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by Benjamin F.
Underwood
Benjamin F. Underwood: The Practical Separation of Church and State (1876)
This address,
presented to the 1876 Centennial Congress of Liberals, is a ringing call
for the separation of church and state. This address is important not only
for it's philosophical and practical arguments on behalf of separation,
but for it's historical arguments that separation was intended by the
framers. Additionally, Underwood argues against what turned out to be an
unsuccessful attempt to amend the Constitution to officially acknowledge
Christianity.
To
some it may seem superfluous, in this country, and at this day, to make a
plea for the separation of Church and State. There are persons ready to
declare that with us there is no connection between the two, that nobody
wants them united, that everybody believes in and exercises religious
liberty in this country, and that there is no use and no reason in
agitating this subject, especially at a time when we should all join 'in
viewing the results and celebrating the triumphs of our hundred years of
national existence. Loud professions and boastful claims never fail to
impress the crowd. The majority of men assume that what they have always
heard must be true. Loudness of assertion is take X for argument, and
extravagance of statement for evidence. The fact that millions of human
beings were held in slavery under our flag a few years ago, never modified
the claims of the ordinary Fourth of July orator, nor did it abate in the
least the enthusiasm of the average audience, whenever reference was made
to this country as the exclusive abode of the goddess of Liberty,-- as the
"land of the free and the home of the brave." Now the inconsistency is
seen and acknowledged by those, even, who a few years ago were ready to
cry "fanatic," "freedom shrieker," "traitor," whenever any one hinted at
the inconsistency between profession and performance, pretension and
practice, in this American Republic. The time will come, when it will be
seen, not less clearly, that the popular notion that there is an utter
disconnection between Church and State in America, and that all our laws
are in harmony therewith, is a notion which is at variance with the real
facts. Nor is there a universal recognition of the right of all persons to
avow and advocate their religious beliefs. There is in this country a
class by no means inconsiderable in numbers or insignificant in influence
that show by their acts, and a certain party among them by the frank
avowal of their purposes, that they are opposed to equal rights and
impartial religious liberty. Nothing will satisfy them but the
incorporation of their own religious dogmas into the National
Constitution, so as to make them a part of the organic law. Then, while we
should not be insensible to the great achievements of a century, while
indeed, we should feel gratified with the numerous evidences of progress,
and among them the undoubted increase in liberality of sentiment, yet
patriotism does not require, nor will a reasonable prudence and
forethought permit us, to ignore the existence of evils which have
descended to us, or those which have sprung up and assumed prominence in
our own time, and, if not checked, may be a source of mischief in the
future.
Here, as in other countries, there is a large class in whose education the
principles of morality have been subordinated to the dogmas of theology,
and whose devotion to their religion, in consequence, is far stronger than
their sense of justice, or their understanding of its requirements in
their relations with their fellow men. They are willing, at any time, to
support measures that they think will promote the interests of their
faith, without regard to the personal or legal rights of those who cannot
adopt their views. Many of them lack the breadth of thought and
catholicity of spirit to understand that there is any wrong in censuring
and punishing those who reject their creeds, which they not only firmly
believe to be true, but regard as surpassing in importance all other
truths. Hence they would conscientiously, to the extent of their ability,
prevent all discussions and suppress all doubts tending to disparage them,
and interdict any denial of their truth or divine origin. They would
gladly have the government changed to correspond with their religious
views, and so administered as to favor and enforce exclusively their
religious beliefs.
There are others who are more intellectual, but quite as much under the
influence of theological creeds, who are in favor of a union between
Church and State, because they see that, from their standpoint, there is a
logical necessity for it, to make the government harmonize with the
teachings and demands of their religion. Upon the acceptance of their
views depend the eternal interests of mankind, as well as that less
important concern -- the welfare of the State. They, therefore, ask that
their religion be sustained by the government and enforced, if necessary,
by coercive measures, for reasons compared with which all other reasons
seem petty and insignificant: namely, to save multitudes from eternal
torture, and secure for them an inheritance of eternal glory. If Christ
died for this, can they be true followers of him (they argue) if they
allow any mere theories of religious liberty -- which are nowhere
sustained by the word of God-- to Prevent their using all means within
their power for crushing every error and delusion that stands in the way
of the religion of the Cross Bigoted and fanatical the men who reason thus
may be; but they are earnest and conscientious, consistent, possess the
courage of their opinions, and are really the most dangerous class that we
have to contend with in opposing the Christianization of this government.
