Sunday Bills Now Before Congress by K. C. RUSSELL; W. A. COLCORD

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Dec 29, 1904

Sunday Bills Now Before Congress

By K. C. RUSSELL; W. A. COLCORD

Proposed Religious Legislation for the District of Columbia

Two Sunday bills, H. R. 11819 and H. R. 4859, prohibiting certain trade and labor in the District of Columbia on Sunday, are now before Congress. The first passed the House, April 6, 1904, was introduced in the Senate the following day, and is now in the hands of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia. The text of this bill is as follows:—

H. R. 11819.

AN ACT requiring certain places of business in the District of Columbia to be closed on Sunday.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That it shall be unlawful for any person in the District of Columbia to sell or to offer for sale, or to keep open any place of business for the sale or delivery of, any groceries or meats or vegetables or other provisions on Sunday, except that from the first day of June until the

first day of October meats sold prior to Sunday may be delivered at any time before ten o’clock on the morning of that day. Any person who shall violate the provisions of this Act shall, on conviction thereof, be punished by a fine of not less than twenty-five dollars nor more than fifty dollars for the first offense, and for each subsequent offense by a fine of not less than fifty dollars nor more than one hundred dollars, or by imprisonment in the jail of the District of Columbia for a period of not less than one month nor more than three months, or by both fine and imprisonment in the discretion of the court.

SEC. 2.—That all prosecutions for violations of this Act shall be in the police court of the District of Columbia and in the name of the District of Columbia.

The second bill has passed neither body, and is in the House Committee on the District. It reads as follows:—

H. R. 4859.

A BILL to further protect the first day of the week as a day of rest in the District of Columbia.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That it shall not be lawful for any person to keep open any place of business or maintain any stand for the sale of any article or articles for profit during Sunday, excepting vendors of books or newsdealers, and apothecaries for the dispensing of medicines, and undertakers for the purpose of providing for the dead, or others for the purpose of charity or necessity; nor shall any public playing of football, or baseball, or any other kind of playing, sports, pastimes, or diversions, disturbing the peace and quiet of the day, be practised by any person or persons within the District of Columbia on Sunday; nor shall any building operations or work upon railroad construction be lawful upon said day. And for any violation of this Act the person offending shall for each offense be liable to a fine of not less than five dollars nor more than fifty dollars, and in the case of corporations there shall be a like fine for every person employed in violation of this Act laid upon the corporation offending.

SEC. 2.—That it shall be sufficient defense to a prosecution for labor on the first day of the week that the defendant uniformly keeps another day of the week as a day of rest, and that the labor complained of was done in such a manner as not to interrupt or disturb other persons in observing the first day of the week as a day of rest. This Act shall not be construed to prevent the sale of refreshments, other than malt and spirituous liquors, or to prevent the sale of malt and spirituous liquors as now provided for by law, or tobacco, cigars, railroad and steamboat tickets, or the collection and delivery of baggage.

Sunday observance originated in religion; hence all Sunday laws are, in their original intent and purpose, religious. The proposed measures now before Congress, like all Sunday laws from the days of Constantine down, are therefore religious.

Through Sunday legislation church and state were united in the fourth century. Sunday legislation will result in the same evil now.

A District Law an Entering Wedge

From almost the earliest history of this nation, contrary to one of its fundamental principles, misguided men have sought to fasten religious legislation onto the government of the United States. The chief means by which they have sought to do this has been through Sunday legislation. As early as 1829 and 1830 petitions and memorials were sent to Congress praying for legislation prohibiting the carrying and handling of mails on Sunday. In 1888 Senator Blair introduced a bill for a very stringent Sunday law, openly based on grounds directly religious. This applied to the whole nation, and provided a fine of one thousand dollars for its violation. It was rejected in committee largely because of its religious character. Since that time certain religious organizations have been urging Congress to pass a District Sunday law, it being evident that the people were not yet ready for a national Sunday law. In response to this demand, various District Sunday bills have been placed before Congress from time to time. The idea has been that if a precedent could be established, if Congress could be led to commit itself to the principle of religious legislation through a law requiring Sunday observance in the District of Columbia, it would be comparatively easy to secure a national Sunday law. A District Sunday law is desired as an entering wedge for a national Sunday law.

But all these proposed measures have failed because of their religious character. All have been met on the ground that, in this government, church and state are separate, the First Amendment to the Constitution declaring that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

The Bills Examined

The first bill is urged because certain dealers, it is said, are “compelled to keep open their places of business on Sunday to compete with those dealers who do not respect that holy day.” (Evening Star, April 18, 1904.) This at once shows the character and object of the bill. It is religious, and aims to stop all Sunday competition by compelling non-Sunday-observing dealers to respect the “holy day.”

We submit that no one in the District of Columbia is compelled now to labor or keep open any place of business on Sunday. All are free to rest and observe Sunday as a “holy day” if they desire to do so. But if this bill becomes a law, freedom is gone. Then all embraced in its provisions will be compelled to cease from honest business and trade on Sunday, and to observe the day, whether they desire to do so or not, or be subjected to heavy fines and imprisonment.

If a man is religious from principle, he will do that which he regards as right, even if he loses financially by so doing. The religion which is a matter of so little conscience that it needs a governmental prop to support it can not benefit its possessor, and would certainly be a dangerous thing to embody in congressional law.

