JUDICIAL BLINDNESS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 7, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 39.

JUDICIAL BLINDNESS.

THE decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, February 29, 1892, declaring this to be a "Christian nation," was delivered by Justice David J. Brewer. It was in the case of the Trinity Church versus the United States. The Trinity Church was prosecuted under the law "to prohibit the importation of foreigners and aliens under contract to perform labor," because the church had employed a rector in England. The case was tried in the Circuit Court, and Trinity Church was found guilty under the law. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, and the decision was rendered that the case did not come within the jurisdiction of the law, because it was not the intention of the law to exclude professional men, but only contract manual laborers.

The opinion of the court states that the makers of the law did not intend that it should cover such cases; that the title of the act referred to manual laborers; that the evil the law was designed to remedy showed that it was not designed to touch professional men, and that the circumstances surrounding the appeal to Congress, and the reports of the committee of each house, all concur in showing that the intent of the law was simply to stay the influx of cheap labor; and that, therefore, it did not apply to the employment of a rector by Trinity Church.

EVIL PRINCIPLES.

The above was sufficient, as the decision of the court indicates. Had the decision paused here it would only have added an ordinary item to the rapidly filling chapter of common history now making. But it did not. It passed beyond this to the field of religion and the State; and in his effort to show that the law did not apply to religious matters, and being ignorant of the true principles of religion, Justice Brewer became the agent through which the Christian religion was established by a judge-made law as the religion of this nation. In this part of the decision is cited (1) the commission of Roman Catholic Ferdinand and Isabella to Columbus, which had for its object the establishment of the Catholic religion; (2) the colonial grant to Sir Walter Raleigh, which included the furtherance of the Church of England; (3) the charter of Virginia by James I., of which Justice Brewer says, "In language more or less emphatic is the establishment of the Christian religion declared to be one of the purposes of the grant;" (4) the compact of the pilgrims on the Mayflower, "for the advancement of the Christian faith;" (5) the fundamental orders of Connecticut which contemplated the maintenance of "the purity of the gospel" and "the discipline of the churches;" (6) the constitution of Massachusetts, which invests the Legislature with power "to require" "religious societies to make suitable provision . . . for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily;" (7) the constitution of Delaware of 1776, which required all officers, besides an oath of allegiance, to subscribe to the following declaration: "I, A. B., do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed forevermore; and I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the

Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration."

The above and other documents are cited by Justice Brewer to prove that this is "a religious people," and that therefore "no purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, State, or nation." But the simple fact is that the Roman Catholic Christian religion was in statute law against the religions of the Church of England and of the Puritans; the Christian religion of England was in statute law against that of the Puritans and Catholics, and the Christian religion of the Puritans was in statute law against all the others. Each of these religions knew liberty only for its own disciples; and it was to a greater or less degree opposed in its purpose, its laws, and in the enactment and enforcement of civil laws, to all other religions. Witness the persecutions instigated and carried on by each and all. Yet with these man-made theocratic declarations Justice Brewer places the Declaration of Independence, which declares the equality of all men in the matter of the "inalienable rights" "of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which says that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," and then Mr. Brewer affirms:—

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. These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons; they are organic utterances; they speak the voice of the entire people.

But he who is acquainted with the history of this country knows that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States were designed to forever abolish in this land all class legislation, religious persecution and intolerance, which inhered in the documents cited. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were designed to establish a new order of things under which every soul should be free. But Justice Brewer says that these beacons of our liberty, which expressly declare against all State religions, are in perfect harmony with the intolerant laws of the worst persecutors that the world ever saw. Justice Brewer goes further than this. He cites certain court decisions which have been a disgrace to American jurisprudence, together with the customs common to many of the people, and 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.

The decision first declares that this is a religious people, and then affirms that this religion is Christian. Thus the Supreme Court, which indorsed Justice Brewer’s opinion, did what Congress was forbidden to do by the Constitution,—established the Christian religion, or rather what the majority of people as represented in the government may be pleased to call the Christian religion. And this was contrary to the treaty of Tripoli, signed by Washington, part of the supreme law of the land, which declares that "this government is in no sense founded on the Christian religion."

It may be said that Judge Brewer and the Supreme Court did not design to establish a religion, did not design to lay a foundation for persecution and intolerance. We will grant it, but that does not alter the facts in the case. The court did just those very things, whether it was intended or not; and it was in harmony with the decision of the court that Congress, a few months later, committed itself on the so-called "Christian sabbath," the Sunday, in the Sunday-closing proviso concerning the World’s Fair. The decision of Judge Brewer has caused great rejoicing among National Reformers who believe in a theocracy in America, with themselves as the vicegerents of God. The argument has been advanced with cogency and effect that if "this is a Christian nation," and the Supreme Court has so decided, then the "Christian sabbath," or Sunday, ought to be enforced by law. The result will be widespread persecution.

SENTIMENTS OF PATRIOTISM.

On the Fourth of July Judge David J. Brewer made a patriotic speech on "Individual Liberty," at the Independent’s celebration at Woodstock, Conn. In that address are some words worth reproducing. After saying that the ideal of human liberty as some fancied had not been reached, he among other things remarked:—

One step further must be taken before the ideal of human liberty is realized in this country, and that, if I may thus express it, is the actual and unquestioned independence of each individual.

The proposition that the many may rule the one is carried into the daily life of the nation in a practical way, to the extent that the individual is swallowed up in the mass; and the personal independence of every citizen, in all matters of contract and labor and life, is in danger of being destroyed.

The penalty which the nation pays for all its benefits is the growing disposition to sacrifice the individual to the mass, to make the liberty of the one something which may be ruthlessly trampled into the dust, because of some supposed benefit to the many.

So long as any single man, the humblest and the weakest in the land, may not enter into business or engage in labor such as his means will permit and his inclination determine, just so long is personal liberty an unaccomplished fact.

Through the land the idea is growing that the individual is nothing, and that the organization, and then the State, is everything.

The great Master divided the powers and possibilities of our nature when he dethroned priests and prelates and bade each soul stand face to face alone with its God.

To these sentiments we say, Amen and amen. The chief thought in the mind of Mr. Brewer when he uttered them was the labor and socialistic troubles, but every principle is just as true and vastly more important in matters of religion; and we could not help thinking when we read them, What a blessing it would have been if Justice Brewer had put the principles of his patriotic address into his decision, and reserved the folly and wickedness of his decision, if they must needs have utterance, till his Fourth of July speech! Then the subversive principles would have done little harm, and now his patriotic speechifying will do little good; as it is, the Supreme Court decision of February 29, 1892, is a veritable Pandora’s box of evils. It contains that which will ultimately develop into a religious tyranny, the worst of all tyrannies, and will compel many a faithful servant of God to either stultify conscience and submit to the lordship of an ecclesiastical organization dominating our law-making powers, or else to suffer persecution. The faithful, it need not be said, will suffer persecution.

The incipient evils of what is involved in the Supreme Court decision are seen in Tennessee and Maryland to-day, where men have not "personal independence" "in all matters of contract and labor and life," in the most personal of all relations, that of a man’s duty to his family and his God. The commercial and trade combines and boycotts are bad, but the religious combines and boycotts are a thousand-fold worse. Would to God that every true patriot and Christian would shake off indifference and rouse to the peril which is upon us. The noble ship may be scuttled by her ill-instructed friends, but the lifeboat—Christ and his truth—will save all who desire salvation.