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Two speeches will serve to exemplify her style:
This Convention has assembled to discuss the subject of
Woman’s Rights, and form some settled plan of action for the future. Let
Syracuse sustain her name for radicalism. While so much is said of the
inferior intellect of woman, it is by a strange absurdity conceded that very
many eminent men owe their station in life to their mothers. Women are now
in the situation of the mass of mankind, a few years since, when science and
learning were in the hands of the priests, and property was held by
vassalage; the Pope and the priests claimed to be, not only the teachers,
but the guides of the people; the laity were not permitted to examine for
themselves; education was held to be unfit for the masses, while the tenure
of their landed property was such as kept them in a continual state of
dependence on their feudal lord.
*** It
is but a short time, since the most common rudiments of education were
deemed sufficient for any woman; could she but read tolerably, and write her
own name, it was enough.
*** Trammeled as women have been, by might and custom, there are still many
shining examples, which serve as beacon lights of what may be attained by
genius, labor, energy, and perseverance combined. “The longer I live in the
world,” says Goethe, “the more I am certain, that the great difference
between the great, and insignificant, is energy, invincible determination;
an honest purpose once fixed, and then victory.” Sir Isaac Newton said of
himself, “that if ever he had been able to do anything, he had effected it
by patient thinking only”; and we are all familiar with the anecdote which
narrates the starting occasion of that train of thought. Ik Marvel, in his
Dream Life, says, “there is no genius in life, like the genius of energy and
industry; that all the traditions, so current among young men, that certain
great characters have wrought their greatness by inspiration, as it were,
grow out of a sad mistake; and that there are no rivals so formidable, as
those earnest, determined minds, which reckon the value of every hour, and
which achieve eminence by persistent application.
Although so much is said against the unfitness of woman for public life, it
can be seen, from Semiramis to Victoria, that she has a peculiar fitness for
governing. In poetry, Sappho was honored by the title of the tenth Muse.
Helena Lucretio Corano, a Venetian lady, who lived in the seventeenth
century, was a woman of such rare scientific attainments, that the most
illustrious persons, in passing through Venice, were more anxious to see her
than all the curiosities of the city. She devoted herself, with intense
perseverance, to literary pursuits; was made a Doctor, and received the
title of Unalterable; and, with all, combined an unostentatious humility.
She was but thirty-eight, when she died. Mary Cunitz, a native of Silesia,
was one of the greatest geniuses of the sixteenth century. She understood
many languages[,] was skilled in history, poetry, painting, music, and
medicine; and these were but amusements. She particularly applied herself
to Mathematics, and especially to Astronomy. She was ranked as one of the
most able astronomers of her time, and formed astronomical tables, that
acquired for her a great reputation. Another lady of the seventeenth
century, Anne Maria Schureman, succeeded admirably in sculpture, engraving,
and music. She was also learned in various languages; but in miniature
painting she particularly excelled.
Constantia Grierson, an Irish girl, of poor
parentage, was celebrated for her literary attainments, although she died at
the early age of twenty-seven.
With the learning, energy, and perseverance of
Lady Jane Grey, Mary, and Elizabeth, all are familiar. Mrs. Montague is
spoken of by Cowper, as standing at the head of all that is called learned,
and, that every critic veiled his bonnet at her superior judgment. Joannie
Baillie has been termed the female Shakspeare (sic). Miss Caroline
Herschell shares the fame of her brother, as an astronomer, having herself
discovered planets and comets. The greatest triumphs of the present age, in
the drama, music, and literature, have been achieved by females, among whom
may be mentioned Miss Cushman, Jenny Lind, Miss Chesebro, Miss Carey, Miss
Fennimore Cooper, Grace Greenwood, Mrs. Stowe, and Margaret Fuller Ossoli.
Mrs. Somerville’s renown has long been spread over both hemispheres, as one
of the first astronomers of the present age. With this, she combines
various literary acquirements; and to those who think them incompatible with
feminine duties, it can be shown that she discharged, in an eminent degree,
every social and family requirement.
To those who say women do not desire their
rights, or think they have them already, I would say, converse with any
intelligent woman on the subject, and you will not find them indifferent.
Woman feels deeply, keenly, her degradation, but is bound by the iron hand
of custom which so long has exercised tyrant rule over her. An ignorant
woman is virtually in the same condition as the peasant who thinks it right
that a king shall rule over him; and to keep him content, he is made to
believe it would be blasphemy and treason in him to call in question this
right.
*** I honor those noble women, who have been
willing to pioneer in the path of duty and right, and bear the obloquy which
always has, and always will, follow the first promulgation of unaccustomed
truths: so suffered the martyrs of old; so suffers Kossuth. Obloquy is said
to be a necessary ingredient of all true glory; it might be said to be a
necessary concomitant of all great truths.
*** The question is,
how can this mental and moral lethargy, which now binds the generality of
women, be shaken off? They are educated to a state of entire dependence;
taught before marriage, to expect a support from their fathers, and after,
from their husbands; to suppress their convictions, if contrary to those of
their fathers, brothers and husbands, and to allow others to act for them.