We have also an army of political demagogues who are ever watching and
waiting to spring to the support of any movement, however unjust, which
promises them office or influence. The moment they discover a large and
increasing public sentiment in favor of a measure, it has for them, a
special attraction. They are not less zealous in opposing any reform,
however beneficent, than the removal of any abuse, however great, if
behind it there is not sufficient numerical strength and popular approval
to make it for their personal interest to come out in favor of it. Their
assumed piety and reverence are so great that it pains them to hear of any
movement which threatens to disturb the institutions of the past, or the
time-honored customs of their fathers, so long indeed as they are
sustained by popular ignorance and prejudice; but just as soon as they see
a growing sentiment in favor of the movement, their veneration and pious
regard for the notions of their ancestors forsake them, and they are
profuse with words of approval and admiration. These are men to be ranked
among the enemies of all reforms in their inception, and their influence
with the masses makes them formidable foes of progress. Morally, they are
most despicable men...
With such elements as these in the country, and with the lessons of the
past before us, the relation of the State to the religious beliefs of the
people cannot be a matter of small concern. Although I am of the opinion
that there is a very large element in this country in favor of the
complete secularization of the State, sufficient, if aroused to its
importance, to give us, through legislative enactments, all needed
guarantees of impartial religious liberty, yet, if there were but twelve
individuals in sympathy with the movement, it would be none the less the
duty of those twelve persons to work for its triumph. Indeed, to the truly
wise mind the disposition to labor for it would be even greater -- greater
in proportion to its need of friends and the amount of work to be
accomplished. . . .
The American Revolution found and left every State, Rhode Island only
excepted, so related to the Church that there was a complete
inter-dependence. This relation was continued by special provision in the
new Constitutions which were adopted after the Declaration of
Independence, in every State, with the exception of New York. Some of the
States, among them Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland,
inserted a clause requiring a statement of religious belief as a condition
of office. In 1780, Benjamin Franklin wrote to Richard Price:
"I am fully of your opinion respecting religious tests; but though the
people of Massachusetts have not in the new Constitution kept quite clear
of them, yet, if we consider what that people were one hundred years ago,
we must allow they have gone great lengths in liberality of sentiment on
religious subjects; and we may hope for greater degrees of perfection when
their Constitution, some years hence, shall be revised."
North
and South Carolina and Georgia required all officers of the State to be of
the Protestant faith. Since those days, the Constitutions of all the
States have been revised, and the connection between Church and State has
been made more indirect and greatly lessened. Yet there are several States
in which belief in the existence of a God is required as a condition of
office, and in nearly all it is impossible for an atheist to testify in
the courts, if he frankly avows his opinions. Only by compromising with
his conscience, by equivocating, or by concealing his own views, can he
avoid the humiliation of having his testimony excluded, What a premium on
dishonesty and hypocrisy is thus offered by the State! But we are not here
so much concerned with the moral effects as with the great injustice of
such a religious test, and its utter incongruity with the principles of
equal rights and religious liberty. How can any man who is in favor of
such a law look a freethinker in the face, and say that he is in favor of
impartial liberty!
Then in every State we have official legislative prayers, which, being
acts of devotion, involve a connection between Church and State, as must
any official act of any department of the government which enforces,
favors, or aids any religious doctrine or duty. The direction or
performance by the State of religious worship is a combined clerical and
political service. When our political representatives convert the
legislative halls into rooms for religions worship, and transform the
legislative bodies into prayer meetings, such association of political and
religious acts is an actual union of Church and State.
So the custom of appointing days of fasting, thanksgiving, and prayer, by
the State, through its chief magistrate, is another link connecting the
two. It is an official declaration of the existence of a God, the duty of
fasting, praying and giving thanks to God.
Nearly all the States have laws enforcing the observance of Sunday as the
Sabbath, and not infrequently individuals are arrested and fined for doing
work or indulging in amusements on that day, when their acts in no way
disturb others. If the State is independent of the Church, what right has
it to require the observance of one day as a Sabbath more than another?
And how can it punish any man for doing work at any time, when he does not
thereby infringe on the rights of other members of society? The judicature
of the country is disgraced, so long as our courts serve as tribunals for
such sectarian purposes.
The use of the Bible and the performance of religious exercises in our
public schools, sustained and enforced by State authority and public
appropriations for religious institutions, are utterly inconsistent with
that complete separation of Church and State which is so often declared to
exist in this country.
