. Through the gospel came the first ray of hope to the downtrodden, oppressed, and persecuted. It was the gospel which first forced upon the minds of the ruling classes the comprehension of the fact, that liberty was something else than the privilege of the strong to oppress the weak, and compelled them to realize the universal application of the principle of natural justice.

But the first advent of Christ and the preaching of his gospel did not usher in the reign of equal rights for all men, neither has it yet eradicated from the human heart the proud arrogance of dominion over his fellows in which man most nearly emulates that Satanic characteristic through which the angels fell; neither will it have done this until that day when His will shall be done upon earth as it is in heaven.

The doctrine of the enforcement of the precepts of religion, by human enactment, has been one of the subtlest deceptions of that hypocritical Spirit of all evil, and by which he has “shed the innocent blood of almost all the host of martyrs who have laid down their lives for conscience’ sake.” Not this doctrine but its antithesis will be found in the fundamental law of this land of prophecy, the latest born of the nations, and the last. If then the State of Tennessee has embodied in its statutory law the doctrine of the enforcement of religious precepts by the police power of the State, under authority of civil enactment, it has not derived this doctrine from that bill of rights in which the eternal principles of natural justice are expressed, in language so complete that nothing need be added to it and nothing can be taken from it. If then Tennessee did not derive its religious laws from the gospel principle of governmental law which forms the nucleus of the Constitution of the United States, and with which every one of the children of that Constitution has been endowed, in their bills of rights,—so stated in every case as to be unequivocal in meaning,—then from whence did they arise? These religious laws are of foreign birth; the unmingled equity and justice of American institutions were a later birth and indigenous to American soil. Tennessee derives the treason to God, to human justice, and to native land, which poisons her statutes, by direct inheritance, through the charter of 1584, which marked the initial step in the colonization of America, by which “Elizabeth, by the Grace of God of England, France and Ireland Queen, defender of the faith etc.,” granted to Sir

Walter Raleigh land and countries “not actually possessed of any Christian Prince, nor inhabited by Christian people.” Thus in the first paragraph of the first governmental expression in reference to North Carolina and this Continent is found that old error of the assumption of divine authority by human dignities, and by virtue of that authority assuming the right to ignore the principles of universal justice and discriminate against the “heathen and barbarous” as having no rights which a “Christian” is bound to respect. Under this document it was also granted to Sir Walter Raleigh, to make all necessary laws for the governing of this territory, always excepting that “they be not against the true Christian faith, now professed in the Church of England.” Although under this grant no permanent settlement was made, it fixes the precedent and marks the spirit which inspired the adventurers who came to possess the land, and those from whom they claimed to derive their authority.

The grant to Sir Robert Heath, in 1630, by Charles I., was similar in character, as is also the Charter of Carolina, given in 1663 by Charles II., wherein he grants to several of his courtiers who are “excited with a laudable and pious zeal for the propagation of the Christian faith” that certain country “only inhabited by some barbarous people, who have no knowledge of Almighty God.” And that he may, in a still greater degree, further the pious purposes of these noble adventurers he grants to them, also, “the patronage and advowsons of all the churches and chapels, which, as Christian religion shall increase within the country, isles, islets, and limits aforesaid, shall happen hereafter to be erected, together with license and power to build and found churches, chapels, and oratories, in convenient and fit places, within the said bounds and limits, and to cause them to be dedicated and consecrated according to the ecclesiastical laws of our kingdom of England, together with all and singular the like, and as ample rights, jurisdictions, privileges, prerogatives, royalties, liberties, immunities and franchises, of what kind soever, within the countries, isles, islets, and limits aforesaid. To have, use, exercise and enjoy, and in as ample manner as any bishop of Durham, in our kingdom of England, ever heretofore have held,” etc. This charter contains also a toleration clause graciously yielding “indulgencies and dispensations” to dissenters from the doctrines and formalities of the established church but couched in such language as to show conclusively that such an unwelcome element could be but barely “tolerated” and that such could not expect to stand upon an equal civil footing with those who conformed to the established ecclesiasticism. The unbeliever and the heathen are ignored entirely as not necessarily having any civil rights whatever.

The charter of 1665, granted again by Charles II., to other of his courtiers embodies the same principles in words quite similar. In 1669 the so called “Fundamental Constitutions,” were framed by John Locke (author of the essay on the human understanding), and adopted for the time as the law of Carolina. This Constitution contains fifteen sections devoted to the regulation of religion and religious questions in Carolina, beginning with this:—

No man shall be permitted to be a freeman of Carolina, or to have any estate or habitation within it, that doth not acknowledge a God; and that God is publicly and solemnly to be worshipped.

As the country comes to be sufficiently planted and distributed into fit divisions, it shall belong to the Parliament to take care for the building of churches, and the public maintenance of divines, to be employed in the exercise of religion according to the Church of England; which being the only true and orthodox, and the national religion of all the king’s dominions, is so also of Carolina; and, therefore, it alone shall be allowed to receive public maintenance, by grant of Parliament.

After laying down the rules and regulations of admittance to church communion, and defining the terms of profession which should constitute a church, under a toleration clause, the following broadly stated conditions of outlawry are laid down:—

No person above seventeen years of age shall have any benefit or protection of the law, or be capable of any place of profit or honor, who is not a member of some church or profession, having his name recorded in some one, and but one, religious record at once.

The next step in the governmental progress of Carolina was the Mecklenburg Resolutions of independence in 1775, and the Constitution of 1776, but the code of civil practice developed under such regulations as these, which have been quoted, was retained in spirit, and in some cases to the letter, although directly opposed to the principle of universal equity, which, with the Declaration of Independence and adoption of the Constitution of the United States, became the fundamental law of the land.

Although in 1790 Carolina ceded to the United States the Territory of Tennessee, yet it retained its heritage of religious statutes passed under Church and State rule, and applied in the cases of King, and Parker, and others quoted, the statute, contrary to which the indictment charges that the offense of the accused was committed, which is to be found in the act of 1741 enacted by His Excellency Gabriel Johnson Esq. Governor—and after the Revolution retained among the Statutes of North Carolina and incorporated in the laws of Tennessee. In this statute it is asserted that “in well regulated governments effectual care is always taken that the day set apart for public worship be observed and kept holy, all and every person or persons whatsoever shall, on the Lord’s day, commonly called Sunday, carefully apply themselves to the duties of religion and piety,” etc., therefore all labor, hunting etc., is prohibited on that day.

In 1803, after Tennessee was admitted to statehood, the legislature passed “an act more effectually to prevent the profanation of the Lord’s day, commonly called Sabbath.” This act was not different from its predecessor, except in the omission of some compromising verbiage and the addition of a clause intended to effectuate the intent of the act, in that one half the fine levied upon the culprit should go to the informer bringing the action. These statutes are to be found in the laws of Tennessee, Scotts edition, Vol. 1, p. 55, and p. 795.

This marks clearly the line of inheritance by which Tennessee comes into possession of her religious laws. The history of their derivation is at hand, and the documentary evidence is sure and unimpeachable.

W. H. M.