Untitled article by Samuel P. Putnam

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · February 2, 1893

The Constitution and Holy-days and Holidays.

By Samuel P. Putnam

So far as Sunday is different from any other day of the week, it is either a holy-day or a holiday. If, therefore, there is to be any legislation concerning the observance of this day, it must be on the ground that it is a holy-day or a holiday.

A holy-day is necessarily a religious or church day. If there were no religion or no church there would be no holy-day. Legislation, therefore, for the observance of Sunday as a holy-day is religious legislation—that is, it is legislation for the establishment of a religious or church observance, and therefore for an establishment of religion itself. But such legislation is absolutely forbidden by the Constitution. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Madison says that “religion is entirely beyond the purview of government.” Washington says, “In no sense whatever is this Government founded upon the Christian religion.” Jefferson has stated the unconstitutionality of religious legislation. In a letter Jan. 23, 1808, to the Rev. Mr. Millar, he writes:—

Washington, January 23, 1808.—Sir: I have duly received your favor of the eighteenth, and am thankful to you for having written it, because it is more agreeable to prevent than to refuse what I do not think myself authorized to comply with. I consider the Government of the United States

as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that, also, which reserves to the States the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the general Government. It must, then, rest with the States as far as it can lie in any human authority. But it is only proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe, a day of fasting and prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the United States an authority over religious exercises, which the Constitution has directly precluded them from. It must be meant, too, that this recommendation is to carry some authority, and to be sanctioned by some penalty on those who disregard it; not, indeed, of fine and imprisonment, but of some degree of proscription, perhaps in public opinion. And does the change in the nature of the penalty make the recommendation less a law of conduct for those to whom it is directed? I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies, that the general Government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting and prayer are religious exercises; the enjoining them, an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, and the object proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the Constitution has deposited it.

In his autobiography Jefferson also relates:—

The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had to a certain degree been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason and of right. It met with opposition, but with some mutilations in the preamble it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy Author of our religion an amendment was proposed by inserting the word “Jesus Christ,” so that it should read, “A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection the Jew and the gentile, the Christian and the Muhammadan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination.

There is no need of any further quotations to show that any legislation for the Christian, the religious, or the holy observance of Sunday is entirely beyond the legal power of Congress.

Every sentiment and every argument in favor of the observance of Sunday as a Sabbath should therefore have no weight with this committee, or with Congress.

The only possible ground left, therefore, for any legislation as to the observance of Sunday is the fact that it is a holiday or rest-day.

A holiday is for physical recreation; it is a relief from toil; it is for leisure, or rest from ordinary vocations.

What has Congress to do about Sunday legislation, granting that it is a holiday or rest-day?

Simply to recognize it as a holiday—but beyond that the function of the national Government does not extend.

To start right in this discussion I will again quote from Jefferson:—

Our legislators are not sufficiently apprised of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us. The idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural right.

It is the American principle that the government is for the people and not the people for the government. If at any point government infringes upon any natural right at that point its action is null and void.

It is a contradiction in terms to say that in order to uphold the natural rights of any human being, the natural rights of any other human being should be invaded. The exercise of all human rights is perfectly harmonious.

Whatever legislation there is, therefore, for Sunday as a holiday, or rest-day, there must be no infringement upon the natural rights of any human being.

ENFORCED IDLENESS IS TYRANNY.

It is the natural right of every man to labor. Government has no right to forbid labor on Sunday. If one chooses to labor on that day as on any other day it is his right to do so. For government to enforce physical idleness on Sunday is simply tyranny. Physical recreation, physical recuperation, do not necessarily demand physical idleness. A change of physical activity is oftentimes the most healthful physical recreation, or rest.

Government can not enforce idleness any more than it can enforce sleep. As well command a man to sleep all day Sunday as to command him to be idle all day Sunday.

