may require the people to respect Sunday as a day of rest, why may it not require the people to obey any or all other precepts of the Bible ?
State of the Question,
It is conceded, (1.) That in every free country every man has equal rights with his fellow-citizens, and stands on the same ground in the eye of the law. (2.) That in the United States no form of religion can be established ; that no religious test for the exercise of the elective franchise or for holding of office can be imposed ; and that no preference can be given to the members of one religious denomination above those of another. (3.) That no man can be forced to contribute to the support of any church, or of any religious institution. (4.) That every man is at liberty to regulate his conduct and life according to his convictions or conscience, provided he does not violate the law of the land.
On the other hand it is no less true, —
1. That a nation is not a mere coriglomeration of individuals. It is an organized body. It has of necessity its national life, its national organs, national principles of action, national character, and national responsibility.
2. In every free country the government must, in its organ- ization and mode of action, be an expression of the mind and will of the people.
3. As men are rational creatures, the government cannot banish all sense and reason from their action, because there may be idiots among the people.
4. As men are moral beings, it is impossible that the govern- ment should act as though there were no distinction between right and wrong. It cannot legalize theft and murder. No mat- ter how much it might enrich itself by rapine or by the extermi- nation of other nations, it would deserve and receive universal condemnation and execration, should it thus set at nought the bonds of moral obligation. This necessity of obedience to the moral law on the part of civil governments, does not arise from the fact that they are instituted for the protection of the lives, rights, and property of the people. Why have our own and other Christian nations pronounced the slave-trade piracy and punish- able with death ? Not because it interferes with the rights or liberty of their citizens but because it is wicked. Cruelty to animals is visited with civil penalties, not on the principle of profit and loss, but because it is a violation of the moral law. As it is
842 PART IH Ch. XIX. — THE LAW.
impossible for the individual man to disregard all moral obliga- tions, it is no less impossible on the part of civil governments.
5. Men moreover are religious beings. They can no more ignore that element of their nature than their reason or their conscience. It is no matter what they may say, or may pretend to think, the law which binds them to allegiance to God, is just as inexorable as the law of gravitation. They can no more emancipate themselves from the one than they can from the other. Morality concerns their duty to their fellow-men ; religion con- cerns their duty to God. The latter binds the conscience as much as the former. It attends the man everywhere. It must influence his conduct as an individual, as the head of a family, as a man of business, as a legislator, and as an executive officer. It is absurd to say that civil governments have nothing to do with religion. That is not true even of a fire company, or of a manufactory, or of a banking-house. The religion embraced by the individuals composing these associations must influence their corporate action, as well as their individual conduct. If a man may not blaspheme, a publishing firm may not print and dis- seminate a blasphemous book. A civil government cannot ignore religion any more than physiology. It was not constituted to teach either the one or the other, but it must, by a like necessity, conform its action to the laws of both. Indeed it would be far safer for a government to pass an act violating the laws of health, than one violating the religious convictions of its citizens. The one would be unwise, the other would be tyrannical. Men put up with folly, with more patience than they do with injustice. It is vain for the potsherds of the earth to contend with their Maker. They must submit to the laws of their nature not only as sentient, but also as moral and religious beings. And it is time that blatant atheists, whether communists, scientists, or phi- losophers, should know that they are as much and as justly the objects of pity and contempt, as of indignation to all right-minded men. By right-minded men, is meant men who think, feel, and act according to the laws of their nature. Those laws are or- dained, administered, and enforced by God, and there is no escape from their obligation, or from the penalties attached to their violation.
6. The people of this country being rational, moral, and relig- ious beings, the government must be administered on the prin- ciples of reason, morality, and religion. By a like necessity of right, the people being Christians and Protestants, the government