A Noble Utterance for Liberty
(From Speech of Senator Crockett, in the Senate of the State of Arkansas, in February, 1887) SIR, I take shame to myself as a member of the General Assembly of 1885, which repealed the act of religious protection which this bill is intended to restore. It was hasty and ill-advised legislation, and, like all such, has been only productive of oppressive persecution upon many of our best citizens, and of shame to the fair fame of our young and glorious State. Wrong in conception, it has proved infamous in execution, and under it such ill deeds and foul oppressions have been perpetrated upon an inoffensive class of free American citizens in Arkansas, for conscience' sake, as should mantle the cheek of every lover of his State and country with indignant shame. For nearly half a century, the laws of our State, constitutional and statutory, were in accord with our national Constitution, in guaranteeing to every citizen the right to worship God in the manner prescribed by his own conscience, and that alone. The noble patriots who framed our nation's fundamental law, with the wisdom taught by the history of disastrous results in other nations from joining Church and State, and fully alive to so great a danger to our republican institutions and their perpetuity, so wisely constructed that safeguard of our American liberties, that for forty years after its ratification there was no effort to interfere with its grand principle of equal protection to all, in the full enjoyment and exercise of their religious convictions. Then petitions began to pour in from the New England States upon the United States Senate "to prevent the carrying and delivery of the mails upon Sunday"—which they declared was set aside by "divine authority as a day to be kept holy." The petitions were referred to the committee on postal matters, and the report was made by the Hon. Richard M. Johnson, one of the Fathers of the Democratic Party. I quote the following from that report, which was adopted unanimously, and "committee discharged": "Among all the religious persecutions with which almost every page of modern history is stained, no victim ever suffered but for violation of what government denominated the law of God. To prevent a similar train of evils in this country, the Constitution has withheld the power of defining the divine law. It is a right reserved to each citizen. And while he respects the rights of others, he can not be held amenable to any human tribunal for his conclusions. . . . The obligation of the Government is the same on both these classes [Sabbatarians and Sunday keepers]; and the committee can discover no principle on which the claims of one should be more respected than those of the other, unless it be admitted that the consciences of the minority are less sacred than those of the majority." Listen to that last sentence! But again I quote: "What other nations call religious toleration, we call religious rights. They are not exercised in virtue of governmental indulgence, but as rights, of which government can not deprive any portion of citizens, however small. Despotic power may invade those rights, but justice still confirms them." "Let the national legislature once perform an act which involves the decision of a religious controversy, and it will have passed its legitimate bounds. The precedent will then be established, and the foundation laid, for the usurpation of the divine prerogative in this country, which has been the desolating scourge to the fairest portions of the Old World. Our Constitution recognizes no other power than that of persuasion, for enforcing religious observances." Sir, it was my privilege during the last two years to travel through our Northwestern States in the interest of immigration. I delivered public lectures upon the material resources of Arkansas, and the inducements held out by her to those who desired homes in a new State. I told them of her cloudless skies and tropical climes, and bird songs as sweet as vesper chimes. I told them of her mountains and valleys, of her forests of valuable timber, her thousands of miles of navigable waters, her gushing springs, her broad, flower-decked and grass-carpeted prairies, sleeping in the golden sunshine of unsettled solitude. I told them, sir, of the rich stores of mineral wealth sleeping in the sunless depths of her bosom. I told them of our God-inspired liquor laws, of our "pistol laws," of our exemption laws, and O, sir!—God forgive me the lie—I told them that our constitution and laws protected all men equally in the enjoyment and exercise of their religious convictions. I told them that the sectional feeling engendered by the war was a thing of the past, and that her citizens, through me, cordially invited them to come and share this glorious land with us, and aid us to develop it. Many came and settled up our wild lands and prairies, and where but a few years ago were heard in the stillness of the night the howl of the wolf, the scream of the panther, and the wail of the wildcat, these people for whom I am pleading, came and settled—and behold the change! Instead of the savage sounds incident to the wilderness, now are heard the tap, tap, tap, of the mechanic's hammer, the rattle and roar of the railroad, the busy hum of industry, and softer, sweeter far than all these, is heard the music of the church bells as they ring in silvery chimes across the prairies and valleys, and are echoed back from the hillsides throughout the borders of our whole State. These people are, many of them, Seventh-day Adventists and Seventh-day Baptists. They are people who religiously and conscientiously keep Saturday, the seventh day, as the Sabbath, in accordance with the fourth commandment. They find no authority in the Scripture for keeping Sunday, the first day of the week, nor can any one else. All commentators agree that Saturday is and was the Scriptural Sabbath, and that the keeping of Sunday, the first day of the week, as the Sabbath, is of human origin, and not by divine injunction. The Catholic writers and all theologians agree in this. These people understand the Decalogue to be fully as binding upon them to-day as when handed down amid the thunders of Sinai. They do not feel at liberty to abstain from their usual avocations, because they read the commandment, "Six days shalt thou labor," as mandatory, and they believe that they have no more right to abstain from labor on the first day of the week than they have to neglect the observance of Saturday as their Sabbath. They agree with their Christian brethren of other denominations in all essential points of doctrine, the one great difference being upon the day to be kept as the Sabbath. They follow no avocations tending to demoralize the community in which they live. They came among us expecting the same protection in the exercise of their religious faith as is accorded to them in all the States of Europe, in South Africa, Australia, the Sandwich Islands, and every State in the Union except—alas that I should say it!—Arkansas! Sir, under the existing law, there have been in Arkansas, within the last two years, three times as many cases of persecution for conscience' sake as there have been in all the other States combined since the adoption of our national Constitution. [That is not true now. See elsewhere in this issue.—Ed. S. of T.] Let me, sir, illustrate the operation of the present law by one or two examples. A Mr. Swearingen came from a Northern State and settled a farm in Benton County. His farm was four miles from town, and far away from any house of religious worship. He was a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and after having sacredly observed the Sabbath of his people (Saturday) by abstaining from all secular work, he and his son, a lad of seventeen, on the first day of the week went quietly about their usual avocations. They disturbed no one—interfered with the rights of no one. But they were observed, and reported to the grand jury—indicted, arrested, tried, convicted, fined; and having no money to pay the fine, these moral Christian citizens of Arkansas were dragged to the county jail and imprisoned like felons for twenty-five days—and for what?—For daring in this so-called land of liberty, in the year of our Lord 1887, to worship God! Was this the end of the story?—Alas, no, sir! They were turned out; and the old man's only horse, his sole reliance to make bread for his children, was levied on to pay the fine and costs, amounting to thirty-eight dollars. The horse sold at auction for twenty-seven dollars. A few days afterward the sheriff came again, and demanded thirty-six dollars,—eleven dollars balance due on fine and costs, and twenty-five dollars for board for himself and son while in jail. And when the poor old man—a Christian, mind you—told him with tears that he had no money, he promptly levied on his only cow, but was persuaded to accept bond, and the amount was paid by contributions from his friends of the same faith. Sir, my heart swells to bursting with indignation as I repeat to you the infamous story. . . . On next Monday, at Malvern, six as honest, good, and virtuous citizens as live in Arkansas are to be tried as criminals for daring to worship God in accordance with the dictates of their own consciences, for exercising a right which this Government, under the Constitution, has no power to abridge. Sir, I plead, in the name of justice, in the name of our republican institutions, in the name of these inoffensive, God-fearing, God-serving people, our fellow citizens, and last, sir, in the name of Arkansas, I plead that this bill may pass, and this one foul blot be wiped from the escutcheon of our glorious commonwealth.