This state of listlessness follows as a natural consequence.
Self-reliance is one of the first lessons to be
taught our daughters; they should be educated with our sons, and equally
with them taught to look forward to some independent means of
support--either to one of the professions, or the business best fitted to
exercise their talents. Marriage has been looked to as the acme of hope, by
women; and why? Because all lucrative and honorable means of support have
been seized by men, and women have been driven to marriage, as a necessity.
To what more fertile cause can be attributed the uncongeniality frequently
existing between married parties? Women have been instructed in showy
accomplishments, while literature has been nearly cast aside, as
unnecessary; men have been educated not to expect companionship in their
wives. At the proposition of equal education and rights, man starts up and
says, if women are admitted as equals, you ruin domestic harmony. If a
woman is permitted to think for herself, forsooth, she may disagree in her
views with her husband, and family peace be destroyed. A fig for such
reasoning! Were refined, intelligent conversation in the home circle
appreciated, club-rooms, secret societies, taverns, and stores, where man’s
leisure is generally spent, would be less frequented; for where all are
educated, it is a disgrace to be ignorant, and time now wasted, would be
spent in improvement.
*** Being placed in a position compelling them to act, has caused many
persons to discover talents in themselves they were before unaware of
possessing. Great emergencies produce great leaders, seemingly fitted by
Providence, while it is but the arousing of some energy, hitherto dormant.
*** Those who fear woman’s incapacity to
cope with the trials of life, should consider what is now actually
thrust upon her by existing customs. Thousands of women are driven to a
life of pollution, by the insufficiency of wages in those departments of
labor which she is legitimately permitted to enter. Let any who doubt, read
the statistics of London, New York, or any other great city--or the
confessions of the poor creatures themselves! One, (in a report, a while
since, on the London seamstresses,) says, “if I was never allowed to
speak more, it was the meager pay I received by labor, that led me to go
astray. I struggled very hard to keep myself chaste, but found I
could not get food and clothing for myself and mother. Could I honestly
have earned enough to have subsisted upon-to feed and clothe myself; I
should have remained virtuous.”
Nor is
the condition of this class much better in our own country. In the reports
of those missionaries who have recently directed their efforts of reform to
the vilest sinks of infamy in New York, we perceive the cause which operates
to keep the ranks of iniquity filled. Earning but a scanty subsistence,
totally inadequate to provide the commonest necessaries of life, these women
have, as constant accompaniments, want, labor unceasing, broken rest, and in
the end a chance of starvation. With nothing to cheer, nothing to encourage,
and driven by task-masters as merciless as those of Pharaoh, or of the
Southern cotton and rice plantations; while opposed to this, is offered a
life of ease, plenty, society, and amusement. Instead of the damp, dark,
confined, noisome room, occupied by the sewing girl, are presented to her
imagination, large, high, airy, and commodious dwellings, adorned with
flowers, and enlivened by music; and is it strange she falls.
***
Custom has been, and is now, the mistress who plants her foot on the too
willing neck of prostrate womanhood. Of custom, which has been termed
unwritten law, “it is our first duty,” says Blackstone, “to make enquiries
as to its legality; for if it is not a good custom, it ought no longer to be
used.” In all governments, it would be the dictate of policy, for the
governed to submit to what the governors decree, provided they decree
nothing inconsistent with their natural rights; but as soon as any
government stretches its powers so far as to destroy the natural rights, to
which the members of a community are entitled, these last are justified, by
all the laws of God and man, in opposing such a government. We claim, as a
natural right, the same privilege of acting as we think best, which is
accorded to the other half of mankind--a right bestowed upon us by God, when
he created man in his own image, after his own likeness, both male and
female, and gave them equal dominion: Genesis, 1st chap.,
26th, 27th, and 28th verses.
***
Although our country makes great professions in regard to general liberty,
yet the right to particular liberty, natural equality, and personal
independence, of two great portions of this country, is treated, from
custom, with the greatest contempt; and color in the one instance, and sex
in the other, are brought as reasons why they should be so derided; and the
mere mention of such, natural rights is frowned upon, as tending to promote
sedition and anarchy.
*** Let us look at the rights it is boasted women
now possess. After marriage, the husband and wife are considered as one
person in law, which I hold to be false, from the very laws applicable to
married parties. Were it so, the act of one would be as binding as the acts
of the other, and wise legislators would not meet to enact statutes defining
the peculiar rights of each; were it so, a woman could not legally be a
man’s inferior. Such a thing would be a veritable impossibility. One half
of a person can not be under the protection or direction of the other half.
Blackstone says, “a woman may indeed be attorney for her husband, for that
implies no separation from, but rather a representation of her lord. And a
husband may also bequeath any thing to his wife, by will; for it can not
take effect, till the coverture is determined by his death.” After stating
at considerable length, the reasons showing their unity, the learned
commentator proceeds to cut the knot, and show they are not one, but are
considered as two persons, one superior, and one inferior--and not only so,
but the inferior, in the eye of the law, as acting from compulsion. A wife
can not, by will, devise lands to her husband; for at the time of such act,
she is supposed to be under his coercion, and therefore all deeds executed,
and acts done by her, during her coverture, are void, except it be those
where she is solely and directly examined, to learn if her act be
voluntary! How degrading! how humiliating! and carrying on the face of it,
crying injustice, is the position woman is compelled to assume, when thus
taken aside, by the magistrate, and asked, “Do you sign this deed of your
own free will and accord, and not by fear and compulsion of your husband?”
