Decision of the Supreme Court--The Sunday Law Sustained.
By Editor
A CASE on appeal has been before the full bench of the Supreme Court over two months. A decision was expected February 3. It was rendered March 10. The law of the State was sustained by four against three. Instead of any comments of our own we copy from the principal papers of San Francisco, and also give some extracts from the Justices. In some of the city dailies the editorials are long, and we can only give brief extracts. The Alta says:-- "The decision rendered by the Supreme Court yesterday, declaring the Sunday law to be constitutional, proves a general surprise and promises to induce complications which will make it very unpopular. There is an old maxim that all common sense should be law, but that not all law is common sense. The Sunday law is likely to fall under this condemnation. The Supreme Court decides that to enforce observance of the Sabbath will not be an unfair abridgment of personal liberty, and places within the power of a vigorous, though not definitely ascertained, class of public agitators, the legal right to cause the cessation of business in all but a few branches absolutely necessary to operate on Sunday. The law permits the Sunday carrying on of hotels, eating-houses, drug stores, and a few other businesses which the method of living here require for the satisfaction of unavoidable wants, but aside from these an embargo is put upon all forms of traffic, some of which are of a character most important by their likelihood to create serious social disturbances if interrupted." "There will soon be two sharply defined parties, equally vigorous in favor of and opposition to the law. There is already a rich and powerful body, the League of Freedom, organized to defeat the ends of the Sunday Law, and which has announced its intention of conducting against it a political war. The question will be a leading public issue, and State politics will be largely subordinated to it. It is not difficult to see that there will be a numerous, energetic, wealthy, and influential element engaged in a determined effort to elect a State Legislature pledged to repeal the Sunday Law. In the present condition of politics it is almost safe to predict that this element will succeed. The opposing body may exhibit great strength and make some surprising efforts, but the odds are against them. With this view, it seems that after all the agitation, that after all the moral victory one body claims in the decision rendered yesterday, that after all the quarreling sure to result from the endeavors to enforce the law from now until it is either abandoned by its present supporters or is defeated at the polls, it will, after all, be proved that the long, exhaustive, and bitter controversies, the legal battles and score of incidentals, with the Sunday Law itself, have been ill-advised and for the present useless so far as regards the standard of practicability." The Examiner speaks of it briefly. The following are its opening words:-- "The Supreme Court of the State has decided that the Sunday law is not in conflict with the Constitution. In this view a bare majority of the Court concur, three of the seven Justices dissenting. The opinions were rendered yesterday and will be found in our local columns this morning. The fact that the Court is so nearly equally divided upon the question shows upon what a slender thread important rulings sometimes hang. A single change in the make-up of the Court might result in a reversal of this decision at any time." The Evening Post considers it very doubtful whether the law can be enforced to any great extent. It commences its long editorial as follows:-- "The Supreme court in the Koser case, from Santa Clara county, has affirmed the constitutionality of the so-called Sunday Law. This was not an unexpected result. Nevertheless, it remains to be determined whether or not it is a final settlement of the case. Laws, like governments, derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. That is a fundamental principle of republican government; it is a foundation stone of our republic, deliberately selected by the patriotic fathers to whose wisdom and love of freedom we are indebted for the enlightened and liberal form of government we enjoy. A law which is obnoxious to the masses of the people, or inimical to the test interests of any considerable class, can never be enforced in this country, though it be authorized by the most direct mandate of the constitution, and framed with due regard to the strictest requirements of technical construction." Its closing paragraph is suggestive, and echoes the prevailing opinion that it will now become the leading question in the next election:-- "But after all we fancy the next Legislature will be called upon to set at rest all doubts and quibbles as to this law. Undoubtedly the demand will be made for the repeal of the law, and with equal certainty the question of repeal or non-repeal will enter into the election of Senators and Representatives next fall. That election, then, will determine the will of the people in that regard, and from that tribunal there will be no appeal." The Chronicle's remarks are mostly confined to an argument to prove that the law does not prevent the Sunday sale of papers. According to the reports of "interviewers," able lawyers express the opinion that the arguments of the dissenting Justices will carry more weight with the public generally than will the decisions of the affirming majority. That the dissenting Justices make strong points will hardly be denied, and they are presented in a clear and forcible manner. The following extracts will give a good idea of their positions:-- "Judge McKinstry, in dissenting, held that the free exercise of religious profession and worship, without crimination or preference, shall forever be guaranteed in this State; Sunday laws have never been upheld in California on any other ground than that they simply provided for a period of rest. It is absolutely the right, therefore, of every citizen, to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience, and