Reply
Mr. Jones -- Mr. Chairman. It is certainly true that, so far, a saloon-keeping Seventh-day Baptist, or Seventh-day Adventist, either, is an unknown thing. But if Sunday laws are enforced with an exemption clause in favor of those who keep the seventh day, this would not be an unknown thing much longer. It is true, also, that such a man could not obtain membership in any Seventh-day Baptist or Seventh-day Adventist church. But what is to prevent the saloon keepers from organizing Seventh-day Baptist or Seventh-day Adventist churches of their own, and for themselves? What is to prevent them, or any class of business men, from organizing their own churches, electing their own officers, and even ordaining their own pastors, and calling themselves Seventh-day Baptists or Seventh-day Adventists? There is nothing to prevent it unless, indeed, the State itself shall take charge of all seventh-day churches and doctrines, and attend to their organization and the admission of members. This is precisely what was done before. In the days of the New England theocracy, Massachusetts enacted a law that, --
"For the time to come, no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same."
There were considerable numbers of men who were not members of any of the churches, and who could not be, because they were not Christians. These men then took to forming themselves into churches of their own. Then the next step for the authorities to take, and they took it, was to enact a law that, --
"Forasmuch as it hath bene found by sad experience that much trouble and disturbance hath happened both to the church and civil State by the officers and members of some churches, wich have bene gathered . . . in an undue manner, . . . it is . . . ordered that . . . this Court doeth not, nor will hereafter, approue of any such companyes of men as shall henceforthe ioyne in any pretended way of church fellowshipp, without they shall first acquainte the magistrates and elders of the greatr pte of the churches fellowshipp, without their intencons, and have their approbacon herein." -- Emancipation of Massachusetts, pp. 28-30.
By this, gentlemen, you will see that the enactment of this Sunday law, though the first step, will not be by any means the last step, and that in more directions than one. Their offer of an exemption clause is a voluntary confession that the enforcement of the law without one would be unjust; but if that exemption clause be embodied and maintained, the State is inevitably carried beyond its proper jurisdiction; and if the exemption clause is retained and not maintained in its strictness, the whole law is at once nullified. Congress would better learn wisdom from this prospect, and utterly refuse to have anything at all to do with the subject. The whole subject is beyond the jurisdiction of the civil power, and the civil power can do no better than to let it entirely alone.
But Dr. Lewis proposes to guard against all difficulty, by "requiring" every observer of the seventh day "to bring official certificate of his relation to a Sabbath-keeping church." This would not end the difficulty; for, as I have shown, it would inevitably devolve upon the State to decide what was a genuine Sabbath-keeping church. But that is not the worst feature in this suggestion. If Dr. Lewis officially represents the Seventh-day Baptist denomination, and for the denomination proposes thus voluntarily to put himself and all his people on "ticket of leave," I have no particular objection; that is their own business; yet it seems to me an extremely generous proposition, if not an extraordinary proceeding. I say they may do this, if they choose. But as for me and for the Seventh-day Adventists generally, not only as Christians, but as American citizens, we repudiate with scorn and reject with utter contempt every principle of any such suggestion. As citizens of the United States, and as Christians, we utterly and forever refuse to put ourselves upon "ticket of leave" by any such proposition.
NOTE -- That my argument at first was not so unfounded nor so "wholly imaginary" as Dr. Lewis supposed, has been conclusively demonstrated, even to himself, since this hearing was held. The "Pearl of Days" column of the New York Mail and Express, the official organ of the American Sunday Union, in March, 1889, grave the following statement from the Plainfield [N. J.] Times [no date]:--
"As a rule, Plainfield, N. J., is a very quiet city on Sunday. Liquor, provision, and cigar stores are closed by the enforcement of a city ordinance. If a resident wants a cigar, he will either have it given to him by one of the many pharmacists who refuse to sell on Sunday, or he will go to the two dealers who are allowed to open their places on Sunday because they observe Saturday as their Sabbath. Some time ago a man of Catholic faith, who had an eye to Sunday business in that line, became a regular attendant at the Seventh-day Baptist church. Eventually he asked to be admitted into the fellowship of the church. A member of the official board was advised that the applicant for membership was only working for business ends. He was closely examined by the church officers, and he finally admitted that he wanted to open a cigar store and do business on Sunday. The man appeared at the wrong place for aid in carrying out his mercenary purposes. He was not received into membership."
