To the Republican State Convention of California, Sacramento, 1882:—
By Joseph Harvey Waggoner
In addressing this Convention, the representatives of a great political party, I feel that my position is somewhat anomalous, in that I do not come as a politician, but to speak in behalf of a body of Christians, your fellow-citizens of this Commonwealth. It is something new in American politics that the subject of religion, or a question purely religious, has become the most exciting issue of a political campaign. It is not a new idea to any of you that there are honest differences of opinion upon every point of religious faith and practice. I represent a body of Christians known as Seventh-day Adventists. The distinctive feature of our faith to which I respectfully ask your attention, is our observance of the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath, and not the first day. We freely admit that we are not numerous as some other religious bodies. But we need not say to you, Republicans, that questions of either civil or religious rights do not rest on the numbers of those whose rights may be infringed. Right is right, even with the few; and wrong is wrong, though multitudes may favor it. We do not make this our appeal to you because we think you have any intention to infringe on our rights. We have too much respect for the history of the great Republican party to harbor the suspicion that you would intentionally injure any in his rights, either civil or religious. But we do think that many who have entered into this Sunday-Law discussion are laboring under some misapprehensions concerning some phases of the issue. We do not wonder at this, seeing that hitherto questions of the policy of the State have been kept separate from those of the church. It is altogether a new thing for politicians, as such, to engage in the discussion of questions entirely religious. We believe that our position, when fully understood, will commend itself to your candid consideration, and we hope it will receive your entire approval. And 1. We do not ask the destruction of Sunday as a legal holiday. We concede that it is well to have a weekly rest secured by law to the workingman. And we have no objection to having Sunday adopted as that day. But we hold, 2. That the present Sunday Law, so-called, is not at all necessary to secure a weekly rest to the laboring men of this State. The Civil Code of California makes every Sunday a legal holiday, and expressly declares that any labor or business appointed by law or contract to be done, if the obligation falls upon a holiday—upon any Sunday—such labor or business may be done upon the next succeeding business day. Thus the Civil Code furnishes ample protection against the exactions of employers, to all who will avail themselves of its provisions. 3. That, while we are constantly informed by advocates of the present Sunday Law, both in the arena of politics and religion, that if this law be not sustained the workingmen will have no weekly rest guaranteed to them by law, we think they entirely misapprehend the facts in the case; that the Law of the Penal Code, known as the Sunday Law, is partial and inefficient, referring to certain kinds of labor which it prohibits, and not referring at all to other kinds of labor embraced in vast industries of our great State. In contrast with it, the Civil Code embraces labor of all kinds, and every industry, affording a day of rest to all classes. If any take issue on this statement, we invite them to point out to you some privilege which is secured to the laborer, in regard to a day of rest, by the Penal Code, or Sunday Law, which is not guaranteed by the Civil Code. We can point you to guarantees in the Civil Code, which are not furnished in the Penal Code. 4. This being so, beyond all dispute, we ask: What is the necessity for this great effort to maintain the Sunday Law? What does it grant, which is not granted in the Civil Code, and which would not be guaranteed by the Civil Code if the Sunday Law were abolished? We firmly believe that any one, who carefully examines this point, will admit our claim, that the Sunday Law is not only inefficient, but entirely unnecessary, to secure to all the laborers of our State, their legal right to a day of weekly rest. For, the laborers on the farms, and in the mines, and in other industries, have no right whatever to a day of rest secured to them by the Sunday Law. For this they are dependent on the Civil Code, where the guarantees are ample. 5. Our conclusion from these undeniable premises is the only conclusion left to any, namely: that the present Sunday agitation is not to secure a rest day to the workingman, as has been so often affirmed; it is not to support a mere “police regulation,” or “sanitary measure.” But the true reason is found in the fact that, in the Penal Code, laboring on Sunday is declared to be an “offense against religion.” The present agitation is in behalf of the Sunday, not as a civil, but as a religious institution. It is in regard to its religious aspect, solely, that it is now thrown into the field of politics. For the question of Sunday as a legal day of rest for all, according to the Civil Code, is not in dispute. 