RELIGIOUS LIBERTY by J. O. Corliss

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Mar 27, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 13.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

By J. O. Corliss

[Excerpts from speech of Elder J. O. Corliss at the hearing before the Assembly Committee of the California Legislature, February 4. We have not space for all this excellent speech.]

MR. CHAIRMAN, GENTLEMEN OF THE COMMITTEE: I appear before you to-day in behalf of the "California Religious Liberty Association." I will here take time to repeat the principles which govern this Association:

1. We believe in the religion taught and lived by Jesus Christ.

2. We believe in temperance, and regard the liquor traffic as a curse to society.

3. We believe in supporting civil government and submitting to its authority.

4. We deny the right of any civil government to legislate on matters of religion and conscience.

5. We believe it is the right, and should be the privilege, of every individual to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience; or not to worship at all, if he so chooses.

6. We also believe it to be the duty of all to oppose religious legislation, and all movements tending thereto; that we and our fellow citizens may enjoy the inestimable blessings of both religious and civil liberty.

To effect a change in the Constitution in order to recognize Sunday laws, appears to many to be a purely religious matter. A civil bill can make provision for only civil matters, but this proposition enjoins the observance of a particular day, the non-observance of which is no incivility to any one. Sunday worship originated in religious worship, and has ever been regarded as a purely religious rite.

CIVIL OFFENSES

are those which invade the rights of property or person; but if one labors on Sunday, he invades the rights of no man, since he robs no one of any property, or of a single right. His neighbor may observe the day if he chooses, just the same as if the other man were doing so. It is not the day on which an act is performed, which makes it civil or uncivil. Whisky has the same effect if drank on Monday, as if taken on Sunday. It is just as wrong to strike a man on Monday as to do it on Sunday. If it were true that the day itself on which an act were done constituted it a civil offense, then it might be argued that labor on Sunday is a civil offense. But just as soon as the position is assumed that labor is a civil offense (no matter on what day it is performed), then labor of itself is made a crime.

It may be said that labor becomes a crime only when performed on Sunday; but if labor is a criminal offense when performed on one day of the week, it is the same on any and every day of the week, since it is not the day itself, on which a deed is done, that constitutes the crime, but the deed itself (if it be a crime), on whatever day it is performed. So then, if the courts of the State are called to recognize the principle that labor done on one day of the week is a crime, when on all other days of the week the same labor would be lawful, then crime would really be legalized on every day of the week except one.

A MATTER OF THE IMAGINATION.

But, it may be said that Sunday labor is a disturbance to others, and this disturbance is that which constitutes the crime. But why should labor on Sunday disturb one any more than labor done on any other day of the week, since the act is just the same as the it were done on other days of the week? Manifestly only because it is THOUGHT to be religiously wrong. In other words, such disturbance can only be of a MENTAL character. For instance, if one goes into his garden and quietly works, or even goes on the street and works on Sunday, he takes nothing from any man, nor does he deprive any one of his right to keep the day. Then, wherein is the disturbance? Certainly not in the deprivation of rights. It can, therefore, be nothing more than a MENTAL disturbance.

On that point, permit me to recite the decision of Judge Walton, of Lewiston, Maine, handed down in 1880, a case to which I called attention when appearing before a committee in Congress, which had the celebrated Breckinridge Sunday Bill before it. The law of the State of Maine is that

"no person conscientiously believing that the seventh day of the week ought to be observed as the Sabbath, and actually refraining from business and secular labor on that day shall be liable to said penalties, for doing such labor on the first day of the week, if he does not disturb other persons."

The case under consideration was that of a man who had drawn cordwood thru the streets of the city on Sunday. In his charge to the jury, the judge said that his impression was that the complaint could not be maintained.

"If the defendant quietly and in an unobtrusive manner hauled a load of wood from his place to the wood-yard, in the vicinity of the settled part of Lewiston, without coming into the immediate neighborhood of any meeting where religious services were being performed, it would not be a disturbance, in the meaning of the statute."

