Thus the first ten of the amendments became part and parcel of the Constitution in 1791. The first of them (which was originally the third) is the guarantee of religious liberty. From these facts it appears that the credit of the First Amendment is due to the First Congress, which proposed it, and to the conventions of the States of New York, Virginia, North Carolina, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and the minority of Pennsylvania, all of which suggested it, directly or indirectly, in substantially the same language. As to individuals, James Madison, of Virginia, who became the fourth President of the United States, has the honor of being the chief advocate of this amendment in Congress. It was his conviction that religion was the gainer by its separation from politics. We have an interesting testimony to this effect from his pen in a letter to Edward Livingston, dated Montpellier, July 10, 1822. "It was the belief of all sects at one time," he says, "that the establishment of religion by law was right and necessary; that the true religion ought to be established in exclusion of every other; and that the only question to be decided was, which was the true religion. The example of Holland proved that a toleration of sects dissenting from the established sect was safe, and even useful. The example of the colonies, now States, which rejected religious establishments altogether, proved that all sects might be safely and advantageously put on a footing of equal and entire freedom. . . It is impossible to deny that in Virginia religion prevails with more zeal and a more exemplary priesthood than it ever did when established and patronized by public authority. We are teaching the world the great truth that governments do better without kings and nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson: that religion flourishes in greater purity without than with the aid of government." 1 "Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, Fourth President of the United States," in 4 vols., published by order of Congress, Philadelphia, 1867, vol. iii. 275, 276. LIMITATION OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY-DECISION OF THE The Constitution does not define "religion," nor limit "the free exercise thereof." But "religion" must, at all events, include all branches of the Christian Church which then existed in the various States, with their creeds, forms of government, worship, and discipline. They are all excluded from becoming a state-religion, but all can practise and enjoy “free exercise." This is much more than freedom of religious opinions; for this exists everywhere, even under the most despotic governments, and is beyond the reach of law, which deals only with overt actions. Freedom of exercise includes public worship, acts of discipline, and every legitimate manifestation of religion. The spirit and disposition of our government allow the widest latitude to this free exercise that is at all consistent with public safety. Hence even irreligion and infidelity have free play and scatter their poison wide and far by word and pen. The prevailing sentiment is, that error may safely be tolerated where truth is free to combat it. Truth is. mighty and must prevail in the end.. Its triumph is all the more sure and lasting if it is brought about by its own. merits, unaided by material force. But there must be some boundary to religious, as to all Limitution other liberty, when it assumes an organized shape or manifests itself in public acts. Liberty is not lawlessness and licentiousness. No man has the liberty to do wrong, or to injure his neighbor, or to endanger the public peace and welfare. Liberty, in the nature of the case, is limited by the supreme law of self-preservation, which inheres in a commonwealth as well as in an individual; and by the golden rule of loving our neighbor as ourselves. My neighbor's liberty is as sacred as mine, and I dare not encroach upon it. Religious liberty may be abused as well as the liberty of speech and of the press, or any other liberty; and all abuses are punishable by law if they violate the rights of others. A religion which injures public morals and enjoins criminal practices is a public nuisance, and must be treated as such. So far religious liberty in America has moved within the bounds of Christian civilization and public morality, and it is not likely to transgress those bounds. The first and so far the only case in which the government was forced to define the limits of religious liberty was the case of Mormon polygamy in Utah, which is sanctioned by the Mormon religion, but which is utterly opposed to Western, as distinct from Oriental, civilization. The Congress of the United States prohibited polygamy by law (1862).' The Supreme Court sustained the prohibition as constitutional and valid, and within the legislative power of Congress which has exclusive control over the Territories. In the decision, delivered October, 1878, Chief-Justice Morrison R. Waite thus defines the bounds of the religious liberty guaranteed by the Constitution: " "Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. Suppose one believed that human sacrifices were a necessary part of religious worship, would 1 Section 5352 of the Revised Statutes: "Every person having a husband or wife living, who marries another, whether married or single, in a Territory or other place over which the United States have exclusive jurisdiction, is guilty of bigamy, and shall be punished by a fine of not more than $500, and by imprisonment for a term of not more than five years.' 