Out upon it! Why the very stones would cry out, should woman longer hold
her peace.
Every father has a right to bind, or give away,
any of his children, while minors, without the consent, or even knowledge of
the mother; and when he dies, she is not considered a competent guardian for
the child, and the father can, by Part 2d, Title 3, Sec. 1st, of Vol. 2d,
Revised Statutes, in his will, or deed, exclude the mother from
participation in such guardianship; for though called one, the father alone
has legal power over the children. A mother, as such, is entitled to no
power over her own children.
A woman’s personal property, by marriage becomes
absolutely her husband’s, which, at his death, he may give away from her;
while at her death she has no such power, or any power, of disposing of his
personal property. The law very kindly allows a woman her wearing apparel,
as well as jewels and ornaments, provided the latter were not disposed of by
her husband, previous to his death; and provided the children do not live
with her, she is allowed one bed, bedstead, and bedding.
*** Man may not only bid her stand aside
from all that is lucrative, but when, by patient industry, she has
accumulated a sustenance, he seizes the control of the whole. Even now, a
case arises to mind, of a woman who, by daily washing, had earned enough to
buy a house for herself and dissipated husband. A short time since, the
husband was taken sick, and not being expected to live, bequeathed the whole
to his brother; and all the wife could get, was the interest of one third,
during her natural life. And where was her redress? She had none. A
shame on such laws! a SHAME on such men. A woman not only (till
recently) lost all right of holding property by marriage, but she lost her
personal identity. In this act, she becomes absorbed in another. At the
death of her husband, she is left a queen, or a beggar, as the option of her
lord dictates; while, should she die first, she has no right to the
disposition of any of the property accumulated by their united industry; for
by Title 1st, Part 2d, Sec. 1st, 2d Vol. Revised Statutes, of this State,
Idiots, persons of unsound mind, married women, and infants, are declared
incompetent to devise real estate. Well classed,
truly!
The present laws are deleterious to the moral
sensibilities of both husband and wife. Woman has no inducement to prudence
and industry, and she is obliged seemingly to acquiesce in the wishes of her
husband, however repugnant to her, as the only means of obtaining, in even a
small degree, her own; or she is allowed to follow her own plans and views
as a favor, and not from the lack of power to compel her to do otherwise.
*** In the present
posture of our national affairs, when the instruments of power, although
professedly in the hands of the people, are, in reality, lodged in the hands
of a moiety, thereby forming an Aristocracy, rather than a Republic--what
are we to expect, but that one portion of the nation will be sunk in
ignorance and grovelling (sic) submission.
*** We are invited to acquire a knowledge of
government, not only by many immediate benefits, but by a multitude of
future ones; and who can say it will not end in the full maturity of public
happiness? Nothing is a stronger proof how natural the love of liberty is
to mankind, than the efforts made to attain it. Let wives cast aside the
thought that their highest duty consists in gratifying their husbands
palates, by some delicacy; or listening with smiling countenance, to what he
may please to relate of the day’s occurrences, while placidly darning his
stocking, with no higher ambition than to have it well done. I do
not, by any means depreciate these necessary employments, in their proper
place; but they should not be the chief business of their lives. The duty
to please, devolves equally on both parties. Remember your duty to God, and
your own sex, as well as to man. Let us make such use of our talent, as to
receive the plaudit of our Maker, of well done, good and faithful servant.
To mothers we look, especially to young mothers,
for the instruction of their children in the principles of justice and
right, and to see that equal justice is granted to both; not giving one
every advantage, and according none to the other.
***We need not
expect the concessions demanded by women will be peaceably granted; there
will be a long moral warfare, before the citadel yields; in the meantime,
let us take possession of the outposts. The public must be aroused to a
full sense of the justice of our claims. Beside the duty of educating our
children, so as to make the path of right, easy to their feet, is that of
discussion, newspaper articles, petitions: all great reforms are gradual.
Fear not any attempt to frown down the revolution already commenced; nothing
is a more fertile aid of reform, than an attempt to check it; work on.
“Work sows the seed:
Even the rock may yield its flower:
No lot so hard, but human power,
Exerted to one end and aim,
May conquer fate, and capture fame!
Press on!
Pause not in fear:
Preach no desponding, servile view---
What ever thou will’st thy WILL may do.
Work on, and win!
Shall light from nature’s depth arise,
And thou, who mind can grasp the skies,
Sit down with fate, and idly rail!--
No--ONWARD! Let the Truth prevail!”
[Gage delivered “The Dangers of the Hour” at the founding convention of
the Woman’s National Liberal Union, which she formed in 1890 to ensure
religious freedom and to challenge the Religious Right of her day. The
speech is shown below as it was printed in 1890. An abridged version, MJG
Reader Series #3 (2004), is available through our Gift
Shop.]
