A Mighty Advocate of Liberty
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON believed not only in civil liberty, but in religious liberty as well. "He was as much opposed to Sunday laws as he was to slavery. Both to him," in the language of the editor of "American State Papers," "were equally violative of human rights and human freedom." In one of his editorials in the "Liberator" he declared that "all attempts to coerce an observance of the sabbath by legislation have been, must be, and ought to be nugatory." While believing in the fourth commandment and observing Sunday, he was "decidedly of the opinion that every attempt which was made to enforce its observance as a peculiarly holy day by pains and penalties, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is positive tyranny, which ought to be resisted by all the Lord's freemen, all who are rejoicing in the glorious liberty of the sons of God." He issued an appeal to the friends of civil and religious liberty against Sunday law, in 1848. Theodore Parker, Parker Pillsbury, James and Lucretia Mott, C. C. Burleigh, and many others, signed that appeal. He declared in this address: "There is therefore no LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE allowed to the people of this country under the LAWS THEREOF IN REGARD TO THE OBSERVANCE OF A SABBATH DAY." And therefore to oppose this a convention was called in Boston on Thursday and Friday, the 23d and 24th of March, 1848. They especially say in this call for a convention: "We have no objection either to the first or the seventh day of the week as a day of rest from bodily toil both for man and beast," "nor do we deny the right of any number of persons to observe a particular day of the week as holy time, by such religious rites and ceremonies as they may deem acceptable to God. To their own Master they stand or fall." "The sole and distinct issue that we make is this: We maintain . . . that the attempt to compel the observance of any day as the Sabbath, especially by penal enactments, is unauthorized by Scripture or reason, and a shameful act of imposture and tyranny. We claim for ourselves, and for all mankind, the right to worship God according to the dictates of our own consciences. This right, inherent and inalienable, is cloven down in the United States; and we call upon all who desire to preserve civil and religious liberty to rally for its rescue. . . . We are aware that we shall inevitably be accused by the chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees of the present time, as was Jesus by the same class in His age, as 'not of God,' because we 'do not keep the Sabbath day;' but we are persuaded that to expose the popular delusion which prevails on this subject is to advance the cause of a pure Christianity, to promote true and acceptable worship, and to inculcate strict moral and religious accountability in all the concerns of life, on all days of the week alike." Among the resolutions adopted at the convention held as called, is the following: "Resolved, That if the legislature may rightfully determine the day on which people shall abstain from labor for religious purposes, it may also determine the place in which they shall assemble, the rites and ordinances which they shall observe, the doctrines which they shall hear, the teachers which they shall have over them, and the peculiar faith which they shall embrace; and thus entirely subvert civil and religious freedom, and enable bigotry and superstition, as of old, to—" " 'Go to their bloody rites again,—bring back
The hall of horrors and the assessor's pen,—
Recording answers, shrieked upon the rack,—
Smile o'er the gaspings of spine-broken men,
And perpetuate damnation in their den!' " To the first-day Sabbatarian, who claims the right to worship upon that day, Garrison says: "I do not assail that right. I claim the right also to have my own views of the day; the right to sanctify the first, second, or third, or all days, as I think proper. Now I turn to the first-day Sabbatarian, and ask him how he dares to dictate to me to keep the day which he regards as holy, and to say, 'If you do not obey me, I will put my hands into your pocket, and take out as much as I please in the shape of a fine; or if I find nothing there, I will put you in prison; or if you resist enough to require it, I will shoot you dead.' How dare he do this? If he is not a ruffian, is he a Christian? . . . Who made him a ruler over other men's consciences? In a government which is based on equality, we must have equal rights. No men, however sincere, are to wield forceful authority over others who dissent from them, in regard to faith and observance. . . . If the Sabbath day be of God, it does not need legislation to uphold it. There is no power which can prevail against it." "Christianity as taught by its Founder, does not need any governmental safeguards; its reliance for safety and prosperity is not on the rack or the stake, the dungeon or the gibbet, unjust proscription or brutal supremacy. No—it is the only thing under heaven that is not afraid; it is the only thing that repudiates all such instruments as unholy and sinful. . . . Let us be careful how we trample on human liberty or human conscience. Said the apostle, 'Every man shall give account of himself'—not to the legislature of Massachusetts, not to the Congress of the United States, but 'to God.'"