The prosecuting attorney suggested that it might be a disturbance to drive thru the streets of the city with loaded teams when the people were going to and from church; but the judge made answer that

"such disturbance could be only of a mental kind, as a matter of conscience, because they thought it wrong, and did not like the looks of it; but this was not the kind of disturbance that the statute contemplates. For my part, I do not see why one driving alone with his load quietly should cause any more disturbance than the thousand other teams that go thru our streets for visiting, pleasure, or for anything else. It only disturbs people, because they think it wrong."

A MATTER FOR THE INDIVIDUAL.

We submit that this is the basis of all Sunday legislation. People think Sunday work to be wrong, and are therefore disturbed because some one else does not believe just the same as they do in the matter. But if MENTAL DISTURBANCE is made to constitute a civil offense, then the preaching of opinions diverse from those of the majority of people would also be a civil offense, and would legitimately be indictable in the courts of the country. It is thus easy to see that such reasoning would quickly deprive the minority of all their religious rights. Let such an amendment pass, as this bill contemplates, and it would be a positive movement toward making all mental disturbance on Sunday a crime. Then we betide the man who dared publicly to proclaim any religious views on that day not in harmony with those held by his neighbors. The danger lies in taking the first step in religious legislation. It is every one's right to keep the Sabbath, not as a civil

DUTY, but as a religious PRIVILEGE. That is, however, a matter belonging wholly to individuals as a right of conscience, with which the courts have nothing to do, except to protect each one from disturbance in his devotions.

In matters of religion and conscience, I assert with James Otis, of colonial fame, that

EVERY MAN IS AN INDEPENDENT SOVEREIGN.

subject to no law but that divine one written on his own heart, and revealed to him by the Ruler of the universe, thru His infallible word. This right is inherent and inalienable, and can never be justifiably surrendered by any except idiots and lunatics,—who are irresponsible before their Maker. Why then should sane men consent to bind themselves about with human laws which not only deprive them of heaven-born rights, but entail possible oppression upon their posterity. The measure under consideration gives unbounded, unlimited, and exclusive power of legislation on the matter of a weekly rest day to each local community. Place this prerogative in the Constitution, and what appeal is there from any hardship brought to an individual thru religious bigotry? If oppression should follow the adoption of the measure,—as it surely will,—how could such a condition be remedied? The Constitution is too sacred an instrument to be thus made the means of venting religious spleen. We can not afford so to degrade the organic law of our grand commonwealth.

The Constitution of a State is made by ALL THE PEOPLE OF A STATE, for the PROTECTION OF ALL ALIKE, against any law to their detriment, which might be enacted for political profit. It, therefore, becomes the FOUNDATION OF ALL LAW, and the LIMITING POWER of the SCOPE OF ALL LAW, by which the RIGHTS OF ALL THE PEOPLE, of ALL THE STATE ALIKE, should be safeguarded. This power of the Constitution is the strength of its dignity, which it is the duty of the Supreme Court to maintain.

SIN AND CRIME.

Civil government can properly have nothing to do with legislating in those matters which belong wholly to God's government. The reasons for this are many. In the first place, the two governments are radically different in nature and methods. The moral Governor of the universe says that when one guilty of violating Heaven's laws shall repent and confess his wrong, he shall at once be forgiven and go free. While this is all right in moral things, the same course pursued in civil government would destroy its authority, and pandemonium would soon reign. For instance, were one to be brought before the courts on the charge of theft, and he should confess himself guilty, he would have to be released to go and steal again, as many times as he pleased, provided he confessed his guilt each time. Sin and crime MAY be the same, but not necessarily so. Sin is the violation of moral requirements, and involves the conscience. Crime is a disregard of civil law, in which the conscience is not considered. Consequently, moral government takes cognizance of matters of heart and conscience; but civil government has no power to read the inner man. It has to do alone with outward action, without regard to conscience. For this reason, the punishment for violation of civil law can be only of a temporal nature, while the continued violation of moral law brings eternal punishment. For instance, tho a man be hanged for murder, he has but met the penalty of a civil law against crime, but must be judged again for his sin at the bar of God, and receive the punishment that Heaven's government provides. For these and other reasons which might be mentioned, civil government can not enter the realms of conscience. In attempting to do so, it

assumes the place of God to the individual.