to keep holy such days as his own religion may sanctify, and it would be difficult to convince an orthodox Jew, for example, who has abstained from secular employment on Saturday, that a law which compels him to refrain from like employment on Sunday gives no preference to other forms of religion. Certainly all argument based upon the supposed physical benefits derived from a stated day of rest would have little application and furnish little ground for enforcing a Sunday law upon one who has taken his rest on the preceding day. The statute declares it to be a crime against religion not to refrain from certain secular employment upon Sunday. To enforce such a law is in effect to punish him for a disregard of a religious institution or ordinance; to enforce it against one whose religion attributes no sanctity to the institution or ordinance, but requires of him to keep sacred, as of binding obligation, another day in the week--to discriminate against the free exercise of his religious profession and worship." Justice Sharpstein gave a long dissenting opinion which he says:-- "I cannot assent to the proposition that this law can be regarded as it would be if the day designated in it had not been the Sabbath of any religious sect, nor do I think that the Legislature would have the constitutional power to make it a misdemeanor for any person to keep his place of business open on any day other than the Sabbath of some religious sect for the transaction of business which it would be neither illegal, immoral, nor improper to transact on any other day than the one so designated. As I read the Constitution, it is not only required that the Legislature shall recognize the existence of religious sects, that it shall protect them in the exercise and enjoyment of religious worship without discrimination or preferences." "If it be necessary that people should rest one day in seven, and unnecessary that they should rest two days in seven, and wholly immaterial on what day they rest, it was the duty of the Legislature to take notice of the fact that many people are constrained by their religion to rest on the seventh day of each week, and to have excepted them from the operation of the Sunday law. * It is impossible for a person whose religion constrains him to observe the seventh day of each week to live up to the requirements of his religion, and at the same time obey the law without sacrificing one day more each week than the person whose religion constrains him to observe the first day, or the one who is not constrained by religion to observe any. It does seem to me that this constitutes a discrimination or preference, and as I understand the Constitution, the Legislature has no power to pass such a law." "It is no answer to say that the law ignores religion altogether, because the Legislature has no right under the Constitution to ignore religion when passing laws which must seriously affect those who profess it in some one of its various forms. If it is only necessary that the people of this State should rest one day in seven, and wholly immaterial on what day of the week they rest, those whose religion requires them to rest on a day other than that designated in the Sunday law should have been excepted from its operation in order to avoid discrimination or preference which the Constitution forbids." Other grounds than these are taken by the dissenting justices concerning the lawful use of labor and property. But we are most interested in those portions here noticed. The papers report a rather poorly attended and unenthusiastic meeting held in San Francisco to honor the decision of the Court. Dr. Otis Gibson was the speaker. In the report of his speech we find the following words:-- "The Cherokee Indians tarred and feathered men who broke their laws, and burned their houses and beat them, and that was what he wanted to see done to the saloon men if they broke the Sunday Law." If the "Reverend D. D." will take the pains to read the Sunday Law he will find that tarring and feathering is not the penalty attached to that law by the Legislature. Such foolish ranting does not increase respect for the law, or for its advocates. The Sunday question is now fairly launched upon the stormy sea of politics, with the prospect that the present law will be hopelessly wrecked. If that result shall be reached it will be attended with unpleasant and undesirable consequences, as a day of rest will thereafter, at least for a season, scarcely be known in California. We would not wish to see such a state of things, but it will be a natural reaction from an unwise attempt to interfere too far with civil and religious freedom. The advocates of the enforcement of this law have no doubt acted unwisely in attempting to uphold it solely as an anti-liquor law. It is such in no sense. It is true that it forbids the sale of liquors (by certain parties only, while it permits it by other parties), on one day in seven; but it is equally true that it forbids labor of every kind (by certain parties only, and not by others) on the same day. It is an anti-labor law to the same extent that it is an anti-liquor law. If the temperance workers really wish a prohibitory law, let them secure a law to that effect and work on a temperance basis, and not try to enforce Sunday under the guise of a temperance movement. As a political question we have nothing to do with it. We do not advocate the Sabbath or oppose the Sunday on any such grounds. How far it may be decided to leave it in the hands of politicians to settle, we cannot now say. We have stood on aggressive ground as Sabbath reformers for more than a quarter of a century. We desire to act with becoming prudence and discretion, and not move hastily even where Providence seems to open the way. We know this, however, that "the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God," and that the Third Angel's Message of Rev. 14:9-12, will, by such means as the Creator of heaven and earth shall choose, yet go forth to "every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." And may the Lord hasten the day to his own glory.