The exemption of churches, church property and religious institutions from
taxation, thereby forcing indirectly into their support persons who do not
believe in their utility, is an outrage on the rights of all such persons,
and a remnant of that religious despotism which once treated mankind as
slaves, and robbed its victims, in the name of God, to build costly
cathedrals, and enable ecclesiastics to live in luxury and ease.
Our National Constitution, thanks to the wisdom of our fathers, is a
purely secular instrument. It declares that Congress shall make no laws
respecting an establishment of religion, and that no religious test shall
be required for any office or public trust. In the treaty with Tripoli,
which was signed by George Washington, it was declared that the United
States Government is not founded on the Christian religion. Undoubtedly
the feeling of the framers of the Constitution on this subject were well
expressed by Franklin, when, in a letter to a friend, he wrote:
"When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself, and when it
cannot support itself, and God does not care to support it, so that its
Professors are obliged to call for the help of the civil power, it is a
sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."
But
notwithstanding the entirely secular character of the National
Constitution, from the first there was in the administration of the
general movement a yielding to ecclesiastical influence backed up as it
was by a strong religious sentiment. Days of fasting, thanksgiving and
prayer were appointed by the early Presidents, as well as by the Governors
of States. The first by Washington, was at the close of his first
administration, by the special request of Congress. Jefferson refused to
follow the example of his predecessors, and thereby incurred the wrath of
the clergy and all persons of Puritanical proclivities. "I know," he
wrote, "it will give great offence to the clergy; but the advocate of
religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from them."
"I consider," he wrote, "the government of the United States as
interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious
institutions, their doctrine, discipline, or exercises." "Fasting and
prayer are religious exercises; the enjoying them is an act of religious
discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself
the time for these exercises, and the objects proper to them, according to
its own Peculiar tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their
own hands, where the Constitution has deposited it. Civil powers alone
have been given to the President of the United States, and he has no
authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents."
This view, so clearly the only correct and just one, has been generally
disregarded, and the appointment by the President of the United States of
days for religious exercises has become established as a custom. There are
persons, now indifferent to its religious character, who justify it on the
plea of custom alone. But the repetition of practices unauthorized by, and
contrary to, the Constitution, is no reason for their further continuance.
Custom, in legal parlance, signifies a usage from time immemorial neither
against law, nor individual nor public right. It is no justification of
any wrong that the aggressor has for a long time been accustomed to
wrong-doing.
The presence of Chaplains in the halls of legislation, in the army and
navy, and in other departments of the general government, is as
unconstitutional as it is unjust. Congress, having been invested with no
ecclesiastical authority, has no constitutional right to create an
ecclesiastical office, or to induct any person into such office created by
the Church. The appointment of Chaplains by the Government of the United
States is an unauthorized act of political legislation, as little in
keeping with the spirit of our Constitution as praying in public places --
for instance in Congress -- is in accordance with the teachings of the
Nazarene reformer.
Not content, however, with these unjust discriminations in favor of
believers in the Christian religion, some of them now demand that such
changes be made in the Constitution and in the government as shall be
necessary to make the main dogmas of this religion part of the organic
law. The movement, having for its object the accomplishment of this change
by Constitutional amendments and such legislature as may be necessary to
enforce them, has during the past few years acquired considerable strength
and influence. It numbers among its friends eminent clergymen, Presidents
of Colleges, Governors of States, Members of Congress, and Judges of the
Supreme Court. We cannot ignore it.
In all ages and countries, in proportion as the adherents of religion have
come to agree in belief and be consolidated in organization, their
disposition and power have increased to influence the government to
enforce theological dogmas and impose disabilities on dissenters.
Fortunately for us, the number of sects, and the competitive strife
between them in this country, have been unfavorable to the encroachment of
the Church on the State. Occupied chiefly with increasing their numbers
and adding to their wealth, and more or less envious of one another, they
have had but little disposition to unite their forces and organize for
concerted and concentrated action. But, with the growth of Liberalism and
the subordination of many of the doctrinal points which have heretofore
distinguished them as separate bodies to those fundamental doctrines which
they hold in common, one of the chief obstacles to their union has been
removed, and the danger of their interference with the government is
thereby greatly increased. The rapid growth of anti-Christian sentiments,
with the more bigoted and intolerant of all sects, is the strongest reason
for a union, when in the absence of danger to their faith their chief
pleasure consists in cursing and anathematizing one another on account of
differences so small that they are scarcely perceptible to the
unregenerate mind.