SPEECH OF
MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE
at the
WOMAN’S NATIONAL LIBERAL CONVENTION
February 24th, 1890
THE DANGERS OF THE HOUR
For one hundred and fourteen years we have seen our country gradually
advancing in recognition of broader freedom, fewer restrictions upon
personal liberty, and the peoples of all nations looking towards us as the
great exemplar of political and religious freedom. But of late a rapidly
increasing tendency has been shown towards the destruction of our civil
liberties. The work has been stealthily carried on for a number of years
under names and purposes which have prevented a real recognition of the
design in view. So strong has this movement now become that we are
confronted by the fact that our form of government is undergoing a radical
change, with a well organized body greedy for power pressing to that end so
that centralization instead of diffused power has overcome the aim and
intent of a large body of people, a fact that can be traced to the war of
the sixties and the condition of the country immediately afterwards.
Personal freedom is now threatened by two foes, alike in character although
differing in name, centralization and clericalism, ever the great
antagonists to liberty. The control of questions which should be entirely
left with the respective States is being gradually assumed by the United
States. It has been said that the war proved one thing—our nationality ; it
seems likely to prove much more—the destruction of local self government,
which is becoming gradually lost. This general tendency towards centralizing
power in the nation is a vast help to those persons who wish to incorporate
certain religious dogmas in the Federal constitution. The constitution is
superior to all statutory enactments and for this reason the Christian party
in politics is not content that laws favoring it should be enacted by
Congress alone, but aim to secure a constitutional amendment of like
character. Albion Tourgee says our conservatism consists in doing nothing
until it is absolutely necessary. Americans never move until the fifty-ninth
minute of the eleventh hour. The fifty-ninth minute is now upon us.
[Applause.] There is an impending struggle greater in its influence upon
humanity than the one fought for freedom thirty years since. The government
is undergoing changes which are signs of danger. The red signal is out, if
you are color blind and cannot see it the more the pity for you. An
unreasoning confidence is the chronic state of the people. To them it does
not seem possible there is danger to their free inheritance. They forget
that liberty must ever be guarded. They forget the hereditary enslavement,
the bondage of the human will to the church, and thousands bound do not heed
this enslavement—to them it seems liberty. In 1889, four new States were
admitted to the union, not one possessing a republican form of government as
required by the Federal constitution, not one recognizing the rights of one
half their citizens to self government. The defeat of woman suffrage was
remarkable because in each of these four States a battle was fought in its
favor by women. The new state of Washington is especially noticeable as
three times under territorial laws woman had gained and used the ballot.
Eighteen hundred and eighty-nine will not soon be forgotten by the friends
of woman suffrage. Forty-one years after the first convention making such
demand, four new States which at that period were unknown portions of the
world, their very names yet to be given, if at all on geography or atlas,
noted as desert lands, but now possessing tens of thousands of inhabitants,
have this year come into the union denying the first principles upon which
this government purports to be founded, equality of rights and self
government. We are told the country is in a dangerous condition with tens of
thousands uncultured emigrants yearly pouring onto its shores ; we are told
our flag is hissed by anarchists who have 25,000 drilled men at their
command ; we are told the experiment of free government in towns and cities
is a failure, but what danger from ignorant emigrants so great, what peril
from anarchists so near, what experiment of free government such an utter
failure as the admission of four new States largely populated by native-born
American citizens, men and women of eastern birth, the young, the cultured,
wide-awake business men and business women, under denial of the first
principles of freedom?
The danger menacing our country does not lie with the foreigners, nor the
Anarchists, nor in municipal mismanagement. Free institutions are
jeopardized because the country is false to its principles in the case of
one-half of its citizens. But back of this falsity away down to the depths
of causes deep in the hidden darkness of men's minds, must we look for the
source of this perennial wrong. To a person of thought this is easily found
in early religious training. Men have not yet learned to regard woman as a
being of equal creation with themselves ; do not yet believe that she stands
on a par with them in natural rights even to the air she breathes. In order
to secure victory for woman we must unfetter the minds of men from religious
bondage. We have petitioned legislatures and congress, we have appeared
before committees with the best arguments founded on justice, we have
educated men politically, and yet the victory is not ours because the
teachings of the church have stood in the way. Now our warfare must be upon
another plan, now we must free men from that bondage of the will which is
the most direful form of slavery, now we must show the falsity of that reed
upon which men lean. In the old anti-slavery times men did not hesitate to
call the American Church the bulwark of American slavery. In like manner
to-day we shall proclaim the Church—American, English, Greek, Protestant,
Catholic—to be the bulwark of woman's slavery. Man trained by the church
from infancy that woman is secondary and inferior to him, made for him, to
be obedient to him, the same idea permeating the Jewish and all Christian
churches, all social, industrial and educational life, all civil and
religious institutions, it is no subject of astonishment, if one gives a
moment's thought, that woman's political enfranchisement is so long delayed.