It looks somewhat like the "irony of fate" that this thing should fall to they very people whom Dr. Lewis represented, and in the very town where Dr. Lewis himself lives.
Remarks by Mrs. J. C. Bateham
Mrs. Batcham -- I should like to say that the point which has been made was a point carefully considered by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and we saw the danger. Yet we wished to be exceedingly fair. I consulted nine persons of different classes of Seventh-day people, to know whether they wished such an exemption, and whether they would be satisfied with what was proposed. They represented themselves as being in approval of some such provision as has been suggested, and we thought it could be done perhaps in such a way as to afford them the exemption which they desire, because they said that such an exemption is necessary.
Senator Blair -- Let me ask you a few questions, Mrs. Bateham, to see if the Woman's Christian Temperance Union understood exactly the relation of what they propose to do in this legislation. Here is a bill which relates to interstate commerce, to postal work, to the army, and to the navy. It relates to that subject-matter which is carved out of the independent, full jurisdiction of a nation by the States, which were once complete sovereignties, and transferred to the general Government. The occupations I have mentioned are all of public nature; and to carry them on, the nation has such an opportunity to invade the Sabbath-rest laws of every State in such a way as to nullify them. The nation at large is unrestrained by any Sabbath law whatever. If it may carry on its post-office business on the Sabbath, it may go to any extent, and it does go already to a very great extent, and an increasingly great extent; so in regard to interstate commerce, and so with the army and the navy.
Now, you go to our Seventh-day Baptist or Seventh-day Adventist friends, for instance, and propose to introduce a principle by which they can carry on the post-office department on the Sabbath, just as completely as they see fit. In other words, you propose to exempt them from the operation of the law so far as it prohibits post-office work on the Sabbath. Suppose you have a Seventh-day Baptist man for postmaster. Suppose you fill up every post-office in the country on the Sabbath with Seventh-day Baptist people. You have the post-office department in operation by virtue of this exemption, because they can do the work conscientiously on that day. If you limit it by saying the bill shall not apply to the Adventists and others, the bill provides that already.
Mrs. Bateham -- If you remember the clause, we do not propose to provide that they shall be able to do this work, but that they shall be exempt from the penalty. They are not allowed to do the work, but they are to be exempt from the penalty. Therefore, unless they could prove that they had not done the work to the disturbance of others, it would be impossible for them to carry on post-office matters, for instance, or any other public employment, on Sunday.
Senator Blair -- Is not that equivalent to saying that if the penalty shall not be enforced against them, there shall be no law against them? Because the law without the penalty is simply an opinion; it is not a law.
Mrs. Bateham -- The law could provide that they should not open a post-office, for instance, or any place of business; and if there was a fine imposed, they would be compelled to close such places on Sunday. It was, of course, only thrown out as a suggestion from us that if it could be done, we should like to have such a provision in the bill. We are satisfied that people want the law, and if the law can, in your wisdom, be arranged with such an exemption, then we wish it; otherwise we do not. We are all glad, I think, to have the gentlemen admit that they do not want such an exemption, for that releases us from the place where we were.
Senator Blair -- This is not to be a general Sunday law. These people all live in States, and they can work at their private occupations just the same under similar amendments to the State law, if the State saw fit to make such amendments. Prof. Jones says it did not work well in Arkansas, and I should think it did not, from his description. But these are public occupations, or quasi public occupations, we are dealing with; that of interstate commerce, for instance, carried on by great corporations which are public in their relation to the working-men, because they are exercising a great public function in carrying on transportation which appertains to everybody all over the country.
This proposed law undertakes to prohibit the nullification of all Sunday-rest laws in the States so far as to provide that interstate commerce shall not be carried on, in violation of the law, upon the Sabbath. When you come to the private occupations which are regulated by the States, if they choose to allow the Seventh-day Baptist people to work on Sunday in those private occupations, on the farm, in the workshop, in the factory, this measure does not interfere with them at all.