Evangelical alliances, presenting to us the spectacle of sects heretofore
hostile assembled on terms of apparent friendship for a common purpose,
even though they are an evidence of a growing liberality of the sects
towards one another, are not without portentous significance, well
calculated to arouse apprehensions in the minds of those who are
acquainted with history and are lovers of religious liberty. A religious
element that will maintain the rightfulness of forcing all tax-payers to
pay taxes which religious societies only should pay, of excluding from the
courts the testimony of citizens who differ from it on speculative
subjects, of keeping in our schools a religious service that is
objectionable to a large and respectable portion of the patrons of these
schools, who are taxed equally with others for their support, goes no
farther, simply because it lacks the power. If it could, it would force
Jews, spiritualists, and free-thinkers of every phase of thought to attend
churches and help pay the salary of the clergy, and prevent all gatherings
and prohibit all expressions of belief not in accordance with its own
belief, as was done in New England by the Puritans and their pious and
persecuting descendants. Whatever those who are petitioning Congress for
an amendment to our Constitution that shall recognize "God as the source
of all authority, Jesus Christ as the Ruler among Nations, and the Bible
as the supreme authority" may disclaim now, it is plain that they purpose
to make belief in Christianity a test of office and of citizenship, and
thereby disfranchise all Jews, Infidels, Buddhists, Mohammedans, and
others who cannot accept Christianity as a supernatural religion. The
incorporation of their dogmas in the Constitution means the legislative
and executive enforcement of them by governmental authority. To be
consistent, the government will have to give directions in regard to the
worship of God, and see that the citizens make their conduct conform to
the revealed will of God, which is to be the authority from which no
appeal can be made.
The sect that finds itself in the numerical majority will have the power
to enforce by acts of Congress its own Peculiar dogmas as the supreme law,
because these will be declared authoritatively the revealed will of God.
Free-thinkers and non-Christians of all classes have no rights the Church
will be bound to respect. Says the Methodist Nome Journal:
"We hold that, to be consistent with ourselves, Infidelity should not be
tolerated in our country, much less encouraged by those who openly profess
and teach its doctrines."
Only
a few weeks ago in Baltimore, at the general conference of the Methodist
church, was offered a resolution declaring that all the blessings of civil
and religious liberty which we so abundantly enjoy are due to the
enlightening influence of the Christian religion, and recommending "to the
members of the Church throughout the country that they use every just and
proper means to Place in all the civil offices of our government only such
men as are known to Possess and maintain a true Christian character and
principles." We have here the expression of the views and wishes of
thousands of Orthodox Protestants, many of whom are less frank in the
avowal of their ultimate designs...
Independently of the lessons of history, teaching us the terrible
consequences of a union of civil and ecclesiastical power, a complete
separation of Church and State is demanded by the imprescriptible rights
of the human mind. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness involves the right to profess and advocate our views. Whether
they be true or false affects not the sacredness of the right of the
believer. He has a right to one God, or three, or three thousand, or none
at all; to worship or not as he pleases, at any time and in any manner
that he thinks proper, when he does not thereby interfere with the equal
rights of others. No human power, no earthly tribunal can justify dictate
to any individual what he shall believe in regard to religion, or how, or
when, or where he shall worship. If his views are such that they require
him to violate the rules of decency or the acknowledged principles of
morality, let him be restrained -- if necessary, punished, for such
violation; but let no one suppose that by an appeal to extreme cases, even
involving the right of society to deal with dangerous monomaniacs, or
disturbers of the peace, any justification can be found for interference
by the State. With men's religious beliefs, no individual, no number of
individuals, with direct or delegated authority, have the right to use
coercive measures to prevent any persons from promulgating any religion,
or to induce him to subscribe to any creed, perform any worship,
acknowledge any God, or support any religion on earth.
The Puritans have been eulogized for braving the dangers of the ocean and
the privations of the wilderness, that they might worship God as
conscience dictated. It is not strange that with the imperfect views of
religious freedom then prevailing, they or their immediate descendants
soon re-established in the new world a religious despotism more intolerant
than that in the old world from which they had fled; but when we see men
who lack language strong enough to denounce their persecutors, or to
Praise their sincerity and courage, earnestly advocating measures to-day
to deprive of religious liberty such of their fellow citizens as cannot
subscribe to their own views, we are most painfully impressed with the
power of bigotry and superstition so to distort the mind as to make
enemies of those who should be our friends, verifying the saying that "a
man's foes shall be those of his own household."
