THE U. S. SUPREME COURT AND SUNDAY LAWS.
By W. N. G.
The United States Supreme Court has taken its stand on Sunday laws. It says the Georgia Sunday law is constitutional. The following despatch explains the position of the court:— “Washington, May 18.—Justice Harlan to-day delivered an opinion in the Supreme Court in the case of Hennington versus the State of Georgia, involving the constitutionality of the law prohibiting the running of freight cars in Georgia on Sunday. The opinion held the law to be valid.” The Sunday law of Georgia contains provisions which make it, under certain circumstances, the most tyrannical of all the state Sunday laws. It even includes the death penalty. Section 4579 provides as follows:— “Any tradesman, artificer, workman, or laborer, or other person whatever, who shall pursue their business or work of their ordinary callings upon the Lord’s day (works of necessity or charity only excepted), shall be guilty of a misdemeanor; and, on conviction, shall be punished as prescribed in section 4310 of this code.” Following is section 4310, referred to in the foregoing section:— “Accessories after the fact, except where it is otherwise ordered in this code, shall be punished by a fine not to exceed $1,000, imprisonment not to exceed six months, to work in the chain-gang on the public works or on such other works as the county authorities may employ the chain-gang, not to exceed twelve months, and any one or more of these punishments may be ordered at the discretion of the judge; provided, that nothing herein contained shall authorize the giving the control to private persons, or their employment by the county authorities in such mechanical pursuits as will bring the products of their labor into competition with the products of free labor.” Section 4814 provides that where persons are convicted of misdemeanor, and sentenced to work in the chain-gang, or are confined in jail for non-payment of fines imposed for such misdemeanor, the authorities may hire out such convicts, upon such terms and restrictions as may subserve the ends of justice, and place such convicts under such guards as may be necessary for their safe keeping. This provision is emphasized by the further possibilities under section 4821. If any of such convicts shall be guilty of insurrection or attempt at insurrection, they may, upon conviction in the county court, be “deemed guilty of a capital offense, and punished with death, or such other punishment as the judge in his discretion may inflict.” Thus if a person is convicted of doing any ordinary labor on Sunday, being a conscientious observer of the seventh day, and should refuse to labor on the seventh day because of his duty to “obey God rather than men,” he might be convicted of “attempt at insurrection,” and sentenced to death. And the Supreme Court of this so-called “Christian nation,” this “land of the free,” which guarantees freedom of conscience to all its citizens, says that such a law is constitutional. Thus the nation has taken another advanced step in the matter of establishing the religion of Sunday observance. This shows the weakness of that provision of the national Constitution contained in the First Amendment, that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” What security does such a declaration give to the people, when the state Legislatures may make such laws ad libitum, and the Federal Supreme Court says they are constitutional! But the climax of absurdity seems to have been reached in section 4582 of this “constitutional” Sunday law of the state of Georgia. Here it is:— “All moneys arising from fines imposed for offenses, the gist of which consist in their being committed on the Sabbath day, shall be paid to the ordinary of the county, to be by him distributed for the purpose of establishing and promoting Sabbath schools in the county.” Thus it is put in the power of vicious bigots to draw blood money from honest, conscientious, Christian men, with which to sustain Sunday schools. Alas! for the education that children would receive in schools, supported by funds secured in such a diabolical manner. Such possibilities surely ought to convince any reasoning person that a religious institution or dogma calling for such outrageous measures can have no foundation in truth. Nothing but the basest imitation of the religion of Jesus Christ could call for laws in which are provisions for even the sacrifice of human life. Men who would no doubt read with a shudder of the cruel orgies connected with the sun-worship of the recognized heathen, will enthusiastically uphold, in the name of Christianity, laws including the death penalty in support of a day whose observance originated in sun-worship itself; a day whose observance as a pretended Christian institution was the result of compromise with heathenism and the edicts of apostasy. And there are to-day, all over our fair land, and over every other nominally Christian land for that matter, scores of “societies,” “associations,” “leagues,” “unions,” “parties,” “bureaus,” etc., shouting the “reform” slogan, whose prime object is the securing of just such laws as this Georgia law. Yes, we have professed ministers of the Gospel leading out in these “confederacies” (Isa. 8:9-13), calling for Sunday laws with “fever exceptions and heavier penalties.” And it is because of a growing sentiment in this direction, and the quaking of office-holders and office-seekers before this “reform” wave, that we are told “the world is growing better.” When, however, we call attention to the law of God, which we ought to obey rather than the law of man; when we call attention to the “perfect” law (Ps. 19:7), which is “holy, and just, and good” (Rom. 7:12), which tells us that “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;” when we call attention to these declarations of the word of God, we are blandly told that we are now under grace. The “grace” of a Sunday law, with “chain-gang” or perhaps “capital offense” and “death” accompaniments, is a grace the world could well spare—in the interest of both humanity and Christianity.