Mr. Bateham -- I have not the words before me, but my impression is that there is a clause in the bill providing that the jurisdiction of Congress shall be exercised over the Territories in this matter. There is something of that kind in the bill, and this proposed exemption was designed to reach those cases, rather than apply to the general governmental action.
Senator Blair -- You think the exemption might be made with reference to the Territories?
Mrs. Bateham -- Yes; that was the point we had in mind in this general action. I have not the words of the bill before me, but there is something of that kind in it which we had in mind. I wish to say also that one of the requests of our National Woman's Christian Union was that the word promote should be changed to protect, in the title of the bill, so that it should have no appearance of what all Americans object to, any union of church and state. That amendment was proposed and accepted by the American Sabbath Union, the organized body which has just been in session in this city.
Senator Blair -- Do you not think that the word protect implies power to command and compel? An army protects.
Mrs. Batcham -- All our laws protect us, do they not?
Senator Blair -- You would make this a law?
Mrs. Batcham -- I suggest that the bill be made a law, and that it be a law which shall protect the civil Sabbath, not promote religious worship, but protect the day as a day of rest and religious worship.
Senator Blair -- It seems to me that the word protect is a stronger and more interfering word than promote. However, all these suggestions are important.
Reply
Mr. Jones -- Mr. Chairman. Mrs. Bateham in her first address this morning, in telling who they are that are in favor of this Sunday law, said that she believed "the great majority of the people will approve such a law." She mentioned as opposed to it only "the daily newspaper press," the railroad managers," "steamboat companies," "saloonists and their backers," "a class of foreigners who prefer the continental Sunday," and "the very small sect of Seventh-day Baptists."
Hon. G. P. Lord in his remarks said that "not more than three million of our population work on Sabbath, and most of this number are unwilling workers." He said that "the balance, or more than fifty-seven million of our population, abstain from toil on the Sabbath."
Taking these statements as the truth, it appears that the overwhelming majority of the American people are not only in favor of the Sunday law, but they actually keep that day as a rest day.
Now, gentlemen, is it not rather singular, and a doctrine altogether new in a government of the people, that the majority need to be protected? From whom are they to be protected? -- From themselves, most assuredly, because by their own representation they are so vastly in the majority that it would be impossible for them to be oppressed by anybody else. But in a government of the people, when the majority are oppressing themselves, how can laws prevent it when the laws must be made by the majority, that is, by the very ones who are carrying on the oppression? If to them my argument seems unsound, I would cite, entirely for their benefit, the words of the Supreme Court of Ohio, that the "protection" guaranteed in our Constitutional provisions "means protection to the minority. The majority can protect itself. Constitutions are enacted for the purpose of protecting the weak against the strong, the few against the many."
This is sound sense, as well as sound Constitutional law. Now, suppose in accordance with this sound Constitutional principle, and under cover of their own statements, we, seventh-day observers, whom they themselves designate as being so entirely in the minority as scarcely to be worthy of recognition, -- suppose we should come to Congress asking for protection (and as all my argument has shown, if anybody needs protection in this matter, assuredly it is ourselves), -- suppose, then, we come to Congress asking for protection in the same way that they ask for it, -- suppose we should ask Congress to enact a law compelling all people to do no work on Saturday, in order to protect us in our right to keep Saturday; what would be thought of that? what would these people themselves think of it? what ought anybody to think of it, but that it was a piece of unwarranted assumption of authority to force upon others our ideas of religious observances? That is all it would be, and it would be utterly inexcusable. And I risk nothing in saying that these people themselves, as well as everybody else, would pronounce it unwarrantable and inexcusable. But if that would be so in the case of a minority who actually need to be protected, what, then, ought not to be thought of these people who claim to be in the overwhelming majority, in their mission here, asking Congress to compel everybody to rest on Sunday for their protection!
Gentlemen, it is not protection, but power, that they want.
Remarks by John B. Wood
Mr. Wood -- Mr. Chairman. As a member of the society of Friends, a Quaker, I should like to say a few words.
