The Rights of the Individual
By W. Mayhew Healey
Does the Majority Have the Right to Oppress the Minority?—The Despotism Proposed in Sunday Laws DURING the International Lord’s Day Congress recently held in Oakland, California, the question was frequently discussed as to who and what should be exempt from Sunday laws. It was admitted that many persons engaged in different kinds of labor must be allowed to work on Sunday, and therefore should be exempt from the penalties of the law, but they should be allowed and required to rest on some other day of the week. Those who religiously observe the Bible Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, and therefore desire to pursue their ordinary vocations on Sunday, were considered a distinct and separate class from all others. The general sentiment, as expressed, favored their exemption. Some advocated this on the ground of common justice, some on the principle of liberty of conscience, others because it was thought expedient to do so. There were those who evidently preferred to make no exemption on religious grounds. Reference was made to the Canadian Sunday law, which was claimed to be the best in existence, and which has no exemption for those who observe another day. WOULD PURSUE AND COMPEL THEM
The Rev. Wm. M. Rochester, secretary of the Lord’s Day Alliance of Canada, said: “The question of exempting from the law those who observed the seventh day was considered, and at first quite strongly recommended, but was not made, for two reasons: First, because of the precedent established by Nehemiah when he enforced the Sabbath law on those who encamped about Jerusalem on the Sabbath.” That action of Nehemiah’s was in no way a parallel to this case. Those who camped about Jerusalem were there for commercial purposes only. No conscientious principles were involved. Nehemiah said to them, “Why lodge ye about the wall?” The ground “about the wall” belonged to the people who kept the Sabbath; and Nehemiah was merely enforcing the principle contained in the law for “the stranger that is within thy gates”—that is, on premises under a Sabbath keeper’s personal control—that he should regulate his conduct consistent with Sabbath keeping. If Nehemiah had followed out the Canadian principle, he would have pursued those people to their own homes, and there, by police force, have compelled them to observe, or at least rest on, a day in which they had no interest, and in opposition to their desires and business pursuits. ONE IN TWO HUNDRED WITH NO RIGHTS
The second reason given was that “only about one half of one per cent of the population of Canada keep the seventh day. Ninety-five per cent of the employees of seventh-day factory owners keep Sunday. Therefore their law does not give recognition to dissenters.” Then we were told that “it is impossible to make a law that does not work a hardship on some one.” This idea that laws may properly, and must practically, oppress some one, is quite essential to the advocate of Sunday laws as an excuse for their injustice and oppression. If law can justly take away one right, it can take away any and all rights, and government would cease to be protective, and become oppressive. The ruin of good government would be inevitable under the rule of any party that should adopt such ideas into its general laws, and enforce them upon the people. If a law may, as the Canadian government claims, take away the rights of one half of one per cent—one person in every two hundred—of its population, then the United States could at any time deprive half a million of its citizens of their rights, destroy their business, confiscate their property, and deny them their liberty. SHOULD MAJORITIES PILLAGE?
That which may be done to one half million people may with equal propriety be done to any other half million people, under the same conditions; and in this case, the only condition is that they are a very small minority opposed to a large majority. Robbery and pillage could be established by the large majority over the small minority. The only principle of a government thus founded is that “might makes right.” Every true form of government is one that allows no laws to be made except such as are just to all, and oppressive to none. This false theory of government, that all law works a hardship and an injustice upon some, is the corner stone of anarchy. If all law works an injustice on some, the more laws a country has, the more injustice is done to its citizens, and the anarchistic idea of having no law comes nearest to the ideal condition under which to live. JUDGMENTS ON SAN FRANCISCO
These Sunday law advocates claim that God is displeased because Sunday is so poorly observed. Some of them at the “congress” declared that God would mete out some terrible judgment because the exposition in San Francisco is opened on Sunday. These persons want Sunday laws, regardless of whom they oppress, that they may gain favor with the court of heaven. Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest in the time of Christ, recognized the fact that his people were losing the favor of Rome. He proposed to kill Christ, and declare that it was done to protect Cæsar, and so gain favor with Rome. He said, “It is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.” John 11: 50. Caiaphas cared nothing for the rights of one man so long as he thought there was a chance to gain favor with the great Roman power. WHOEVER OFFENDS A LITTLE ONE
The word of the Lord has sounded a terrible warning to all the advocates of this doctrine that it is right to destroy the rights and liberties of the few to please the many. “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” Matt. 18: 6. Thus the great God, whose kingdom is greater than the empire of Rome and all the powers of earth, declares that while His kingdom rules the vast universe, having subjects without number, the rights of the least one are precious to Him, and that dire punishment shall be meted out to those who infringe upon the rights of one little child.