6. Now, I wish briefly to call your attention to what we consider our rights as Christians, and as citizens of the Commonwealth. We do not believe that the observance of Sunday, the first3day of the week, is taught in the Bible. Webster’s Dictionary expresses the recognized conviction of Christendom when it says the ten commandments are a summary of moral law. And we read in express terms in that only instrument which was ever spoken and written by the Creator himself to and for man—the Decalogue—“The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work.” Having never found in the Scriptures any repeal or amendment of this law, we feel bound by our respect for the authority of God, and by our fear of the consequences of the coming Judgment day, to keep this law exactly as Jehovah delivered it. This is our most solemn and conscientious conviction of duty. 7. In thus avowing our position, we feel that it is our right to protest against the injustice which is done to us by those who have classed us with those who deny the authority of the Scriptures; and with those who, we think, are perverting the Scriptures to uphold that which is offensive to morality. We rest upon the plain reading of God’s commandment, the authority of which is undisputed. And we further object to the injustice done to us by those who say we are joining hands with the whisky interest. It is true that we would separate the questions of Sunday and of temperance, and let each stand upon its own merits. But we are known to be radical temperance reformers; most of our people would vote without any hesitation for a law prohibiting the sale of liquor seven days in the week. 8. We declare that the present Sunday Law, as a religious law, is unjust, inasmuch as its intent is to compel us to observe the practices of somebody else’s religion which are inconsistent with our religion. If we can prove that our religious practice is based upon the plainly-expressed commandment of God, and that we are conscientious in its observance, we deny the right of any man, or of all men, of the church or the State, or of the church and State united, to compel us to act contrary thereto; to yield our conscientious convictions to please others, whose convictions cannot be more sacred than ours, and whose claim for Sunday as a “Christian Sabbath” is not beyond reasonable dispute. If we are wrong in this position, then Luther and his associates were wrong, and the martyrs were no better than fanatics. 9. We claim that it is only an evasion on the part of any to say that this law is not unjust—that it will not interfere with our religion, because it leaves us free to abstain from labor on the seventh day. Which is to say that it will permit us to act out our own religion provided that we will conform to theirs also! But that is impossible, for the commandment gives us six days for labor, as plainly as it prohibits labor on the seventh day. 10. It is unjust because, in compelling us to observe a day which our consciences cannot accept, it denies us the right to observe the God-given seventh day, or, otherwise, it deprives us of one-sixth of our right of subsistence, by declaring that we shall not keep the seventh day and labor six days. 11. We do not hesitate to say—can any deny?—that the law discriminates against our religion, which we think is in strict conformity to the Bible, and in favor of the religion of some other religious bodies. For they are left free to carry out their religion and labor six days, a privilege which it denies to us. But such discrimination is exactly what our Constitution expressly says shall not be made in this State. It is therefore—it must be—unconstitutional. We do not deny that it is the law of the land, because a majority of the Court has so decided. Still, I do not consider that there is any presumption in my statement. For very able jurists, both in and out of the Court, entirely disagree with that decision. And it appears evident to me, and to many others, that that decision, though no doubt arrived at from data which appeared sufficient to justify it, is nevertheless inconsistent with the known difference between a mere “police regulation” and a law which plainly discriminates in matters of religion; and inconsistent with the sacred principles of human rights as I have endeavored to present them to you. 12. But we institute no warfare against the law. We are liberal in our views and in our feelings. While the Constitution guarantees to us equal rights with others, we ask for something at least looking toward equality in religious rights and privileges. In behalf of our churches I have expressed our full consent to Sunday as a legal day of rest. I believe that that is as far as the State should go; that it should leave all questions of religion to each individual’s conscience. But if you, as a political party, shall consider it wise to indorse the religious aspect of the question, then we ask you to give your influence in favor of having bestowed upon us the same privilege which is bestowed upon those of our faith and practice by most other States, namely, that we be exempted from the penalties which may be meted to those who labor on Sunday, and who do not religiously observe any other day. We highly commend the spirit of a resolution lately passed by a Republican Convention in this city, which declared in favor of “such amendment as will more fully equalize the rights and privileges of our citizens thereunder.” I am happy to appeal to you, because this question has already become prominent in the Conventions of this party. And, the Republican party is at present the dominant party of the State. Although your action can represent no finality, as it has yet to go before the whole people for consideration and review, your action here may go far toward shaping the election, and perhaps giving character to the Legislature which will, no doubt, be called upon to act further in reference to this matter. You have it largely in your power to secure to us the rights which constitutionally belong to us. I am making no plea in behalf of our religion as such, further than is necessary to present the justice of our claim. I ask your favorable consideration of our request, because it is based on principles of right; it is in perfect accordance with the spirit of equality, which is the spirit of all our republican institutions. Thanking you for your kindness in hearing this plea, I will express my sincere desire that the God of all nations will grant to you harmony in your counsels, and will guide you to right conclusions in all your deliberations. J. H. WAGGONER, Editor “Signs of the Times,” Oakland, Cal.