If those who observe Sunday need a law compelling all others to observe the day, then, by parity of reasoning, those who observe any other day need a law requiring all others to observe that day. And the state can not grant such a law to one class and deny it to another, without enacting class legislation, and making an unjust distinction between its citizens. But the truth is, no class needs such a law. Every such law is a selfish, unjust, un-Christian thing.

To supply a loaf of bread to satisfy hunger on Sunday this bill would make a crime. In this is revealed that phariseeism which condemned Christ for permitting his disciples to pluck corn on the Sabbath day. It penalizes the sale of bread on Sunday, while the second bill expressly permits the sale of tobacco on that day. A strange inconsistency!

Must the right of men to choose their own religion and their own time to rest and labor, be treated as a crime, in order that those who observe Sunday shall have no Sunday competition? A religious monopoly is the most dangerous, the most unreasonable, and the most oppressive of all monopolies.

The religious character of the second bill is still more marked than that of the first. Its declared object is to “protect the first day of the week as a day of rest,” or Sabbath; to protect the day, not the people; to protect a religious institution, not the rights of citizens. It embraces all that is covered in the first bill, and more. Hence the first is unnecessary if the second is passed.

This bill exempts those who religiously observe another day. Why should not the first bill do the same? And if it is right to exempt one class who do not believe in keeping Sunday, why not exempt all classes who do not respect the day? This, of course, would nullify the law.

It is evident, therefore, that the passage of these measures would be—

Needless and Unjust Legislation

Now all are free; hence this legislation is unnecessary. And if it should bring suffering or religious oppression to a single individual, even though demanded by every other person in the District, it would be unjust.

Shall the people of the District of Columbia be allowed to remain free, or must they be compelled to accept this yoke? No citizen of the District of Columbia has any vote or voice in making the laws by which the District is governed. This, then, is a field most favorable for the beginning of a religious despotism. And right here the International Reform Bureau has been working for years, seeking to persuade Congress to commit itself in some way to the principle of religious legislation. After these local and apparently insignificant bills are passed, a multitude of others increasingly oppressive, not only for the District, but for the whole nation, will inevitably follow.

These bills apply to a certain class only. The first Sunday law, that promulgated by Constantine, March 7, 321 A. D., was only for a certain class. But after the union of church and state thus formed, religious tests and religious persecution followed. Liberty was in chains. Then came the world’s midnight—the Dark Ages—a time of physical, intellectual, and spiritual bondage, and finally the Inquisition.

Religious Liberty Has Made This Nation Great

This nation is great for one reason more than for any other, and that is, its founders stood for religious liberty. Note the following:—

George Washington: “Every man who conducts himself as a good citizen is accountable alone to God for his religious faith, and should be protected in worshiping God according to the dictates of his own conscience.”

Thomas Jefferson: “Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy Author of our religion, who, being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercion on either, as was in his almighty power to do.”

James Madison: “Religion is not in the purview of human government. Religion is essentially distinct from government and exempt from its cognizance. A connection between them is injurious to both.”

U. S. Grant: “Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school supported entirely by private contribution.

“Keep the State and the Church Forever Separate”

The historian, John Clark Ridpath, has well said: “Proscription has no part or lot in the modern government of the world. The stake, the gibbet, and the rack, thumbscrews, swords, and pillory have no place among the machinery of civilization. Nature is diversified. So are human faculties, beliefs, and practises. Essential freedom is the right to differ, and that right must be sacredly respected.”

The following quotation from a Senate report on a proposed Sunday law in 1829 is eminently pertinent just now: “The proper object of government is to protect all persons in the enjoyment of their civil as well as their religious rights, and not to determine for any whether they shall esteem one day above another, or esteem all days alike holy. What other nations call religious tolerance we call religious rights. They are not exercised in virtue of governmental indulgence, but as rights, of which government can not deprive any portion of citizens, however small. Despotic power may invade those rights, but justice still confirms them.”

Furthermore, Sunday legislation is not only contrary to the Constitution and principles of this government, but both the legislation and the keeping of the day itself as the Sabbath are in direct conflict with that law which is above all law, the law of God, which plainly declares that “the seventh day [not the first] is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Ex. 20: 8-11. From every standpoint, therefore, from which the question may be viewed, Sunday legislation is wrong.

Jesus, the author of Christianity, taught the separation of church and state. He said: “Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.” The Sabbath belongs to God, and therefore is not to be rendered to Cæsar. When on trial before Pontius Pilate, Jesus declared:—

“My Kingdom Is Not of This World”

Christ taught liberty. “Whosoever will, let him come.” “If any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.”

We therefore hold that no religious day should be enforced by law, whether the first or the seventh; that any measure tending directly or indirectly to enforce religion will work injury not only to the state, but, most of all, to religion itself. Liberty, absolute and eternal, is the gift of God. In the name of those noble men who sought to build this nation free, who risked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to give liberty to the people of this country; in the name of Christianity itself; in the name of Jesus Christ, who died to set us free now and eternally, we protest against this and all other religious legislation by Congress. And we invite all Christians and all liberty-loving people everywhere to join us in this protest.

K. C. RUSSELL,

Chairman Religious Liberty Bureau;

W. A. COLCORD,

Secretary Religious Liberty Bureau.