In the State of Washington where suffrage for woman had in its territorial
days been so long and so happily tried there were never better laid plans to
bring about its defeat in the new constitution. Miss Hindman, who spoke
throughout the territory in its favor, says there were three political
parties in the field all as parties opposed to woman suffrage, even its old
friends among men refusing to speak for it lest it should delay statehood ;
the churches also refusing to take it up or advocate it on the specious
ground that it was a political question, those ministers solitary and few
who did favor it doing so not because of justice nor even because the basic
principles of the nation demanded it, but "that woman might vote for
temperance," or aid some plan of the church.
It has not been without bitter resistance by the clergy that woman's
property and educational rights have advanced. Woman's anti-slavery work—her
temperance work, her demand for personal rights, for political equality, for
religious freedom and every step of kindred character has met with
opposition from the church as a body and from the clergy as exponents of its
views.
The St. Louis Globe-Democrat in an editorial of May 5, 1888, said: “There is
no more striking anomaly in the history of civilization than the fact that
the churches have profited in the greatest degree by the devotion of women,
and yet have been among the slowest of organized institutions to concede to
the sex the rights and advantages which it has managed to obtain. Most of
the work done for the improvement of woman's condition as a member of
society has been accomplished, not without a certain measure of Church
sympathy, but without distinct and aggressive Church support. We refer
particularly to the removal of invidious legal restrictions, and the
development of sentiments of justice and fairness with regard to woman's
political interests, and her relation to the philosophy of general
progress.”
Many insidious steps by both Catholic and Protestant prove the church now,
as of old, the enemy of freedom. In 1884, a Plenary Council, preceded by an
encyclical from the Pope laying out its line of work, was held in Baltimore.
The two points against which the effort of the church is now chiefly
directed, are marriage and public schools. In its control of these two
questions it has ever found its chief sources of power. The Pope's
encyclical declared that “civil marriage must be resented by the whole
Catholic world.” The establishment of parochial schools in every parish was
also commanded within two years unless excused therefrom by the bishop.
In compliance with papal demand the Plenary Council formulated decrees
against marriage as a civil act, or as under civil authority ; against
marriage with a Protestant, and against evening marriages. The sacramental
character of the rite was solemnly affirmed, the necessity of priestly
benediction and nuptial mass enforced. But well knowing the immediate
promulgation of its decrees would rouse public attention to its aim, these
were held in abeyance until such times as the dignitaries of the church
deemed best. Not until three years later were the canons upon marriage made
known on the Pacific Coast, at which time the archbishop of San Francisco,
the bishops of Monterey, Los Angeles, and Grass Valley, addressed a pastoral
letter to the Catholics of that region condemning civil marriage as a sin
and sacrilege, illegal, and a “horrible concubinage.” Marriage with a
Protestant was also forbidden, and marriage unblessed by a priest it was
declared, subjected the parties to excommunication.
When the territory about my own city of Syracuse was formed into a diocese,
one of the first acts of its newly appointed bishop was a prohibition
against evening marriages. Archbishop Ryan of Philadelphia has commanded the
observance of these decrees in his diocese enjoining nuptial mass, &c. The
bishop of Savannah, Ga., some time since issued an order prohibiting
marriages after nightfall, and thus have these decrees been gradually
brought to bear over different portions of the country.
It must be remembered that the Baltimore council was a body composed wholly
of celibates governed by the chief celibate, the Pope of Rome, and that it
decided upon a question of which it possessed no practical knowledge. It
must also be recollected that no woman's voice was heard in this council in
regard to a relation in which as wife, she takes an equal, and as mother a
superior part. The judgment of these celibate men was alone to decide upon
the form, obligation, validity and permanance of marriage, the church
threatening penalties for their non-observance. In the decrees upon marriage
of this council and the preceding encyclical, two points are especially to
be borne in mind. First, that woman is the chief victim—not alone the
question decided without her voice but its indissolubility pressing most
heavily upon her. For it must be remembered that while the church asserts
marriage to be an indissoluble sacrament, her past history shows it to have
been in the power of man, of the husband, to secure that release from its
bonds that has ever been denied to the wife.
The second point not to be forgotten, is that the power possessed by the
church during the middle ages was largely due to the control it had secured
over domestic relations, and that no more severe blow has ever been
inflicted upon it than the institution of civil marriage. This fact is well
known to the church and its persistent effort to again secure control of
this relation is for the purpose of once more acquiring the power it has
lost in those countries where civil marriage exists. Wherever established by
the state it has met with determined opposition by the church. Historians
agree as to the power the church acquired by its hold upon marriage. Lecky
says that when religious marriages were alone recognized they were a potent
instrument in securing the power of the priesthood who were able to compel
men to submit to the conditions they imposed in the formation of the most
important contract in life.
Draper also declares the secret of much of the influence of the church in
the middle ages lay in the control she has so skillfully gained over
domestic life. The authority of the church over marriage has always been
especially prejudicial to woman; it is from teachings of the church, that in
the family, power over the wife is given to the husband. It is the church
and not the state, to which the teaching of woman's inferiority is due ; it
is the church which primally commanded the obedience of woman to man. It is
the church which stamps with religious authority the political and domestic
degradation of woman. It is the church which has placed itself in opposition
to all efforts looking towards her enfranchisement and it has done this
under professed divine authority, and wherever we find laws of the state
bearing with greater hardship upon woman than upon man, we shall ever find
them due to the teachings of the church.
