TWO SUPREME COURT DECISIONS—THEIR EFFECT ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
By Editor
IN the month of February, 1892, the Supreme Court of the United States rendered two decisions which strike fatal blows at the liberty given us under God by the fathers of this republic. The second of these, that decided February 29, was the case of "The Rector, etc., of the Church of the Holy Trinity, New York, vs. the United States." It was an appeal from a decision of the lower court concerning the application of the Contract Labor Law. This decision we have noticed several times since it was given. It declares this people to be a "religious people," this nation to be a "religious nation," and that its religion is Christian; for it is declared to be a "Christian nation."
This is not said in a sort of general way. The commission of the Roman Catholic rulers, Ferdinand and Isabella, to Columbus, the grant of King James I. in 1606, the Compact of the Pilgrims in the Mayflower, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the Charter of Privileges by William Penn, the Constitution of Massachusetts of 1780, authorizing and providing for public worship, maintaining "public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality in all cases when such provision shall not be made voluntarily," the constitution of Delaware of 1776, requiring, beside an oath of allegiance, a profession of faith on the part of its officers to a belief in the Trinity and the inspiration of the Scriptures—these documents, opposed each to the others, the adherents of some of which were persecutors, are all declared to be, together with the Declaration of Independence, in perfect harmony with each other and with the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The commission of the Spanish rulers aboved referred to was for the purpose of establishing the Roman Catholic religion. The object of the grants of King James I. was to establish the religion of the Church of England. The compact of the Pilgrims was for the purpose of spreading abroad and establishing their view of the Christian faith for which the Church of England had driven them out. The object of Penn's Charter of Privileges was to give that freedom of conscience denied by Catholic, Episcopalian, and Puritan. The Declaration of Independence was a war cry against all old world oppression. And the First Amendment to the Constitution was to secure to the people of this great country perennial freedom from any religious yoke whatsoever. And yet the Supreme Court says that there is perfect harmony in all the above. After quoting from them all in the way we have indicated, the court says:—
There is no dissonance in these declarations. There is a universal language pervading them all, having one meaning; they affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation.
And this the court declares not to be taught in a general way. It continues:—
These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons; they are organic utterances; they speak the voice of the entire people.
The court then proceeds to quote from the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania that Christianity is a part of the common law, and from Chancellor Kent that attacks upon Christianity should be amenable to law, while other religions should not have the same privilege; it then cites the Sunday laws, the prefatory words of wills, the form of oath, etc., and again declares:—
These and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.
And this the Supreme Court declares is in harmony with the First Amendment to the Constitution, which declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." But the court has so construed the Constitution that we have a judge-made law, establishing as the national religion the Christian religion.
It would logically follow from the decision that this is a Christian nation that those dogmas held by the "Christians" of this nation should be enforced by civil law. Therefore last summer, in response to the demands of the religious bodies, especially as represented in the American Sabbath Union, Congress passed a law recognizing Sunday as the "Christian Sabbath," and closing the gates of the World's Fair on that day so far as Congress could close it. It was the work of religion all the way through; and prominent among the arguments then pressed before Congress, and since, when the bill for opening the World's Fair was discussed before the226committee having it in charge, and repeated over and over again in religious journals, is the decision of the Supreme Court that "this is a Christian nation."
It has been urged by good men that these utterances of the Supreme Court do not have the force of a judicial decision, but we know not how the Supreme Court under the circumstances could have made the matter stronger, and the friends of Sunday law regard it in the same way. We could quote many such utterances would space permit or necessity demand. Suffice to say the decision is made, and the action of Congress concerning Sunday is but a logical step in the downward path of Church and State union. And Congress, having so overwhelmingly committed itself, will take no backward, upward step. It is not the nature of such a movement. From a negative law it will go on to a positive. From the closing of the World's Fair, it will prohibit secular labor on Sunday so far as the Federal jurisdiction extends. State laws like those of Tennessee will assist, as that commonwealth has assisted, in promoting Sunday observance by persecuting those who follow the example of the Lord in observing the day of the Sabbath.
