Shall We Sow the Seeds of Oppression? Let Oregon Be Free!
By H. G. Thurston
A Relic of the Dark Ages
Shall We Sow the Seeds of Oppression?
Let Oregon Be Free!
By
H. G. Thurston
AMONG the many questions to be considered in Oregon's coming election, none can possibly be more important than that which involves the very existence of the state as a free republican institution. The voters of this commonwealth will then decide whether or not the deadly coals of despotism shall longer remain upon our statute pages. If it shall so continue, some favorable moment will come when they will burst into a flame of oppression, with no power to check it. The bigot's hand is even now stretching forth to fan that flame. The fanatic's zeal is among us, and already has tried to inflame the passions of men so that honest toil performed upon the first day of the week shall brand an honorable, industrious citizen as a criminal, worthy of fine and imprisonment.
We say, then, that the religious law of 1854, which protects a religious institution, has in it the essence of despotism, and belongs to the list of undesirable relics of the ages of darkness and superstition, when men suffered martyrdom for conscience' sake. Its wicked harvest was seen in New England when attendance at religious worship on Sunday was enforced by law, and he whose convictions of right did not lead him in the way trodden by the majority, was made to feel the keen edge of persecution, or live in hypocrisy—pretending to be what he was not.
Hatching the Egg of Oppression
IN principle, this evil has existed since unholy Cain foully murdered righteous Abel—the first effort against freedom of conscience and worship. Had not that same egg of oppression and crime against mankind been hatched by the emperor Constantine in enacting the first "Christian" Sunday rest law, March 7, 321 A. D., and the offspring been fostered and adopted by the church of that century and the next, the darkest chapters of history could never have been written; for those sickening deeds of violence in religion's name could never have been.
The despotic germ that has developed a tyranny more cruel than war, is the union of church and state, by means of Sunday legislation, which was used by the church of the fourth and the fifth century to further her aims. This went on with increasing strictness and severity until fines, imprisonment, and death were the awful harvest.
Had that first Sunday law never been enacted, and had no other religious legislation followed, persecution's ugly, venomous head could never have had power among those professing the name of Jesus. If that first religious legislation to protect a human institution had never been enacted, no one would ever have suffered for performing honest toil upon the first day of the week. That first bad example set by Constantine has been followed almost everywhere since, when church institutions were thought in danger. When religious people appeal to human laws to support their doctrines and institutions, what is the conclusion of every thoughtful, logical mind?—Simply this,—that God is unable to care for His own, or the institution is merely human, and of course must have earthly support or perish.
If God has ever claimed a day as His own, He can surely care for and protect it, without the assistance of human laws. God does His work in the heart of the individual, and does not seek nor accept earthly support to enforce His institutions. Sunday legislation, and all other religious laws, are strictly forbidden by the plain terms of our national constitution; and many of the most prominent men of our nation have so affirmed.
Is there not, then, a serious question about the propriety of allowing this dangerous relic of the dark and dismal past to remain among us?
Many thousands of our very best citizens, believers in religion as well as unbelievers, discern a grave and ever menacing danger in permitting the Sunday "blue law" to continue as a part of our legislative code.
Let Oregon Be Free!
IN conclusion, we quote Madison's words as most appropriate for the crisis in Oregon: "Ye states of America which retain in your constitutions or codes any aberration from the sacred principles of religious liberty by giving to Caesar what belongs to God, or joining together what God has put asunder, hasten to revise your systems, and make the example of your country as pure and complete in what relates to the freedom of the mind and its allegiance to its Maker, as in what belongs to the legitimate object of political and civil institutions. Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and government in the constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by ecclesiastical bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history."
Vote "Yes" on repeal bill 312 at the Oregon election on November 7. Let Oregon be free!
