Amendment to the National Constitution.
The following article from the Christian Press, of Jan., 1872, is a striking illustration of the change that is taking place in public opinion on the question of the constitutional amendment. Very many who were at first openly hostile to the movement, or were indifferent as to its success, and thought that, at all events, it should not be especially urged upon the people, are now prepared, like the writer of the following, to throw in all their energies to push it rapidly forward. This is significant. The article is somewhat lengthy; but we give it entire that the readers of the REVIEW may see the course of reasoning by which men suffer themselves to be led on this question. To quiet the cry raised by the public fears, that this movement is to lead to a union of church and State, and to inaugurate a religious persecution, it is replied, “Oh, no! It will make no difference with a man’s conscience: he is not obliged to subscribe to the principles enunciated in the constitution unless he chooses to.” But people need not try to delude themselves, or, if they do, they need not try to delude us, into the idea that all this movement is a farce, having for its only object the enactment of a dead letter and a nullity. No; the design is to enforce some things by the strong arm of the law, upon the people, chief among which is the Sunday Sabbath. What is the object of the amendment, if its ultimate design is not to control actions? Some are frank enough to acknowledge its intent, and bitter enough to defiantly declare, “Give us a law, and we will show you seventh-day keepers what will become of you.” We will no longer detain the reader from the remarks of the Press. U. S. As most of our readers know, for several years there has been in existence a National Association for procuring a more distinct acknowledgment of the authority of God, and the supremacy of his law in our National Constitution. For the furtherance of this end, its annual convention is called to meet in Cincinnati, Jan. 31, 1872. When this Association was formed, while we were prepared to bid it God-speed, we did not then feel that there was any pressing need for the object sought; and, as our mission was specially directed to the christianizing, enlightening and elevating the masses of the people, we have said little in our columns on the subject, being assured that if the people are right, it is easy to set the government right. The late combined efforts, however, of various classes of our citizens to exclude the Bible from our schools, repeal our Sabbath laws, and divorce our government entirely from religion, and thus make it an atheistic government—for every government must be for God or against him, and must be administered in the interests of religion and good morals, or in the interests of irreligion and immorality—have changed our mind, and we are now prepared to urge the necessity for an explicit acknowledgment in the National Constitution of the authority of God and the supremacy of his law, as revealed in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. During the early history of our country, the fact that civil government was an ordinance of God, and that his law was of supreme authority, was almost, if not universally, admitted. Hence, all our civil laws were tried as to their moral quality by the touchstone of God’s law, just as the Puritans had been accustomed to try the laws of England. Indeed, any one at all acquainted with the history of the Puritans knows that they were compelled to leave England because they would not and could not admit the authority of the laws of the land, which they believed were contrary to the laws of God. Hence their persecution and emigration to this land, where they determined to establish a government where the laws of the land should conform to the laws of God. They accomplished their purpose; and to this very day the unwritten constitution of our land is based on this idea. Hence, the oaths in our courts, our Sabbath and our marriage laws, our penalties for polygamy, adultery, etc. Hence, also, the implied recognition of the same principle in the Federal Constitution itself, by its provision for oaths, and in the distinction between Sunday and the other days of the week which it makes. But, notwithstanding these facts, inasmuch as there is no explicit affirmation of the supremacy of God’s law, there is a growing tendency to deny those principles which the great mass of Christians have, in every age, held dear. Indeed, in various large cities we have resolutions like the following: Resolved, that the German-American element of Chicago regard all interference of the Temperance and Sunday-law advocates with its social privileges as citizens as unconstitutional, and as inconsistent with the spirit of our republican institutions. We have also official acts, as in the case of the Treaty of Tripoli, where it is denied that this is a Christian nation. True, the official acts on the other side are far more numerous, and among them the late decision of the Superior Court of Cincinnati, enjoining the Board of Education from prohibiting the reading of the Bible in the common schools, in which Judge Hagans says, “The framers of the Constitution (of the State of Ohio) felt that the moral sense must necessarily be regulated and controlled by the religious belief, and that whatever was opposed to religious belief, estimated by a Christian standard, and taking into consideration the welfare of the State, would be in the highest degree opposed to the general sense, and have a direct tendency to undermine the moral support of the laws and corrupt the community.” It was a decision which made glad the hearts of the great mass of Protestant Christians throughout the land; and yet we are satisfied it never would have been made only for the following clause in the State Constitution, viz.: “Religion, morality and knowledge, however, being essential to good government, it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to pass suitable laws to protect every religious denomination in the peaceable enjoyment of its own mode of public worship, and to encourage schools and the means of instruction.” And if this is true, with such an amendment as we desire, we would have just such a bulwark as we need to save the Bible in our schools and our Sabbath and marriage laws from being swept away by the rising flood of infidelity and atheism, and maintain our character as a Christian nation. On the other hand, if no effort is made in this direction, the principles we have asserted may soon be denied, and the decision of many questions vital to the religion and morality of the nation be within the control of local majorities, or of an oligarchy who may happen to be in power. History is full of lessons on this subject. Take the struggles of the early Puritans against the persecuting edicts of Mary and Elizabeth in England and the sufferings of many of our abolitionists by the oppressive fugitive-slave law of our own land. But it is objected that the consciences of those who do not believe in the principle advanced will be oppressed if the majority succeed in so amending the Constitution. We reply by no means; for no one is required to subscribe to these doctrines unless he believes them. The assertion of a principle is quite a different thing from a law requiring subscription to it. No citizen’s conscience is oppressed by the clause in the State Constitution of Ohio already quoted, whether he believes it or not, and just because he is not required to subscribe to it; and even in the case of his taking the official oath, he is not required to subscribe to the doctrines of the Constitution, only to carry them out as an executive officer, which, if he cannot do, of course he ought not to accept office; but in no case is his conscience oppressed. And, in point of fact, there never has been in the past any persecution under a government acknowledging these principles. But it has also been objected that such an amendment would lead to a union of Church and State. To this we reply, the two questions are entirely distinct. The acknowledgment of the supreme authority of God’s law is certainly a very different question from the acknowledgment of some religious organization. Nor does any one propose to repeal the clause of the Constitution prohibiting Congress from passing laws respecting an Establishment of religion. Nor are we aware that such an alliance between Church and State has been formed where the principle of the supremacy of God’s law was accepted by the State. Acting on the principle, “No Bishop, no King,” these alliances have been formed and maintained with imprisonment, scourging and death. Even in the case of the English and Scotch Establishments at the present time, the government maintains them, not on the principle that God’s law demands it, but because they are deemed a cheap police force and a valuable aid in maintaining the stability of the government. We may rest assured that no evil results will follow obedience to God’s law. On the contrary, he has declared, and the world’s history attests its truth: “The nation and the kingdom that will not serve God shall perish; yea, all those nations shall be utterly wasted.”