But while I have first referred to the encyclical of the Pope and the action
of the plenary council, upon this question of marriage, Catholics are
scarcely more greedy for power over this relation than are Protestants. The
church has ever been a barrier to advancing civilization; when it was the
strongest at the time spoken of, when it possessed the greatest control over
marriage, civilization was at the lowest.
The Protestant pulpit is only less dangerous than the Catholic to the
liberties of the people in that its organized strength is less. The old
mediaeval control of the family under and through marriage is now as fully
the aim of the Protestant church as of the Catholic. The General Episcopal
convention has not convened of late years without canvassing the question of
marriage and divorce. In 1886 a most stringent Canon upon this relation was
proposed and although it failed of adoption, a similar effort was made at
the recent triennial convention in New York the fall of 1889.
The Rev. George Z. Gray, dean of the Episcopal Theological School in
Cambridge, Mass., is author of a book in which he asserts, referring to
scripture as authority, that marriage is not a contract between equals, but
an appropriation of the woman by the man, the wife becoming merged in him
and owing him obedience, the right of divorce lying alone with the husband,
the wife not an independent being possessing independent rights, but a
veritable slave of the husband. Not alone the Episcopalians, but
Congregationalists, Presbyterians and other sects oppose marriage as a civil
contract declaring it a rite to be solemnized by the church alone, and using
influence upon legislative bodies to have it legally declared a rite
pertaining to the church alone. In 1888 a committee from the Presbyterian
synod of New York, waited upon the legislature of that state for the purpose
of influencing changes in the celebration of this rite, requesting the
publication of banns, etc., and a bill to this effect passed both houses but
fortunately met with a veto from the governor.
The clergy of Derby, England, have recently decided not to accept a marriage
fee, in the hope of thus securing control of marriage by the church, and
expect their example to be followed by their brethren throughout England.
These are dangerous signs of the times as to the effort of the church to
obtain increased power over the laity. It is also an attack of the church
upon the state. The courts of this country have decided that marriage is a
civil contract. As such a clergyman is no more fitted to take part in it
than he would be to take acknowledgement of a deed, or part in the
legalization of any other contract. In fact a marriage performed by a
clergyman of any denomination should be regarded as invalid in the light of
civil law.
It is an infringement of individual rights, that either state or church
should possess absolute control over this important relation,—one that
enters the inmost life of the individual persons contracting it. The parties
themselves as chiefly interested, should hold power over its forms. When
consummated it might be placed upon record for their own safety as is done
in case of other contracts.
The Grand Jury of the General Sessions, New York City, 1887, in addition to
its presentment in regard to court accommodations also advanced opinions
that marriage should be taken from magistrates and the laws so amended as to
require all marriages to be performed by a “duly authenticated and licensed
minister,” mayor or Judge of court record.
While still recognizing the right of the higher state officials to perform
marriages, the dangerous suggestion of the Grand Jury calls to memory a
canon of the Baltimore council which directed Catholics to use constant
influence upon legislation in line with church plans. The other important
subject against which the powers of the Catholic church has ever been
arrayed, and whose touch we are beginning to feel in this country, is that
of secular schools. As an ecclesiastical body the church is opposed to
general education and to systems of public instruction in any part of the
world. In Belgium, in 1879, when the state established communal schools
under its own control the opposition of the clerical party was strenuous and
bitter. The sacrament was refused to those whose children or grandchildren
attended public schools; masters of state schools were excommunicated and
communion refused to the children in attendance. The sacrament of extreme
unction was also refused to parents whose children were in the state
communal schools.
A curious division of penalty upon parents whose children were in these
schools is notable as showing the opinion of the church as to where her
chief power in ignorance lies—with women. The parents of girls attending
state schools were excommunicated, but not those of boys.
The stronghold of the church has ever been the ignorance and degradation of
women. Its control over woman in the two questions of marriage and education
have given it keys of power more potent than those of Peter. With her
uneducated, without civil or political rights, the church is sure of its
authority ; but once arouse woman to a disbelief in church teachings
regarding her having brought sin into the world; once open to her all
avenues of education, so that her teaching of the young in her charge will
be of a broader, more scientific character than in the past and the doom of
the church is sealed.
Persecution of like character as that of Belgium has taken place in Prussia
and other countries where state schools exist. Even here within the past
twenty-four hours the threat of excommunication by a Catholic bishop,
against the parents of children not attending parochial schools, has
appeared in your city papers. Instances of like character have come under my
own observation in the city of Syracuse.
In order to maintain its authority over mankind it is necessary that the
church should control human thought ; freedom of the will has ever been its
most dangerous foe. The theory of the superiority of the church over the
state, the doctrine that teaching is a function of the church and not of the
state presents itself in many forms, and during the present session of
congress, has been the ground of the bitter opposition to efforts for the
establishment of a common school system for the education of all Indian
children. It was the church that in the interests of Catholicism by the
priesthood opposed the confirmation by congress of General Morgan and Dr.
