Tracts on the Sabbath

by Unknown

Believing in the integrity of the provisional Government which made the Declaration of Independence, our fathers and predecessors in faith, fought side by side with yours for the liberty which that instrument declares to be the inalienable right of all men. They were equally zealous parties to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States—that Constitution which says there shall be "no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" "and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." Although our brethren at Ephrata, in Pennsylvania, regarded warfare and the shedding of blood as inconsistent with the Christian profession, yet they were no less ardent admirers of those national instruments by which American liberties were asserted and established. Of this they gave ample proof, in the unwavering support which they ever voluntarily rendered to the National Government and its troops, by all the peaceable means at their command. History records an act of patriotism and piety, which reflects everlasting honor on their names. They voluntarily and compassionately received, at their establishment, between four and five hundred wounded Americans who had fallen in the battle of Brandywine, fed them from their own stores, and nursed them with their own hands, for which they never received nor asked a recompense of the American Government or people. It was enough for them, that they were their fellow men. But it stirred their hearts the deeper, that they knew they were bleeding in the cause of sacred liberty.

We are the descendants and successors in faith of these parties. We hold the same sentiments, and cherish the same principles, which they did at that time. Is it not surprising, then, that within seventy years after the signing of that Declaration, and in little more than half a century after the adoption of the Constitution, the lineal descendants of these parties, and their successors in faith and principles, should have their liberties so abridged by state authorities, as to give occasion for an appeal to the citizens of the whole nation, from whom the sovereign power emanates, for a redress of their wrongs? But so it is. Religious zealots, in our State Legislatures and on the Judicial Bench, have violated the Constitution of the nation, established an article of their religious creed, and made it penal for others of different sentiments to follow out their own honest convictions of duty to God. The consequence is, that eight of our brethren are at this moment under judicial sentence for their religious sentiments, and condemned to pay four dollars each, with costs of prosecution, or suffer imprisonment in the common jail. It is not pretended that they have injured the persons, or wronged the estates or interests of any of their fellow-citizens. Neither is it pretended that they are lewd or intemperate persons, or profaners of churches. The only pretence is, that they have injured the religious feelings of some others by peaceably working upon their own farms on the first day of the week, in obedience to the dictates of their own consciences and the law of God. And this is the second time, within the space of one year, that the persecution of these otherwise unoffending men, has been approved by the courts of Pennsylvania. In four other States of the Union, in defiance of the National Constitution, our fellow-citizens have suffered prosecutions, fines, and imprisonment, within the past year, upon similar charges. Beside this, in the States where toleration is provided for labor on our own farms and in our own work shops on the first day of the week, all contracts, legal and commercial transactions, if done even among ourselves, are declared null and void by the State Statutes. So that, even in these States, we are deprived of our constitutional and inalienable right to use one-sixth part of our time for commercial, legal, and judicial transactions; and then are tied up to our own premises, as though we were as dangerous to the religious interests of our fellow-citizens, as rabid animals are to their persons.

Applications were made to three State Legislatures during the winter of 1845-6, for relief from these odious statutes. But those applications were all repulsed with supercilious denials. Forbearance is no longer a virtue. A succession of abuses and usurpations of our rights, has compelled us to take measures to resist, with all the legal means in our power, and with all that we can honorably acquire, whatever laws abridge the rights or coerce the consciences of ourselves or our fellow-citizens on religious or sectarian considerations. Appealing to Jehovah and his holy law for the rectitude of our principles and the righteousness of our cause, we have implored, and shall continue to implore, the interposition of his Providence to succeed our efforts.

Without wishing to disturb the peace of society, or wantonly to overturn the existing order of things, but actuated solely by a sense of duty to maintain the integrity of God's law, and preserve unimpaired our religious privileges, we appeal to you, fellow-citizens, in defence of the justice of our demands, by a fair representation of our Constitutional Rights.

The sixth article of the Constitution of the United States, section 2d, says, "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, ... shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."

Section 3d says, "The members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to office or public trust under the United States."

In the amendments to the Constitution, article 1st, it is written, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

In view of these sections of the fundamental law of the nation, what can be more palpably unconstitutional than those State statutes which are so framed as to declare and establish the first day of the week as "the Christian Sabbath," or holy day. The State statutes which subject any citizen to fine or imprisonment for labor, or any legal transaction, on the first day of the week, as far as their influence extends, make void God's everlasting law, and subject the conscientious servant thereof to punishment for a strict conformity to it. The State statutes violate the Constitution of the United States in two respects. 1st. They violate that part of the Constitution which forbids the enactment of any "law respecting an establishment of religion;" because by them the religious observance of the first day is made a State establishment of religion as really and arbitrarily as the law of Constantine made it a part of the religion of the Roman Empire. 2d. They violate that part of the Constitution which forbids the making of any law "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion; because, by forbidding labor on the first day of the week, they prohibit a strict conformity to the law of God which says, "Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." With this view of the subject, we submit it to the common-sense of candid men to say, if every judicial officer who convicts or passes sentence upon his fellow-citizens for disobeying these arbitrary statutes on a charge of Sabbath-breaking, is not a perjured man. He swears or affirms to "support the Constitution of the United States, any thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding;" yet he administers a law which establishes a sectarian article of religion, and punishes conscientious men for a free exercise of their own religious opinions, and for doing what they esteem to be their duty to God.

Heretofore we have asked only for exemptions from these odious statutes for all such as observe the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath, and we have generally been permitted to pass peaceably along. But of late our growing numbers, and our increasing influence in the nation, together with the use of the public press in defence of our sentiments, have seemingly made us too odious in the eyes of some of our fellow-citizens to be suffered peaceably to enjoy our lights. Powerful efforts are being made to inflame the public mind against us, to influence the magistracy to enforce the Sunday laws now existing, and if possible to procure the enactment of others more stringent and restrictive. These things have thrown us unavoidably upon our constitutional rights. Experience teaches us that our peace and liberty are continually jepordized by the existence of statutes which can be so construed as to coerce us, contrary to our consciences, to do reverence to the first day of the week as a holy day. We therefore demand the entire repeal of all laws for coercing the observance of the first day, as being contrary to the spirit and the letter of the Constitution of the United States.

The view which we take of this subject is not from a partial construction of the Constitution. That instrument has been so construed by impartial and competent authority. The following extract from a letter written by George Washington, while President of the United States, and who was President of the Convention for framing the Constitution, to a committee of a Baptist Society in Virginia, in answer to an application to him for his views of the meaning and efficiency of that instrument to protect the rights of conscience, decides the intent of the framers of the Constitution, and consequently the intent of the Constitution itself. The letter is dated August 4, 1789, and reads as follows:—