STRONG WORDS FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
[The following is from a speech by Hon. Thomas C. McRae, of Arkansas, in the House of Representatives, April 2, 1896. The special point under consideration was an appropriation for Howard University, a private and Congregational institution. This appropriation came in as an amendment to the appropriation bill for civil expenses of the government. The speech, especially that part quoted from Judge Jeremiah Black, is worthy of a place among some of the famous documents drawn by Jefferson, Madison, and Johnson.] I regret very much that some gentlemen have seen fit in the discussion of this question to erroneously charge the southern states with unfair treatment of the colored people in the matter of educational facilities. I do not intend to be led into a discussion of that matter at this time, but I do want to say that I heartily join the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Sayers] in denying these misrepresentations of our tax-ridden people. The negroes have been fairly treated in the state of Arkansas, and I believe they have been in the other southern states; but if they have not been, it is no reason why we should make this appropriation of $32,000 to a private denominational colored university located in this district, when we all know that they have the same opportunities to attend public free schools as the whites have. To my mind there is no theory consistent with our institutions upon which this appropriation from the general revenues of the government, collected by taxation from all the people, can be justified. That the colored people need education in the south can not be denied; but it does not follow that Congress should take the money from the people of the states, black and white, and give it to a private university located in this city. I make no war on the Howard University. There is evidently a necessity for it, or it would not exist. I have nothing but words of praise and encouragement for its promoters and supporters, but I insist that Congress should not aid any educational institution except those which offer to the youth of our country an opportunity for a common school education free of cost. If we have the power to aid the cause of education, we should help the public and normal schools in the states and territories and not subsidize private universities, however deserving and philanthropic they may be. One of the great mistakes of the past in this and other countries8has been that the aid to colleges and universities has been out of proportion to that extended to the public schools. The result has been that knowledge, that great agent, so powerful and dignifying to human nature, has been and is confined to a few master spirits, who, constituting the repositories of moral and mental power, have given laws, literature, and religion to the world and shaped the destinies of mankind. For just experience tells in every soil
That those who think must govern those who toil;
And all that freedom's highest aims can reach,
Is but to lay proportioned loads on each. In the most remarkable period in the history of learning, when all that was beautiful and grand in conception, all that was sublime and powerful in thought or chaste in imagery, we find ignorance is the basis for human usurpation. This has always been and always will be the case. The mind is the ruling and controlling power of the intelligent few, to whose patient labor and systematic study the world is indebted for the thousand improvements and successful discoveries which are the pride and ornament of the nineteenth century. I shall not take up the time of the committee to prove that the university in question is sectarian, for the amendment admits this by providing that no part of the money “shall be paid to any teacher or professor of theology or religion, or to any chaplain in said university.” If you aid any department, you help the entire institution. Mr. Chairman, I do not wish to be understood as opposing church schools and colleges, nor should I underestimate their great benefit to the cause of education and civilization. I affiliate with a Protestant denomination which believes in and advocates the highest education for its ministers, and its institutions of learning stand in the front rank of sectarian schools. It maintains an institution for the education of colored ministers in the state of Alabama, but, sir, it does this by private and voluntary contributions, and it will deserve to die when it asks Congress to aid it. The various churches in the south are doing as much for the cause of higher education as any other agency. I take pride and pleasure in saying that all of the religious denominations in the state which I in part represent are bending all their energies to arouse the aspirations of the people and to bring them to a realization of the dangers that threaten our institutions by the great mass of ignorance that surrounds them. They are lighting up the minds of the people with the torch of knowledge. In their own hopeful, faithful way and under their own independent control they are accomplishing what was not dreamed of thirty years ago. They have had many hardships and disappointments to encounter, but they have never thought of asking aid of the government. May God speed them in the great work they have assumed! As a believer in the Christian religion, and not opposed to sectarian education, and for the good of the churches themselves, I stand here to warn them as well as my countrymen of the danger of government aid to any school, college, or university under church or private control. I say this in the interest of that pure Christianity which I believe exists in the hearts and homes of the great body of the people of this country, as well as for the regard I have for that charter of our liberties which provides that no religious test shall be prescribed. Let us keep the state and church forever separate and independent of each other. No church that has a proper regard for the holy work committed to its care would accept aid from a state or the government. Mr. Chairman, I think this a fit occasion to refer to some of the utterances of that great lawyer, that statesman, jurist, and champion of the Christian religion, the late lamented Judge Black, of Pennsylvania, upon the question of religious liberty. I shall now ask the attention of the House to some of the thoughts suggested by him, because the principles are stated more forcibly and more strongly than I can possibly hope to state them. I wish I could burn the great truths he has so eloquently expressed in the minds and hearts of the members of this House and the people of our great country. “We habitually use certain words and phrases, imported from the other side of the water, which are calculated to mislead us. One of these is the word ‘toleration’ as applied to matters of faith. It implies that we derive whatever religious freedom we have from the concessions of the government; that the king in a monarchy, and a majority of the people in a republic, permit those who differ from them to live unmolested. This notion is wholly untrue. It is not a political privilege, but a natural and indefeasible right, which human government may protect but can not either give or withhold. If we are permitted to enjoy it, our thanks are due, not to any popular majority, but to Him who gave us being.” “Deus nobis hæc otia fecit. [God grants this repose.]” “Again, we hear it continually said by the wisest men among us that Christianity is part of our common law. No one has ever attempted to explain how this is to be understood. The law and the Gospel are, in fact, wholly dissimilar in nature and essence, in origin, operation, and object; as different as the purity of the one must necessarily be from the coarse and vulgar machinery of the other; so different that they never can be mingled together without corrupting both. Christianity, they tell us, is a part of our law; that is, we have adopted the rules of the divine Lawgiver to regulate our civil conduct; but, finding them very defective, we have made certain valuable additions. The Connecticut settlers resolved that they would live according to the laws of God until they had time to make better. So we profess to have taken a system formed in the councils of Omniscience, which came from the hands of its Author round and perfect like a star, filled with all forms of moral beauty, and radiant with miracles of light, and we boast that we have adopted this system with such amendments as our superior wisdom has found it necessary to make. The proposition is blasphemous, and every Christian man should frown upon it.”