Dorchester. But let it not be thought that the Protestant clergy are less
desirous of priestly control over education. While their efforts have not
been as apparent to the general public, they no less exist, both in this
country and abroad. Frances Lord, an English literary woman and reformer, at
one time member of the London School Board, says of England: “The Church
still clings tenaciously to its authority over the teachers of the youth of
both sexes. The head-masters of our great public schools, like Eton and
Rugby, for instance, must be clergymen of the Church of England. Unless a
candidate for such a post has taken orders, he has no chance of being
accepted. No woman will be made head mistress of a girl's High School, if
she be not a trinitarian.”
She declares those great universities controlled by the church stand as
bulwarks against the advance of new ideas, even though they are deeply
tinctured with infidelity.
The school established by Harriet Martineau at Cheddar, among an ignorant,
vicious, neglected population was ultimately broken up by the priesthood,
although it was accomplishing an inconceivable amount of good. The Catholic
clergy of France in a similar way destroyed the schools of Madam
Pepe-Carpentier, who was in reality the originator of the kindergarten
system. When the statute providing for the admission of women to Oxford was
passed in England a few years since, the Dean of Norwich characterized it as
“an attempt to defeat Divine Providence and the Holy Scriptures.” It is no
less the Protestant than the Catholic clergy that show themselves opposed to
woman's education, the church, whether Catholic or Protestant, possessing
the same contemptuous opinion of woman, the same fear of the results to
follow her education, the same teaching that through her, sin and death were
brought into the world.
In our own country most of the colleges and universities are presided over
by clergymen ; Harvard, Yale, Princeton, all closing their doors against the
admission of girls. Even Vassar, a university for women alone has a
clergyman at its head.
Dr. M'Glynn asserts that the Roman church threatens the republic, especially
referring to the efforts of its clergy against the common school system
“things happening which but a generation ago would have stirred the country
to a white heat of anger.” But the efforts of the Protestant clergy are no
less dangerous. It is the Protestant priesthood now inciting the bills
before Congress to make religious teaching obligatory in common schools.
Cardinal Gibbons thinks religious and secular education should not be
divorced, but no less does Protestant Rev. Dr. Hill, in the Forum, also
warmly vindicate the right of the state to compel religious teaching in the
public schools. Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, a short time before his death
published an article to which the press referred at time of its publication
as very similar to those presented by the Roman Catholic clergy. Dr. Hodge
declared Catholics had maintained a sounder and more consistent position as
to education than Protestants had had the courage to assume. Bishop
Littlejohn characterized Dr. Hodge's paper as an expression of the views
entertained by many thoughtful men—“a deep and serious dissatisfaction with
the drift of the public schools.” Prof. Seeley, a foremost representative of
New England Congregationalism, has expressed like opinions, while other
Protestant bodies are showing increasing opposition to a form of purely
secular education. And yet the history of the world shows that wherever
ecclesiastical schools have been tried,—wherever the church has secured
influence above that of the state, the standard of education has been
universally lowered.
Governor Thomas, of Utah, only last fall speaking of the public schools of
that territory under control of the Mormon Church, says they in no respect
compare with the schools of Washington, Montana, or the Dakotas but are
practically worthless. The experience of centuries past and present prove
the danger of allowing a church of any name, the control of secular
education. This not alone because of the lowered grade of instruction, but
also because of the greatly increased power of the church over human thought
and human will gained by this means. In the light of past experience all
bills, legislative or congressional, looking towards compulsory religious
education of whatsoever character, should be most persistently and
energetically opposed.
In November last a Catholic Congress in honor of the hundredth anniversary
of the establistment of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy in this country
assembled in Baltimore. Priests of every degree, cardinal, monseigneurs,
arch-bishops, bishops, with hundreds of the laity took part. The whole tenor
of this congress was an affirmation of the superiority of the church over
the state. Among the notable points of its platform was one declaring that
as the state made no provision for teaching religion, Catholics must
continue to support their own schools, colleges, universities already
established, and multiply and perfect others so that a Catholic education
might be brought within the reach of every Catholic child in the United
States. That resolution points to the first danger,—that the state must
teach religion.
The second notable point was shown in the tendency towards a prohibition of
free thought and free action on questions of labor, and what is known in
Russia as “The will of the People.” It condemned nihilism, the one bright
ray in that land of torture, Russia. Macaulay said of the French toilers
what may be said of those of many another country, be that country Russia,
England or the United States: “In their wretchedness and despair there they
sat waiting any leader that might bid them follow.” “How far from that
condition now are myriads of our working men to-day, aye, and working women,
too?” queries that old anti-slavery apostle, Parker Pillsbury.
The most brilliant leaders of the commune were women; and was it not
just,—woman, the part of the humanity most debased by church and by
state—woman, upon whom the heaviest weight of all oppression falls?