I have a great deal of sympathy with people who talk about the right of conscience. I do not think the United States Government has any right over the conscience. We, as Friends, deny their right over our consciences while we act in accordance with the revealed will of God, the Bible.
In looking at this Sunday question, I see nothing in the Bible -- there is no word in it -- in which it is stated that we shall have to work on the first day of the week. Therefore, I do not think the Seventh-day Baptists have any right to object to the proposed legislation. The only thing they lose is one more day's work out of the week.
The society of Friends has always denied the right to fight. The result has been that in the United States they have never lost a life by that means, not even during the last war. The Lord Jesus Christ has always protected them.
I think that any Saturday Baptist who believes honestly that the Sabbath is Saturday, can depend upon the Lord's providing for him in five days of the week just as well as if he worked six, and he will have two Sundays instead of one, and be that much better off.
Reply
Mr. Jones -- In answer to the question raised by Mr. Wood, that conscientious convictions do not require us to work on the first day of the week, one of the six working days, I wish to say, --
First, we deny his right, as well as the right of the State, to assume the prerogative of deciding for us what the Bible teaches, or what our conscientious convictions do, or do not, require.
Secondly, we deny the right of the State to cause us to lose the whole, or any part, of a day's work out of every week. And I turn this point upon him as I turned it upon the others, Why have we not as much right to ask for a law compelling them to rest on the day that we keep, as they have to compel us to rest on the day which they keep? "The only thing they would lose is one more day's work out of the week." Then they could "have two Sundays instead of one, and be that much better off." Why is it not as good for them as it is for us? Or is this a benefit reserved solely for those who do not keep Sunday? How this invades the Constitutional right of acquiring and possessing property, and does deprive us of property without due process of law, I have already discussed.
Thirdly, upon this point I wish to read Judge Cooley's opinion.
Mr. Wood -- I referred to the Bible.
Mr. Jones -- The Bible says, "Six days shalt thou labor." While I do not insist that this is an absolute command that we shall actually work the whole six days, I do insist that it is a God-given permission, and therefore our God-given right, to work six days of every week. And we deny forever the right of the State to forbid us to do that which,to say the very least, God has given us the express right to do.
As this is a matter of legislation and therefore of law, Judge Cooley's opinion is of weight upon the subject. He says: --
"The Jew [and the seventh-day Christian as well] who is forced to respect the first day of the week, when his conscience requires of him the observance of the seventh also, may plausibly urge that the law discriminates against his religion, and by forcing him to keep a second Sabbath in each week, unjustly, though by indirection, punishes him for his belief."
I have shown --
Senator Blair -- He says "plausibly." That word plausibly indicates that there are some counter views somewhere.
Mr. Jones -- As to the exact sense in which he uses the word plausibly, of course we cannot tell without consulting Mr. Cooley himself; but I do not see why we should put the strongest meaning into the word, especially as farther on he shows that the argument of the Seventh-day keeper is unanswerable. I am inclined to think that the Judge uses the word there in the sense of fairly, rightly, or feasibly.
Next he says: --
"The laws which prohibit ordinary employments on Sunday are to be defendant, either on the same grounds which justify the punishment of profanity, or as establishing sanitary regulations based upon the demonstration of experience that one day's rest in seven is needful to recuperate the exhausted energies of body and mind."
That is one of the pretended grounds of this petition for this national Sunday law; but the answer of the Supreme Court of California to that is this: --
"This argument is founded on the assumption that mankind are in the habit of working too much, and thereby entailing evil upon society; and that, without compulsion, they will not seek the necessary repose which their exhausted natures demand. This is to us a new theory, and is contradicted by the history of the past and the observations of the present. We have heard in all ages of declamations and reproaches against the vice of indolence; but we have yet to learn that there has ever been any general complaint of an intemperate, vicious, unhealthy, or morbid industry. On the contrary, we know that mankind seek cessation from toil, from the natural influences of self-preservation, in the same manner and as certainly as they seek slumber, relief from pain, or food to appease their hunger. . . . If we cannot trust free agents to regulate their own labor, its times and quantity, it is difficult to trust them to make their own contracts. If the legislature could prescribe the days of rest for them, then it would seem that the same power could prescribe the hours to work, rest, and eat." -- Ex parte Newman, 9 Cal. 509, 518.
