Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · March 23, 1893

It is a strange idea that some people have that civil law is based upon the Decalogue, and that though the State has no right to define or enforce religious obligation, it is not only its right but its duty, to legislate upon that portion of the divine law that defines social duties. The fact is that civil rights and a practical recognition of them long antedate the giving of the law upon Mount Sinai. Inalienable rights are God-given, and the inherent sense of them is God-implanted; so that it was always true, as set forth in the Declaration of Independence, that “it is a self-evident truth that all men are created equal;” and “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”