There are millions in this country who cannot conscientiously support any
kind of supernatural religion. Have they no rights the Church is bound to
respect? We are told that the views of such are an offence to God. This is
the teaching of theologians. But many things which have been pronounced by
them an offense to God, have in succeeding generations, by the same class,
been discovered to be right so we cannot resist the conviction that these
men who talk so confidently about the will and wishes of God, as an
argument against equal rights and religious freedom, simply give
expression to the will and wishes of their own minds. When they declare
that God is displeased with the omission of his name from the national
Constitution, and that it is his requirement that this government
recognize Jesus Christ as "Ruler among nations," we accept these
statements as evidence that those who utter them, however sincerely, see
the spread of those liberal sentiments that are gradually undermining
their spiritual authority, and that they feel the necessity of securing
the aid of the civil power to guard against the innovations of skepticism
and science.
Further those who are in favor of uniting Church and State, after
declaring (what is so evident that none dispute it) that morality is
necessary to the State, coolly assure us that morality depends upon the
Christian religion, and without its light and authority virtue has no
fixed standard, no guarantee, no sanctions. Here we have the real
difference reduced to its last terms between many of those who would
Christianize and those who would secularize the government. Both parties
hold to the importance of good morals. But one believes there can be no
true morality except in connection with Christianity; while the other
maintains that morality is natural and secular, and does not depend for
its existence, or for the practice of its precepts, upon any religion
whatever. Thus is involved in this contest the true nature and the real
basis of morality, without an understanding of which there can hardly be
an intelligent appreciation of the merits of the controversy.
To us nothing is more clear than that morality depends not upon any system
of faith: it requires no miraculous evidence; it is independent of
theological dogma; no supernatural halo can heighten its beauty; no
ecclesiastical influence can strengthen its obligations; it is confined to
no one country, limited to no one age, restricted to no one form of faith,
the exclusive possession of no one class, sect, order, nation, or race of
men; it requires no written decalogue; it needs no single individual
authority; theology can not add to it, neither can it take from it. It has
its indestructible basis in the nature of man, as a feeling, thinking,
acting being, and in society as an aggregation of such beings, with the
manifold relations and the acknowledged rights and duties that spring
therefrom. Empires rise and perish; religions grow and decay; special
forms of civilization appear and give way to other types; but as, amid all
the mutations of human existence, the nature of man remains essentially
the same, and through all these changes the social condition everlastingly
persists, morality can never be without a foundation as broad and deep and
enduring as humanity itself. It changes not, but, as Cicero says, it is
"the same at Rome and at Athens, to-day and tomorrow; alone, eternal, and
invariable, it binds all nations and all times." Its highest standard is
the enlightened reason of man. The better man understands his nature, and
the more he is capable, by reason of intelligence and culture, of
comprehending the object of society and his relations thereto, the better
understanding will he have of the principles of morality.
Theologians could have no ideas of moral qualities, unless they had
discovered them in humanity. They are observed in man, and as in him they
are admired in contrast to the opposite qualities, they are ascribed to
God; and then theologians, having invested God with human qualities and
denied to him what they have borrowed from him with which to invest God
before they could form any conception of him as a moral being, most
ungratefully as well as inconsistently declare there can be no morality
independently of their theological system and book revelation. Of course,
it is nothing to ignore the fact that, before either the one or the other
appeared, society existed and nations flourished essentially the same as
they do to-day!
One would suppose, from the claims which are frequently made, that there
was no morality before the Christian era; that men were entirely wanting
in knowledge of what is right, and the disposition to do it; in short,
that all men were thieves, robbers, and murderers, before they heard of
Jesus Christ. I do not wonder that a system which through its
representatives gives currency to such a falsehood as this wants the aid
of civil power to enforce its teachings.
The morality of the advanced nations to-day is commonly called Christian
morality, but only with the same disregard of truth which is implied in
denying the existence of virtue and goodness before Christ and outside of
Christendom. The morality of this age does nor owe its existence to any
religion, to any book, to any historic character, however much or little
any one of these has influenced mankind. Our present conception of
morality has grown through many centuries of human experience, and exists
now only because by many mistakes and much suffering man has learned its
adaptedness to his wants. It is the result of the combined influence of
our natural character and education. To ascribe it to the dominant
religion were as absurd as to attribute the enlightenment of the ancient
Creeks to their mythology, or the enlightenment of the Saracens of Spain
in the ninth and tenth centuries, when darkness enveloped Christian
Europe, to the Koran. The fact is, with the advancement of the human mind,
with the discoveries in science and progress in morality, believers in all
systems of religion modify their views so as to adjust them to the new
order of things, always claiming, in ancient and in modern times, in
Egypt, India, Rome, Turkey, England, America, that they find authority for
the new ideas or reforms in their sacred books or religious systems. Soon
they claim these religions are entitled to the exclusive credit of having
produced the beneficent change which they have been powerless to prevent.
