Sunday Laws and the Initiative
We have no objection to the initiation of laws by the people nor the reference of laws to the people by the legislature. Mistakes will be made, but sooner or later it may be hoped they will be corrected. But there are some propositions which will be run into politics under the plan of the Initiative which do not belong there or to any other civil law-making plan under the sun. One of these propositions is the Sunday law, a religio-ecclesiastical dogma. It is not difficult to secure eight per cent or fifteen per cent of the voters at a previous general election to petition for a submission of the question of a Sunday law to the people. Some would think it eminently proper, because it seems fair; others, because of strong prejudice or a wrong theory of government, would demand it. But the man who is truly instructed in the principles of religious liberty would never think of submitting such a question to human suffrage. It does not belong there. The observance of a Sabbath lies between the individual soul and his God. Legal interference with this is always productive of evil.