The Sunday-Law Drift

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 5, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 10.

The Sunday-Law Drift.

Contrary to all just principles of righteousness and truth, contrary to true Americanism and liberty, contrary to God’s word, our legislatures and courts continue to pile up and confirm Sunday laws. “The appellate division of the Supreme Court,” says the N. Y. Observer of February 13, “rendered a decision last week in favor of the constitutionality of the law requiring barbers’ shops, except those in New York and Saratoga, to close on Sunday, and in the two latter places to be closed after one o’clock in the afternoon of that day. This case is considered a test one. In affirming the decision of a lower court, Justice Ingraham, who wrote the opinion, says:—

“There is nothing in this act that attempts to provide that the appellant shall not carry on his particular trade or calling in any manner or at any place that he pleases. He is simply prohibited from carrying on that trade upon Sunday. An examination of the legislation of most, if not all, the states will show that that subject was regulated by statute prior to the adoption of the Federal Constitution and the constitution of the state, and that prohibition of work upon Sunday, more or less severe, was in force in all the states at that time, and the right of the Legislature to regulate the observance of the sabbath has been recognized without exception, by this and some of the other states, since the formation of our government.”

It will be seen by this that the court goes back of true American precedent, back of the “New Order of Things,” to the pseudo-theocratic colonies as a basis for its decision. So did the Supreme Court in its “Christian nation” decision of Feb. 29, 1892. Sunday laws are born of the Dark Ages. Yet upon this decision the Observer remarks: “The sabbath-loving portion of the community will welcome this decision. The outward and public observance of the sabbath is a matter concerning which the state has something to say, and it is likely to be so regarded for some time to come.” Yes, the state, or, rather, politicians, are forced to say it, or lose the votes of the church; in the language of one of them, “knifed at the polls.” These things are more than straws. They show the ruinous backward drift to the principles of destruction.