The observance of Sunday having originated in deference to moral requirements, its regulation is beyond the purview of civil government. Yet this suggested amendment proposes to require the observance of Sunday as a day of rest to all, excepting those who "conscientiously" believe that the seventh day of the week should be observed as the Sabbath. This exemption clause clearly shows that the authors of this measure understand it to be of a religious nature. If it were purely a civil enactment, no one by right could be exempted from the penalties to be enforced for its violation. But this measure proposes to exempt from the penalties it provides, those who conscientiously disbelieve that Sunday is the Sabbath. Whether or not this is a sop, held out for the purpose of securing favorable legislation upon the subject, it is not for us to decide; but it seems very clear that such a measure once put in operation violates as much the religious freedom of the first-day Christian as it does the seventh-day Christian, or the Jew. Because the conscience of one Christian compels him to keep Sunday as the Sabbath, it does not deny him the right to object when the Legislature invades his freedom of religious worship, and assumes the power to compel him to do that which he has a right to omit if he please; because religious worship is not made compulsory by the laws of the Most High.

Section 4 of Article 1 of the Constitution now gives seventh-day observers the right and privilege to observe that day, without further legislation, because it declares that the "free exercise and enjoyment of religious worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever be allowed in this State."

With the religious privileges of seventh-day observers thus safe-guarded by the Constitution, why should a special amendment be added, exempting them from a requirement to observe the first day of the week?

Then, again, this article of the Constitution grants the same freedom of religious worship to first-day observers as it does to all others. Why, then, should they demand that those who do not care to observe a day in common with them, should become subject to a civil penalty for not recognizing the particular religious faith by which their consciences are controlled? It would seem that since seventh-day observers have, by the present form of the Constitution, a perfect right to observe the seventh day, that the proposal to give them this right in an exemption clause, is but a concealed attempt to deprive them of it altogether. To admit the right of the State the power to grant this by special provision, carries with it an admission of their power to withhold such privilege; for, in consenting to the one, we consent to the other. This is merely toleration, and not religious freedom as is now guaranteed by the Constitution.

It will be noticed that the proposed amendment requires that this exempted class must "conscientiously" believe in and observe another day of the week than Sunday. But, from the Constitution, as it now is, they have the constitutional right to rest on Saturday, or any other day, whether they do it "conscientiously" or not, or whether they conscientiously believe it to be the right day to observe or not.

What right has the Constitution of a civil government to require one to have a conscience in what he does? And who is to decide whether one is conscientious in his belief of the observance of the day or not? Were one haled before the courts for working on Sunday, and the charge distinctly made against him of the violation of the law, the burden of proof would rest upon him who makes the claim of conscience, and that proof must be such as would satisfy the court. Since one's conscientious convictions do not appear to those outside of himself, they are not, therefore, susceptible to proof before judge or jury. Of what avail, then, is an exemption clause to these supposedly TOLERATED persons? One's own affirmation in the matter might be disregarded, or overridden, in every case, and what appears in this measure to be toleration, would become intoleration of the type of the Dark Ages.

It is clear, then, that such an amendment would invade the freedom of religious worship, because it would assume the power to compel a man conscientiously, or religiously, to do that which he has a right to omit, if he pleases. The principle is the same whether the act compels him to do that which he wishes to do, or whether it compels him to do that which he does not wish to do. In either case, the State assumes control of the rights of conscience, and the freedom of every man to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience is gone, and thenceforth all are required to worship according to the dictates of the State.

In a purely civil matter, one's religious belief should not entitle him to any exemption from the penalties provided for violation of the law, but all alike should be held amenable to every clearly civil enactment.

When every one, without exception, shall be required to "render unto Caesar, the things that are Caesar's," and shall also be permitted to "render unto God, the things that are God's;" then the State will cease to legislate in behalf of religion, and the church will no longer knock at legislative doors for power to enforce its ordinances and decrees.

When every one is permitted to elect for himself whether he will be religious or not, according to his own conscientious scruples, then the proclamation can truly be sounded forth from one part of this commonwealth to the other, that IT IS, AND BY RIGHT OUGHT TO BE FOREVER, FREE AND INDEPENDENT OF ALL ECCLESIASTICAL CONNECTION, INTERFERENCE, AND CONTROL. J. O. CORLISS.