Untitled article | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · August 11, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 31

Despotism of the Church.

[The following extracts are from the speech of Senator Palmer of Illinois, in the Senate, July 12; the subject under discussion being the sundry civil appropriation bill, and the World's Fair appropriation with the Sunday closing proviso.]

THE State of Illinois has never assumed to require the actual observance of any of the Sabbaths, either the Jewish or the Christian Sabbath. The people of the State of Illinois, so far as I know their opinions, and they are best expressed in their statutes, treat the observance of the Sabbath as a personal duty to be determined by each individual for himself. The theory upon which our laws rest is that men are responsible to the Supreme Being for their own conduct, and that the State is in no wise responsible for them; that the State has no right to control the personal opinions or conduct of men on any day, subject to this limitation:—

Whoever disturbs the peace and good order of society by labor . . . shall be fined, etc.

It has been held in Illinois, and, I think, it has been held in most of the States, that the State has no right to determine that men shall observe the first day of the week in any particular method; but the object and function of the State, as we maintain, is that each citizen shall have the right without disturbance to observe the Sabbath in such manner as seems to him in point of conscience to be his duty and that no person shall disturb him in the exercise of his conscientious right. I know that is the theory which has been enforced by judicial decision. It has been held that the State has no right to prescribe obedience to any mere moral requirement that does not disturb others, leaving each man to determine to discharge his own duty to that Infinite Being who rules the universe, regarding each man as his own priest, and to this extent his own king. We have never recognized the authority of the States to prescribe moral duty. We simply understand that the obligation of the State is to protect us, every one of us, in the exercise of our own rights, leaving it to each individual to determine the matter of conscience according to his own degree of enlightenment or according to his own sense of obligation.

I venture to say that whatever may be said to the contrary, that is the practical law of every State in the Union. There may be vestiges yet of ancient requirements, but the courts have modified them, and to-day in New England, where at one time the Sunday was regarded with great reverence and where Sunday laws were enforced with despotic force, it is no longer the case. Illinois is like the other States in that respect.

Still in respect to this matter I should hope that the Senate would be satisfied with the rule of the Illinois Legislature that each man should be left undisturbed to serve God in his own way, to keep the Sabbath in his own way, free from disturbance. The Senator from Maine says

that there are theaters open in Chicago on Sunday; I have no doubt it is true; but I had not supposed when they were not disturbing others, that it was a ground of legal censure, whatever might be said, I agree, in moral censure of acts like that. But in Maine, in populous cities, I have no doubt amusements are indulged in, not perhaps to the same extent; but amusements are no doubt permissible on Sunday according to the customs of the Senator's own State.

However, there is another view of this case. Mr. President, this is to be an international exhibition. We speak of it as a mere show. It is to be a great national event. Do I say national? It is an event that is to be far more than national. The word “international” does not express it. It is to be the celebration of an event which has had a larger influence upon the destinies of mankind than any other which has occurred within the history of our race since the resurrection of the Lord on the Sabbath—the discovery of this vast continent, now inhabited by perhaps nearly a hundred millions of inhabitants—and we are inviting men from all countries on earth. There will be at Chicago the representatives, I was about to say, of every civilized government; there will be representatives at the Exposition of men of noncivilized races, the Mohammedans, with their peculiar observances, and the continental nations of Europe, and England, and Scotland, and the islands of the sea, and the Indians. It is to be a gathering of all the races of the earth at one spot celebrating the grandest event in the earth's history.

I maintain that therefore the law that each man shall be allowed to pursue his own views of duty, being compelled to be regardful of the rights of others is a proper law applied to this subject. In reverence for the Sunday of the Christians, I do not mean to allow it to be believed that I have no sufficient regard for that holy day, but I have never yet felt that it was my right to impose my opinions upon other people. I have insisted that you shall on this day leave me undisturbed, and leave Christian men undisturbed; that you shall leave the sanctuary undisturbed; that wherever men assemble themselves together for devotion, or I may say amusement, on that day they shall be undisturbed. What more can be asked? If I could be clothed with any portion of the power of the Almighty perhaps I might do otherwise, but I do not believe myself authorized to denounce all that may be deemed enemies according to the law of the Supreme Being.

Let that occasion be national, international, universal. I think the narrow rule insisted upon here is unwise; but if it shall be the sense of the Senate that it shall be done, it is the business of the country, not mine. . . .

I have been told, and I have no doubt it is true, that many of the Christian people of Chicago resist this proposition; but not all of them. There are a large number of seventh-day people who believe that Sunday is not the holy day. There are a great many people who agree with me that the Legislature has no right to dictate to others what day shall be kept as the holy one. There are many who think that way. There are thousands again who think that this opportunity afforded to the laborer, to the toiler, and to his wife and his children, ought not to be thrown away.

But I am told that there is another element who are quite as earnest as the good people. I understand that all the saloon-keepers in Chicago are in favor of closing this institution on the Sabbath day. I can understand why it should be so. The multitudes that will go to Chicago at that time, instead of going into the Fair, and witnessing the Exhibition, being there alone, strangers, will go about the saloons and places of that sort on Sunday. I understand that there is a perfect agreement on that point, and that the whisky-sellers are in favor of closing the Fair on the Sabbath.

I have one thing to say in conclusion. There are gentlemen who talk about the American Sabbath. Mr. President, I reverence American institutions. I have no sympathy with the foreign sentiment; I have no eagerness to adopt anything foreign; but I do believe that American sentiment has undergone a change under the influence of broader views of individual rights. New England sentiment at one time actually required a very close observance of Sunday, but that was the despotism not of God, but of church, and it is a remarkable fact that in another portion of the Union, where more liberal views are indulged in, the morality of the people was as complete and as perfect as it was in New England.

It is said by a late writer that it is very remarkable that in New England where theoretically popular rights were most regarded, the government was most despotic, while in another quarter, where aristocratic ideas were to some extent recognized, actual, personal liberty was better protected than in New England. The change has taken place and we can not resist it. We may talk about it, we may speak about the American Sabbath, and it deserves reverence, but it is for me to revere the Sabbath and it is not for me to impose upon another that obligation.