SUNDAY laws are wrong in principle. If playing baseball on Sunday is incivil or criminal it is equally so on Monday, Tuesday, or any other day of the week. What would you think of a law compelling people to desist from murder, theft, rape, or any other criminal or uncivil act on Sunday? Would you not insist if a law were to be enacted against crime it should prohibit it seven days in the week?
You argue that committing murder on Sunday, stealing on Sunday, committing riotous or unruly acts on Sunday, to the disturbance of public and well-being of society, was no more uncivil or criminal than committing the same acts on any other day of the week. Hence, if laws are to be framed against the committing of such deeds, they should be universal laws, covering the entire period of the week, and not merely Sunday. In other words, the day upon which the act is committed does not constitute it uncivil or criminal. The crime of incivility lies in the act itself, and not in the day upon which it is committed.
Any legislation making an act criminal or incivil by virtue of its being performed upon a certain day of the week, is the evidence that the law is the outgrowth of religious prejudice. This of itself should be sufficient argument against any law to defeat it.
The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Gospel of Christ agree that a man is endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. No man has a right to transfer these rights, and no state has a right to assume that they have been transferred, and therefore to legislate accordingly.
Would the man who regards Sunday as the Sabbath, and goes to church on that day, and finds his happiness in worship on that day, consider that the state had a right to legislate him out of the privilege of using Sunday as a day of rest and worship? He would declare such legislation as an invasion of his inalienable rights. Has not the disbeliever an equal right to find his happiness in recreation on that day? Who gave the state any right to invade his realm of the "pursuit of happiness" in the using of the day as he chooses, so long as he conducts himself civilly?
The state has no more right to invade the disbeliever's right than it has to infringe upon the right of the churchman. But you say sometimes he does not conduct himself civilly in his Sunday recreation. Then let the law be against such incivility, and not against the right of recreation.
All agree that legislators are public servants, who represent the people. Would those who observe Sunday allow that a servant had a right to come into their household and dictate to them how they should spend Sunday? Such interference would not be tolerated. It would be regarded as out of place—an abuse of a servant's position and authority. Have not those who are not Christians equal rights to their pursuit of happiness, to refuse to be dictated to by servants in their household, as to how they shall spend the day, so long as they conduct themselves civilly.
Sunday laws are religious legislation, wrong in principle, and unwarranted assumption of authority by the state. Let me not be misunderstood. I am not merely opposing Sunday laws. I would oppose Sabbath laws by the state just as vigorously as Sunday laws. Why?—Because they would be wrong in principle. Man is accountable to God only, for his religion. Every man has a right to do as he pleases religiously, just so long as he does not infringe upon the inalienable rights of his neighbor.
This is why the founders of our government so carefully guarded these points in the fundamental law. This is why Thomas Jefferson, Lincoln, Grant, and others laid down the eternal principle of "hands off" religion so far as the state is concerned. Keep the church and state forever separate. It is but a reiteration of the principles enunciated by Christ Jesus Himself: "Render to Caesar [the state] the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." Therefore we oppose all religious laws by the state, and as Sunday laws are proven to be not civil, but religious laws, we oppose them because they are wrong.—From report of sermon, in Sedalia (Mo.) Sentinel.