Thus, while the Bible teaches the subordination of woman in plain and
unequivocal language, sanctions and authorizes human slavery, and condemns
to unresisting submission to their condition the subjects of oppressive
governments, today in this country the Orthodox believers deny the plain
signification of the Bible on these points, and claim that it has been
effective in the destruction of all kinds of political and social bondage;
this, too, in spite of the fact, that its most zealous advocates, within
the memory of men who are yet young, were quoting its texts to show the
wickedness of the reforms which they now have the hardihood to claim as
the outgrowths of that book! Those portions of a religious system or book
revelation which are shown to be false, or which come to be repudiated by
the enlightened moral sense of the age, are either absolutely ignored or
twisted out of their obvious and natural meaning. By keeping in the
background the teachings of the Bible which have been outgrown, by giving
prominence to the precepts of morality which are attached to all systems
of religion, by stamping them all as Christian, although they were known
and practiced before Christianity was ever heard of, theologians impress
the masses with the conviction that the Bible and the Christian religion
are the foundation of all virtue, and the only hope of the world. It then
presents the theological dogmas -- which have nothing whatever in common
with morality (such as that Jesus Christ is Ruler among Nations) --which
indeed have been the faith, the sincere, unquestioning faith of multitudes
of the most cruel and vicious men of all ages since they have been taught,
and demand their acceptance and incorporation in our Constitution from
purely moral considerations! Making all allowance for the fact that
transitional periods such as the present are always characterized by grave
inconsistencies which imply no dishonesty, it is difficult to believe
that, in these common representations regarding Christianity and morality,
there is not a good deal of disingenuousness and selfish disregard of the
rights of those who will not sustain them in the theological views they
advocate.
This much on this point I have thought it right and proper to say, not for
the purpose of discrediting theology or reflecting on its advocates, but
to meet the assertion so commonly made, one which has great influence with
the masses, that Christianity is entitled to recognition and support by
the State on the ground that it is necessary to that morality without
which the State cannot exist. This argument can impose only on the
uninformed or such as are blinded by prejudice and bigotry to the most
unquestionable facts and the most unanswerable logic. There is no argument
worthy of the name that will justify the union of the Christian religion
with the State. Every consideration of justice and equality forbids it.
Every argument in favor of free Republican institutions is equally an
argument in favor of a complete divorce of the State from the Church.
History in warning tones tells us there can be no liberty without it.
Justice demands it. Public safety requires it. He who opposes it is,
whether he realizes it or not, an enemy of freedom. He who sees its
justice and fails to use his influence in its favor is recreant to duty
and unworthy the name of freeman. Those who today when we are about to
celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of American Independence, are
suffering from disabilities, however slight, on account of religious
beliefs, and who are disposed tamely to submit to such an outrage on their
rights as men and citizens, are in disposition spaniels-- a disgrace to
the very name of Freethinker, and utterly undeserving the inheritance
which has come to them from the illustrious dead -- from those, as Carlyle
says, "whose heroic sufferings rise up melodiously together unto heaven,
out of all times and out of all lands, as a sacred Miserere: their heroic
actions also, as a boundless everlasting Psalm of triumph." Every
sentiment of honor, every manly feeling, a righteous indignation at
injustice, a determination to submit to no religious intolerance, love of
peace and the welfare and prosperity of our country, with an ardent and
unfaltering attachment to republican institutions -- all combine to induce
us to demand a separation of Church and State, total and complete, now,
henceforth, and forever." And we ought never to be content, ought never to
relax our efforts until this is effected, and secured beyond peril by
Constitutional Amendment. Whatever is of worth comes by exertion, and
whatever is valuable needs watchful care. "Eternal vigilance is the price
of liberty."
Thankful for all the blessings that have been secured to us by the
struggles and sacrifices of our fathers, let us show our gratitude and pay
the debt we owe them to those who shall come after us, by adding to what
we have received in strengthening the foundations of freedom, so that no
fury of religious fanaticism will ever be able to destroy them. Long live
the Republic! May she continue to grow in greatness and grandeur till her
light and glory shall fill the earth!
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