The next step will be the prohibition of the use of the mails for disseminating that literature which points out the iniquity and unchristianity of all Sunday laws, and the absolute falsity of Sunday itself as a Christian institution.
ANOTHER SUPREME COURT DECISION.
It may be thought by the reader that this can never be, for the Constitution declares that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." But that guarantee of liberty is already swept away by another judge-made law, another Supreme Court decision, given on February 1, 1892, which makes Congress as much a censor of the press as existed in the middle ages. The occasion of the decision was certain cases under the lottery law as amended September 19, 1890.
That decision declares that the First Amendment to the Constitution does not restrain Congress from excluding from the mail all documents "condemned by its judgment;" that it may "refuse the facilities for the distribution of matter deemed injurious" "to public morals;" that it "possesses the power to forbid the use of the mails in aid of the perpetration of crime or immorality." The Court contends that this is not a blow at the liberty of the press; that papers may circulate in other ways than by mail; or, in the words of the decision, "The circulation of newspapers is not prohibited, but the government declines itself to become an agent in the circulation of printed matter which it regards as injurious to the people." But Congress has no power over any other means of distribution than the mail; and it was the intent of the First Amendment to prohibit Congress from acting as a censor in the matter of what it was proper, so far as physical character was concerned, to distribute through the mail. This decision means, if it means anything, that whatever Congress may in its judgment condemn "as injurious to the people," or "injurious" "to public morals," it will prohibit the use of the mails, whether the document be political or religious, private or public.
THE RESULT.
As, therefore, Congress has committed itself to Sunday legislation, and as this legislation will be opposed and denounced as wicked and only wicked, and as the very institution over which it has made its fatal plunge (the Sunday) will be shown by the press, as it has been shown in the past, to be a usurper and unchristian, such publications will be "deemed injurious by Congress to the public morals," placed on the "Index Expurgatorius," and prohibited the use of the mails. A censorship of the press will be established, with its necessary inquisition. Thus by this process of legal fiction of judge-made laws, the glorious First Amendment to our Constitution has been wiped out. Says Mr. Taylor:—
Sir Henry Maine in his great work on "Ancient Law," has told us that the most subtle and irresistible device ever employed by judges to change the effect of positive laws and constitutions, without changing their outward form, is what is known to lawyers as a "legal fiction." "The fact is that the law has been wholly changed; the fiction is that it remains what it always was."
And so the First Amendment has been wholly changed save perhaps the clause guarding freedom of speech. But how long will that last? Read Bishop Leighton's article on "Limitation of Religious Discussion," in the North American Review for January, in which he contends that to speak against the Christian religion or its ordinances should be considered treason. Such it will be considered when Congress has fully gathered itself into the toils.
The men behind all these movements may be honest. It may seem necessary to them to establish a censorship of the mails instead of submitting alleged wrongs to "due process of law." Sunday to them may be a sacred institution, a Christian institution. It may seem blasphemous and treasonable against God to speak against these things, and so treasonable and amenable to law in a Christian nation. The men engaged in all this may be sincere. So was Saul and so were the papists of the Dark Ages when they put to death "the whitest of the saints of God." So were the Jews who put to death the Perfect Man. And that Man declared: "Yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me." John 16:2, 3. This is the secret. They know not the gospel of Christ, for to know the gospel is to know God and Christ. Though they know it not, the whole thing is uncharitable, unmanly, unchristian. Sunday is unchristian, therefore the unchristian methods to uphold it. God can care for his own government, and is able to punish all transgressors. He deputizes men not to execute his law, but to preach the gospel of peace. God pity them in their blindness. They know not what manner of spirit they are of.
WE KNEW IT WOULD COME.
Yes, we knew it would come. We have known it and said it in various publications for more than twosecore years. We did not know how it would come or just when it would come, but we knew that all this was coming and coming soon, and we said so. We did not say so because we did not love our country; but we knew it and said it was coming because God's "more sure word of prophecy" said it was coming. We walked by faith then; we walk by sight now. That prophecy is found in Rev. 13: 11-17. God's antidote for it, God's warning against it, is found in Rev. 14: 6-12. The salvation of the world lies in heeding that warning.