p. 18 | Some Important Principles Stated

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 10, 1910

Some Important Principles Stated

UNDER the heading, “The Johnston Sunday Bill; Some Important Principles Stated,” the following succinctly put statements bearing on Sunday legislation, were sent to each member of the United States Senate on the morning of Jan. 27, 1910, the day the bill, with numerous amendments, passed the Senate:—

“1. The state can not compel its citizens to distinguish between Sunday and other days of the week without enacting religious legislation.

“2. It is the province of the state to prohibit incivility on all days of the week, but it can not rightly make an act uncivil on Sunday that is civil on other days of the week.

“3. Any proposed law that distinguishes between one class of citizens and another on account of their religious observances, is thereby proved to be a religious measure.

“4. Laws which in their practical application require many exemptions in order to prevent their interfering with the rights and liberties of men, constitute a dangerous kind of legislation.

“5. The state has no right to inflict upon any citizen a fine of one sixth of his time as a penalty for living up to his religious convictions.

“6. It is not within the province of the state to compel the citizens either to rest or to labor except as a punishment for crime.

“7. In matters of faith the majority has no power over the minority. The conscience of a single individual is as sacred as that of a whole community.

“8. No proper interpretation of the police power of the state can confer the right to make a distinction between days on religious grounds.

“9. The United States Congress has thus far had the honorable distinction among the lawmaking bodies of the nations of refusing to enact any law requiring of its citizens the observance of Sunday as a day of rest. Any change in this respect will be a backward step.

“10. He who attempts to choose for another in religious concerns and to enforce his choice upon that other, interferes with the natural and inalienable rights of man.

“11. Civil government was ordained to protect the rights and liberties of man. Sunday laws are enacted to protect a ‘day.’

“12. Every lover of genuine Christianity will oppose any effort to enforce a religious observance. The Christian religion is a religion of love and not of force.

“13. The Constitution prohibits Congress from making any religious law. Sunday laws are religious, and therefore unconstitutional.

“14. Congress decided rightly respecting Sunday legislation eighty years ago, when, in its famous Sunday Mail Reports, it said:—

“If the principle is once established that religion, or religious observance, shall be interwoven with our legislative acts, we must pursue it to its ultimatum. We shall, if consistent, provide for the erection of edifices for worship of the Creator, and for the support of Christian ministers, if we believe such measures will promote the interest of Christianity.”

“Our Constitution recognizes no other power than that of persuasion, for enforcing religious observance.”

“If Congress shall, by the authority of law, sanction the measure recommended, it would constitute a legislative decision of a religious controversy, in which even Christians themselves are at issue.”

“The Constitution regards the conscience of the Jew as sacred as that of the Christian; and gives no more authority to adopt a measure affecting the conscience of a solitary individual than that of a whole community.”

“RELIGIOUS LIBERTY ASSOCIATION.”