Sunday Law of Texas

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 21, 1882

Sunday Law of Texas.

PREVIOUS to 1879 there were three States in the Union which had what we call rigid or rigorous Sunday Laws; that is, they had no exemption in favor of those who keep the seventh-day Sabbath. These were Pennsylvania, Texas, and California. But a revision of the Statutes of Texas, which took effect May 28, 1879, reads as follows:—

“Any person who shall hereafter labor, or compel, force, or oblige his or her employés, workmen, or apprentices, to labor on Sunday, shall be fined not less than $10 nor more than $50.” Penal Code, title 7, chap. 2, article 183. Article 184 reads thus:—

“The preceding article shall not apply to household duties, works of necessity or charity, . . . nor to any person who conscientiously believes that the seventh or any other day of the week ought to be observed as the Sabbath, and who actually refrains from business and labor on that day for other than secular reasons.”

Not long since we copied a similar exemption from the laws of Connecticut. This is just what we desire in the State of California, but our observation at Sacramento convinced us that there is very little disposition to grant it.

While there we were introduced to a clergyman to whom we stated the object of our going there. He very decidedly said that could not be done. We replied that it was done in almost every State of the Union which had a Sunday Law; but he was incredulous, and declared it impossible! From the spirit manifested by many—very many—of the Sunday people in this State, we are becoming convinced that it is impossible for them to consent to it, unless they become much more imbued with the spirit of the “golden rule” than they are at present.

The truth is, and it cannot be disguised, that there is a deep-seated prejudice, leading even to intolerance, in the Protestant churches, against the seventh-day Sabbath and all who keep it. We are convinced that one word in our favor in the platform adopted at Sacramento would have caused the immediate destruction of that resolution. Those who, in private conversation, admitted that our claim was just and reasonable, rejoiced in the resolution, and after its introduction said it was exactly right.

Texas has been supposed to stand on the extreme of irreligion, and Connecticut on the other extreme of Puritanism. These agree in granting just what we ask here. But the religion of California is in advance of that in Texas or in Connecticut! But how long since?