This point is well stated in the decision of the Supreme Court of California:—

This argument—namely, that for the benefit of the working people government should enforce idleness on Sunday—is founded on the assumption that mankind are in the habit of working too much, and thereby entailing evil upon society; and that without compulsion, they will not seek the necessary repose which their exhausted natures demand. This is to us a new theory, and is contradicted by the history of the past and the observations of the present. We have heard in all ages of declamations and reproaches against the vice of indolence; but we have yet to learn that there has ever been any general complaint of an intemperate, vicious, unhealthy, or morbid industry. On the contrary, we know that mankind seek cessation from toil, from the natural influence of self-preservation, in the same manner and as certainly as they seek slumber, relief from pain, or food to appease their hunger. . . . If we can not trust free agents to regulate their own labor, its times and quantity, it is difficult to trust them to make their own contracts. If the legislature could prescribe the days of rest for them, then it would seem that the same power could prescribe the hours to work, rest, and eat.—Ex parte Newman, 9 Cal., 509, 518.

The Constitution of the United States plainly declares the manner in which the national Government should legislate, or rather non-legislate, concerning holidays, or rest-days. In the Constitution, Sunday is recognized as a holiday, or rest-day, and only as such. When a bill has passed both houses of Congress for the signature of the President, the President shall have ten days to consider it, Sundays excepted, says the Constitution. Sunday is not a religious or a Christian word. It is simply the secular name of the day. The Christian term is the “Sabbath,” or “the Lord’s day.” By not using either of these sacred names, but using only the secular name, the framers of the Constitution, beyond question, meant to recognize Sunday as a holiday, or rest-day, only, and not in any sense as a holy-day. The Constitution, therefore, recognizing Sunday as a holiday, how does it regulate its observance? It does not regulate it at all. It leaves the President perfectly free. It gives him the holiday, but it does not command how he shall observe it. It simply allows a privilege. The President can work on Sunday if he chooses; or play; or go to theatres and operas; or hunt and fish; or travel; or stay at home. If the President is a Jew in religion, or a Seventh-day Adventist, or a Seventh-day Baptist, the Constitution does not interfere with his religious convictions. He can keep holy the Saturday and work on Sunday.

This is an admirable example for Congress to follow—shining in the Constitution itself, placed there by the wise and far-seeing founders of this Republic.

The moment Congress legislates concerning the observance of Sunday as a holiday, or rest-day, by forbidding any kind of labor, it violates the religious convictions of many of the people of this country. They conscientiously observe Saturday as a holy-day. What right has the Government to compel them to lose the value of the following day, either on the plea that it is a holy-day or holiday, or rest-day? This is a manifest injustice. Follow the Constitution and no injustice will ever be done.

In giving the appropriation to the World’s Fair, Congress does not undertake to regulate the observance of other holidays far more national, important, and glorious in their significance than the Sunday. It annexes no condition as to the observance of the Fourth of July or Decoration day. Surely, if Congress can leave the due observance of the Fourth of July or Decoration day to the discretion of the World’s Fair Commission, it can also leave the observance of Sunday to the same judgment. Congress does not regulate the expenditure of the millions given to the commission. It has the utmost confidence in the wisdom and integrity of the commission so far as the use of vast sums of money is concerned. Why not leave with the commission the regulation of Sunday? Are the commissioners honest and able six days of the week and inefficient on the seventh day? or the first day? As the Constitution left the observance of Sunday to the President, let Congress be equally wise, just and business-like in its treatment of the commissioners of the World’s Fair—men selected for their pre-eminent fitness to carry on in all respects this magnificent enterprise. This is my argument, therefore, to the committee—that in the very nature of the national Government, and according to the Constitution itself, Congress should not make any laws as to the manner of the observance of holy-days, holidays, or rest-days.

The Sunday, therefore, whether it is a holy-day, or holiday, or rest-day, is entirely outside of congressional enactment. If there is to be any regulation it should be by municipal and local governments.

The Constitution and Holy-days and Holidays.*

ENFORCED IDLENESS IS TYRANNY.

The Constitution and Holy-days and Holidays.