2 Reynolds vs. the United States, vol. 98, U. S. Supreme Court Reports, p. 166 sqq. The plaintiff, George Reynolds, was charged with bigamy, and "proved that at the time of his alleged second marriage he was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, commonly called the Mormon Church, and a believer in its doctrines; that it was an accepted doctrine of that church, that it was the duty of male members of said church, circumstances permitting, to practise polygamy ; .. that this duty was enjoined by different books which the members of said church believed to be of divine origin, and among others the Holy Bible, and also that the members of the church believed that the practice of polygamy was directly enjoined upon the male members thereof by the Almighty God, in a revelation to Joseph Smith, the founder and prophet of said church; that the failing or refusing to practise polygamy by such male members of said church, when circumstances would admit, would be punished, and that the penalty for such failure and refusal would be damnation in the life to come." (P. 161.) it be seriously contended that the civil government under which he lived could not interfere to prevent a sacrifice? Or if a wife religiously believed it was her duty to burn herself upon the funeral pile of her dead husband, would it be beyond the power of the civil government to prevent her carrying her belief into practice? "So here, as a law of the organization of society under the exclusive dominion of the United States, it is provided that plural marriages shall not be allowed. Can a man exercise his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief?! To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines. of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Government could exist only in name under such circumstances." This decision is of the greatest importance. It would strictly exclude from toleration also the public exercise of Mohammedanism which sanctions polygamy, and of such heathen religions as sanction human sacrifices. The popular hostility to the Chinese in California, and the congressional restriction of Chinese immigration, are partly due to American intolerance of the heathen customs and practices of that remarkable people, who, by their industry and skill, have largely contributed to the development of the material wealth of the Pacific States, and deserve a better treatment than they have received. How far the United States government may go hereafter in the limitations of religious liberty depends upon the course of public opinion, which frames and interprets the laws in a free country. The constitutions of the individual States, which guarantee religious liberty, generally guard it against abuse, and expressly declare that "the liberty of conscience hereby secured shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness, or justify practices inconsistent with the peace and safety of the State." 1 1 So the constitutions of New York, Illinois, California, and other States. THE CHARGE OF POLITICAL ATHEISM. The colonial charters, the Declaration of Independence, and most of the State constitutions recognize, more or less explicitly, the great truth of an all-ruling Providence in the origin and history of nations. But the Constitution of the United States omits the mention even of the name of God.' This was a sin of omission, if sin at all, but not of commission, or intentional slight. Washington, in his reply to a Christian address from Massachusetts and New Hampshire after his inauguration, ascribes the absence of any regulation respecting religion to the consideration of the framers that "this important object is more properly committed to the guidance of the ministers of the gospel." The omission or inadvertency has given rise to the charge of political atheism against the Constitution. During the civil war, when the religious sensibilities of the nation were excited in their inmost depths, and the fate of the Union was trembling in the balance, a "National Association to secure certain religious amendments to the Constitution" was formed under the presidency of Justice William Strong, of the United States Supreme Court, for the purpose of carrying through Congress such an alteration in the preamble as would recognize the national faith in God and in Christ. The amendment is as follows, the proposed insertions being included in brackets: "We, the people of the United States [humbly acknowledging Almighty God as the source of all authority and power in civil government, the Lord Jesus Christ as the Ruler of all nations, and his revealed will as the supreme law of the land, in order to constitute a Christian government, and] in order 1 So did also the Articles of Confederation of July 24, 1778, except in the words of the Ratification: "Whereas it has pleased the Great Governor of the world," etc. 66 B. F. Morris, Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States" (Philadelphia, 1864), p. 248, reports a mythical story of Alexander Hamilton, that after the adjournment of the Convention he was asked the reason of the omission by Rev. Dr. Miller, of Princeton, and replied: "I declare we forgot it." But Dr. Miller was not called to Princeton till 1813, nine years after Hamilton's death. Morris gives no authority for his statement, and introduces it simply by a vague "it is said." |