And Judge Cooley's answer to it is this: --
"The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania have preferred to defend such legislation on the second ground rather than the first, but it appears to us that if the benefit of the individual is alone to be considered, the argument against the law which he may make who has already observed the seventh day of the week, is unanswerable."
Senator Blair -- But he also holds that for the general, the public good, Sunday laws are Constitutional.
Mr. Jones -- Yes; and to be sustained upon authority. For the next sentence says: --
"But on the other ground, it is clear that these laws are supportable on authority, notwithstanding the inconvenience which they occasion to those whose religious sentiments do not recognize the sacred character of the first day of the week."
It is something unusual for persons to undertake to answer an unanswerable argument. But Judge Cooley employs here the only means by which an unanswerable argument can ever be answered: and that is, "on authority." That is the way the papacy has done it from the days of Pope Zosimus, A. D., 418, who, when asked for the reasons for certain of this arrogant actions, exclaimed: "So it has pleased the Apostolic See!" That was a sufficient answer to all inquiries, and even to unanswerable arguments.
England fastened upon the American colonies the Stamp Act. Our fathers presented unanswerable arguments against it; but the Stamp Act, like Judge Cooley's Constitutional Sunday laws, was supportable "on authority," and that was enough. England proposed to enforce it. But our revolutionary fathers refused assent to any such method of answering unanswerable arguments. So we refuse our assent to Mr. Cooley's answer to that which he himself pronounces an unanswerable argument.
Senator Blair -- It does not follow that there is no unanswerable argument in support of Sunday laws, I take it.
Mr. Jones -- There is the authority.
Senator Blair -- There is authority for the Sunday laws. It does not follow because the Sunday laws are supported by authority that therefore there is no sufficient argument upon which to base them.
Mr. Jones -- What authority is there for Sunday laws?
Senator Blair -- That is what you have been discussing; but you seem to say that because Sunday laws are supported "by authority," it is the only argument in favor of a bad law that there is authority for it. But there may be good authority for the Sunday law.
Mr. Jones -- That is what is shown here, that there is no good authority for it when it unjustly punishes a man for his belief. There cannot be any good authority for unjustly punishing any man for anything, much less for unjustly punishing him for his belief.
Senator Blair -- He does not say it is bad.
Mr. Jones -- But it is bad. Is there any good answer to an unanswerable argument?
Now, I propose to find out what authority there is for Sunday laws.
I before referred to the decision of the Supreme Court of Arkansas, and have shown from a statement of the committee on "law and law reform," of which the members of the Supreme Court were members, that decision was unconstitutional. I have shown that the principle upon which their decision rested was that of the omnipotence of parliament. In this, however, the State of Arkansas only followed the decisions of other States. In 1858, the Constitution of California said, in Section 4: "The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship without discrimination or preference shall forever be allowed in this State." There was a statute passed by the legislature enforcing the observance of "the Christian Sabbath," on the first day of the week. A Jew in Sacramento kept his store open on Sunday; he was arrested, convicted, and sent to jail. He sued out a writ of habeas corpus on the ground of "the illegality of his imprisonment by reason of the unconstitutionality of the law." The majority of the court sustained the plea by decisions separately written, whose soundness, both upon Constitutional principles and upon the abstract principle of justice itself, can never be successfully controverted. Mr. Stephen J. Field, now Associate-Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was then a member of the California Court. He rendered a dissenting opinion, taking the same position as the Supreme Court of Arkansas as to the omnipotence of the legislature, and soberly maintaining that the term "Christian Sabbath" in the act was not a discrimination or preference in favor of any religious profession or worship. He declared that "moralists and statesmen," "men of science and distinguished philosophers," have pronounced the rule of "one day's rest in seven" to be "founded upon a law of our race." But he omitted to state what scientist or philosopher or moralist or statesman has ever pronounced upon what law is founded the rule of two days' rest in seven for the man who chooses to rest some other day than Sunday!
In his written opinion, Mr. Field said that he had found that in twenty-five States of the Union, Sunday laws had been held to be Constitutional. That this is so there can be no doubt.