Our Sunday Laws by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 12, 1870

Our Sunday Laws.

By Editor

The following article from the Christian Advocate, is a further indication of the political phase which the Sunday agitation is assuming. If none of the existing parties will take it up, a new one must be formed which will. That is the short of it. And it will be done. The Advocate says:—

The public mind is just now exercised over the question of the public schools, and considering the encroachments of the Romish hierarchy, by the help of corrupt politicians, upon its truly American features. It is well that this should be so: and yet there may be danger that while attention is directed that way, another and no less dangerous attack upon our time-honored laws and customs may be made. It is well known that our American Sabbath, as a day of rest and quiet, is loyally a national peculiarity, and that, especially on the continent of Europe, nothing like it is known. Accordingly, our German immigrants, except the religious portions of them, which unhappily compose but a small proportion of the whole, dislike the restraints imposed by our Sunday laws, and with the zeal of destructive radicals, they are moving for their abrogation. The questions of non-sectarian public schools, and of restraining the liquor traffic, do not more imperatively demand the attention of the American people than that of the Sabbath.

The spirit of the German newspapers of the country, because they are in a foreign language, and comparatively little read by our English-speaking population, is but little known as to its tone and temper, and the extent and violence of its demoralizing demands are but faintly apprehended. We have lately taken some pains to look into these things, and we give below some extracts, translated from a leading German paper, as specimens of their kind. The occasion referred to was the passage, by the Senate of California, of an act to license Sunday theaters, with the further assumption—not yet realized—that the act would certainly become a law. The announcement of that fact is thus responded to in the Illinois Staats Zeitung of January 25:—

“SUNDAY THEATERS VS. SUNDAY LAWS

“Shakespeare, Goethe, and Schiller, have triumphed over the preacher, the theater over the church, for the Sunday-theater bill was adopted by the Senate of California on the 14th of January with an enormous majority, (twenty-nine against six votes,) and the German population of San Francisco breathes again. The directory of the theater sees the sword of Damocles—of the Sunday law—nearly removed, and permanent engagements of foreign artists are again made possible. After the adoption of the bill in the Senate, it can hardly be doubted that the House will follow. The debate in the Senate was short, and gave evidence that the adoption of the bill was a case previously determined and arranged. One American Senator declared that not only foreign born, but also native citizens were in favor of Sunday theaters; that even in Rome, theatrical performances take place on Sundays, and that the introduction of European customs could only have beneficent results.

“Two petitions against the passage of this bill have been received from the clergymen of San Francisco and Sacramento. We regret to find among the signers of the same a German clergyman by the name of Mathias Goethe. Of course these petitions had not the least effect. The politicians conform with the views of the voters, as the clergymen do with their pew-holders. The Sunday-theater question was agitated at the State Legislature election. Candidates had pledged themselves to the Germans, and they felt that, without danger for their political future, they could not break their promise.

“As soon as this bill, as expected, shall be likewise adopted by the House, California will have the glory of carrying out one of the most important practical consequences of the generally-accepted theory of the separation of Church and State.”

The refrain is next taken up by the Staats Zeitung of this city, which not only rejoices in the prospective overthrow of the Sunday laws generally, but is especially jubilant at the fact that for this great boon thanks will be due to the Democratic party. Hear it:

“The removal of restrictions from theaters on Sunday by the Legislature of California may be regarded as nearly an accomplished fact, a law to this effect having passed the Senate, and the political character of the House assuring its adoption there. We give the details of this law from the Illinois Staats Zeitung. This Journal, while favorably noticing this action, forgets to mention that California has to thank a Democratic Legislature for the glory of carrying out one of the most important practical consequences of the generally-accepted theory of the separation of Church and State. While nearly everywhere in the United States every attempt for unconstitutional restraint of religious liberty, and especially every attempt of the State to prescribe the observance of Puritan Christian customs, can be traced to Republican Legislatures, certainly only Democratic Legislatures everywhere have taken steps in the opposite direction, and have guarded the principle that here” every one can be saved according to his own fashion. “The Legislature of our State at this moment is on the point of doing the very same, after the hypocritical fanatics have maltreated the State for years. Every other State wishing to be emancipated likewise will therefore have to tread in the footsteps of California and New York, and must provide itself a Democratic Legislature.”

If this identification of the Democratic party with the crusade against our Sunday laws shall appear offensive to any, let it be noticed that not we, but one of their own partisan papers does it. But being charged with the design by one of its leaders, it will be incumbent upon the party to formally disclaim that purpose or assume the responsibility of the charge.

Our principal design in this writing is to sound a note of warning by bringing into notice some of the agencies at work for the overthrow of our traditional American laws and usages. It is time the attention of our people, so long engrossed with national affairs, should be recalled to the dangers that threaten us at our own homes and firesides. We have sacrificed hundreds of thousands of lives, and expended untold millions of wealth, to save a country to ourselves and our children; it remains now to us to protect our civil and social communities from evils of vastly greater danger than any that our late war and its results have removed. A country and its government is worth having only when it protects its people, and secures to them the enjoyment of whatever is needful to their well-being; and we have suffered and made sacrifices to very little account if now our national heritage is to be despoiled by foreign levelers—downward—or sold from us by trading politicians.

A political party must soon be found or formed that shall insert in the middle of its platform these three planks; No public money for sectarian schools; Restriction of the liquor traffic, and its taxation by high rates for licenses; and the protection of Sunday as a day sacred to rest and general quiet, by the prohibition of all sales of liquor and all public amusements on that day. These are “live issues,” and they come home to every man’s bosom. Our political parties cannot be allowed to ignore them; nor can any party that shall fail to give them a hearty indorsement hope to receive the support of all such as value the right above the claims of parties based upon no better principles than the love of spoil. If, as claimed by its German mouthpiece, the position of the Democratic party is clearly against these, then that party should be antagonized by all good men; and if the Republican party shall shrink from accepting these things as objects to be aimed at, then let all good men withhold from it their support. The time has come when the moral and religious element of the body-politic must make itself felt in the halls of legislation and in the administration of the government, or all will be lost. Who is on the Lord’s side?