Untitled article

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

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 31

Thus the Constitution had distinctly forbidden to the general Government. The different States, however, were not prohibited from legislating in respect to religion, yet they inserted clauses in their respective bills of rights which mirrored, in almost every case, the spirit of the restriction put upon Congress. At the same time the States permitted the same discrepancy to exist in this regard between their bills of rights and their statute and municipal law, which some of the States had previously permitted to exist between the assertion of the right of all mankind to freedom and natural equality before the law, and the legalizing of the enslavement of the colored race.

The theory of the Government of the United States was based upon the equitable principle of equality before the law for all men. The practice of a portion of the States was based upon the assumption that a part of their population had no civil rights which the remainder was bound to respect. Where such antagonistic conditions exist revolution is a necessity. In this case revolution did result.