ATTENTION is called to the following list of prominent events concerning religious legislation in this last quarter of the nineteenth century:—
1881.—Spasmodic attempts in various parts of California to enforce the Sunday law passed in 1861.
1882.—People aroused, and repeal of the California Sunday law made a political issue in State election. Repeal carried by a majority of about 17,000.
1883.—California Sunday law repealed.
1885.—Exemption clause of Arkansas Sunday law repealed.
1887.—Exemption clause of Arkansas Sunday law re-enacted, after twenty-one cases had been tried, which demonstrated to the people the intolerant nature of the prosecutions made possible under the law.
1888.—Blair Sunday Rest Bill introduced in United States Senate. Blair Educational Amendment to the Constitution, providing for teaching the Christian religion in public schools, introduced in United States Senate.
American Sabbath Union organized in Washington, D. C. Later an official of that organization stated that “the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Prohibition party have become so entirely National Reform organizations that the regular National Reform organizations have ceased to organize local National Reform clubs as such, but work through these to spread the National Reform ideas.”
R. M. King arrested in Ohion County, Tenn., for doing ordinary work on Sunday. Sympathizers with the prosecution gathered in a mob on a Sunday night, and fired shots into a schoolhouse where Elder William Covert was preaching the doctrines held by the defendant.
1889.—The King case tried, and defendant’s conviction affirmed by State Supreme Court, and appeal taken to the United States District Court.
Field Secretary of American Sabbath Union organized a branch in California, with a view to securing a State Sunday law.
Blair Sunday Rest Bill, modified with exemptions, etc., reintroduced in United States Senate.
1890.—A bill to prevent Sunday labor in the District of Columbia introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative W. C. P. Breckenridge.
1891.—Writ of habeas corpus in the case of R. M. King denied by Judge Hammond of the United States District Court for Tennessee; thus the State Sunday law was sustained by a Federal Court.
1892.—Bill to prohibit the sale of ice in the District of Columbia on Sunday, introduced in the Senate by Senator McMillan, and in the House by Representative Hemphill.
Decision of United States Supreme Court in Louisiana Lottery Case making Congress a censor of the press, —a blow to the first amendment to the Constitution.
The United States Supreme Court declared that “this is a Christian nation,” the foundation of the claim being laid in documents of Ferdinand and Isabella, the founders and supporters of the Spanish Inquisition and other pre-republic religio-political actions.
Congress passed the first law which virtually established the principle of Church-and-State government in the United States, namely, the appropriation of money for the Chicago Exposition conditioned on the gates being closed on Sunday.17
1893.—Thirteen orderly Christian men, observers of the seventh-day Sabbath, indicted in Henry County, Tennessee, for doing ordinary work on Sunday.
Hettie Mansfield, who had kept the Sabbath “according to the commandment,” was informed against by her brother for the crime of sewing on Sunday, in Queen Anne County, Maryland. In the same county Chas. O. Ford was arrested and convicted of doing Sunday labor, on complaint of his brothers. See Matt. 10:21, 22, 36.
A minister and a schoolteacher, in Gainesville, Georgia, who had arranged some desks in a schoolroom on Sunday, preparatory to opening school on Monday, were convicted of violation of the Sunday laws.
It was demanded of the President that Sunday closing of the Chicago Exposition be enforced by troops.
Y. P. S. C. E. State Convention of Ohio declared a boycott of Chicago Exposition if opened on Sunday.
1894.—A bill to protect the first day of the week was introduced in the United States Senate by Senator Gallinger. It provided for a number of exceptions, amongst others the “work of those who religiously observe Saturday.”
A bill was introduced in the House by Representative Johnson, designed “to secure to the whole people rest from toil during the first day of the week, their mental and moral culture, and the religious observance of the Sabbath day.”
A proposed amendment to the preamble of the Constitution for the purpose of formally acknowledging “the authority of Almighty God” in that instrument, was introduced in the House by Representative Morse.
By a papal rescript, the United States was declared to be a Catholic country.
1895.—Barbers’ Sunday law (practically a rule of the Barbers’ Union) enacted by the California Legislature. On a test case the law was subsequently declared unconstitutional.
Prof. George D. Herron, of Grinnell, Iowa, College, proclaimed his “Applied Christianity” theory from Boston to San Francisco, coming out boldly for Church and State Union, as no other man had in this country.
About thirty Christians, observers of the seventh-day Sabbath, were indicted in Rhea County, Tennessee, for laboring on Sunday. About one-third of these were imprisoned for a time.
A bill providing for the protection of Sunday as a “day of rest and worship,” in the District of Columbia, was introduced in the House by Representative Morse.
1896.—The United States Supreme Court confirmed the constitutionality of the Georgia Sunday law, altho, under certain articles of the code, convicts under its penalties who should conscientiously refuse to work on the Sabbath day of the commandment, might be charged with “attempted insurrection,” and suffer the penalty of death. Fines collected for the violation of this Sunday law are dedicated to the “promotion of Sabbath-schools in the country.”
South Carolina makes the first amendment of the Federal Constitution a part of her Bill of Rights.
1898.—Special effort to utilize the Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor throughout the country in the circulation of the literature of the Lord’s Day Defense Committee.
An official representative of the Papacy was received at Washington by the United States Government. (See article in this paper entitled “Union of Church and State.”)
Two individuals were convicted of Sunday labor in Queen Anne County, Md., not as individuals, the prosecuting attorney admitted, but as representatives of a certain religious sect. Thus the denomination as a body was condemned by the Maryland Sunday law.
This list might be greatly augmented by entering more into detail, as well as by adding other events of less notoriety—all showing the tendency toward a union of Church and State in this government, and the growing sentiment of the people favorable to the principles that underlie such a union. To this brief showing it is pertinent to add that in ten States of the Union there have been legal prosecutions of persons who observe the seventh-day Sabbath, because they exercised their God-given right to labor on the first day of the week. In most of these States the prosecution was in violation of either the State Constitution or Bill of Rights, and all of them were in violation of the spirit of the Federal Constitution.
In contrast with this tendency to subvert the civil and religious liberties of the people, attention is called to the struggle to establish these rights during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. There were the Declaration of Independence and the seven years’ Revolutionary War to sustain it. Then the six years of effort to put in operation a permanent government, based upon the principles of civil and religious liberty, culminating in the Federal Constitution. Before the close of the century there were in force eleven of the fifteen amendments to the Constitution; also the treaty with Tripoli, which declared that “the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”
The trend of events is indeed ominous, as showing a widespread determination on the part of the people to cast aside in the closing years of the nineteenth century the liberties established at so great sacrifice by their fathers in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. And we trust that this brief array of facts may have the effect of opening the eyes of some to the dangers of seeking moral reforms through the medium of human legislation. It is the sure road to civil and religious bondage, of which the history of past ages is ample proof.