“We hear,” remarks the Rev. Dr. Channing, “of the horrors of the Revolution;
but in this, as in other things, we recollect the effect, without thinking
of the guiltier cause. The Revolution was, indeed, a scene of horror ; but
when I look back on the reigns which preceded it, and which made Paris
almost one great play and gambling-house, and when I see altar and throne
desecrated by a licentiousness unsurpassed in any former age, I look on
scenes as shocking to the calm and searching eye of reason and virtue as the
10th of August and the massacre of September. Bloodshed is indeed a terrible
spectacle, but there are other things almost as fearful as blood.
“There are crimes which do not make us shout and turn pale like the
guillotine, but deadlier in their workings. God forbid that I should say a
word to weaken the thrill of horror with which we contemplate the outrages
of the French Revolution! But when I hear that Revolution quoted to frighten
us from Reform, to show us the danger of lifting up the depressed and
ignorant mass, I must ask whence it came? and the answer is, from the want
of culture among the mass of the people, and from a corruption of the great,
too deep to be purged away except by destruction. Even the Atheism and
Infidelity of France were due chiefly to a licentious priesthood and a
licentious court. It was Religion, so called, that dug her own grave.”
(“Works,” vol. vi., 175, 176.)
A third notable recommendation of the Catholic platform was union of work
with non-Catholics, i.e., Protestants, in order to bring about certain
restrictive laws. It reads thus: “There are many christian issues in which
Catholics could come together with non-Catholics and shape civil legislation
for the public weal. * We should seek alliance with non-Catholics for proper
Sunday observance.”
A paper read during the congress upon ‘Sunday Observance’ by Mark B. Tullo,
of Cleveland, declared “what we should seek is an en rapport with the
Protestant christians who desire to keep the Sunday holy.”
Cardinal Gibbons published a book as a contribution to the centennial
anniversary, in which he also discusses this point of work in unison with
Protestants. “So far from despising or rejecting their support,” he says, “I
would gladly hold out to them the right hand of fellowship so long as they
unite with us in striking the common foe.”
Thus the Catholic Church places itself in line with the National Reform
Association, the American Sabbath Union, the Woman's Christian Temperance
Union, and with those bills already before Congress which are conspiring
against the freedom of the people at large. As politics is said to make
strange bed-fellows, so does conspiracy against freedom unite strange
forces.
A fourth notable suggestion of the platform was one looking to the formation
of an exclusively Catholic associated press agency.
To those who realize the formidable power of the Associated Press,— its
capability of creating public opinion,—its ability to report or suppress the
truth—to color or to distort as it pleases—this recommendation was one of
the most dangerous in the platform.
Fifth : Divorces were declared to be the plague-spot on our civilization—a
discredit to the government, a degradation of the female sex and a standing
menace to the sanctity of the marriage bond. It should be noted that this
was the only time that woman or her especial interests were mentioned during
the congress. It should also be noted that it was under the offensive term
of ‘female,’ a word solely applicable to the animal functions which the
church regards as woman's single reason of existence. The subject of divorce
thus far has been entirely under control of man, whether in church or state.
It is now time that woman should be consulted, and her opinion obtained as
to the “sanctity” of a relation that brings sufficient cause for her to seek
divorce. Not alone the rights of woman as wife and mother but the rights of
children demand a home where, if there is cause for divorce, either through
cruelty, drunkenness, incompatibility of temper or breaking of marriage
vows, it can be obtained. Believing that the wife is not the servant of the
husband, but possesses equality of natural rights with him in the marriage
relation, we look upon that portion of the Catholic platform as a renewed
menace to the growing legal independence of women, and as such we call
especial attention to this point.
Sixth : The key-note of the whole Congress, its last public statement in
line with its general tendency towards declaring the church to be superior
to the state, lay in that portion of the platform which demanded that the
temporal power of the Pope should be guaranteed ; which declared that the
absolute freedom of the Holy See was indispensible to the peace of the
church and the welfare of mankind and which asserted that this freedom
should be scrupulously maintained by all secular governments.
Charles J. Bonaparte discussed this portion of the platform in a speech,
“The Independence of the Holy See,” suggesting that the more important
provisions of the “law of guarantees” might be enforced in a treaty between
all the great powers and thus obtain an international sanction. He
counselled Catholics not to be passive, declaring that a real solution of
the question must be the universal conviction among good men of all
countries, that to violate it would be to wrong mankind. “Whether a captive
or an exile, the Pope can never be a subject.”
Thus the whole drift of this congress was shown to be the supremacy of the
church and the restoration to the Pope of the power held by him in the
middle ages when he excommunicated kings, released subjects from their
national allegiance, held the priesthood of every country as above the
control of civil law, and for the grossest crimes subject only to
ecclesiastical rule : —a system which really destroyed the national form of
every government, making them but dependencies upon the papal power. The
same view was continued in a speech by the Right Rev. R. Gilmour, bishop of
Cleveland, at the dedication of the Catholic University in Washington,
immediately following the congress. He declared it to be a political and
social heresy which assumes and asserts that the state is all temporal and
religion all spiritual. He declared that no state can or should exist which
does not recognize God as the supreme authority, that Catholics were willing
to accept state schools as such on condition that the child should be taught
religion and the laws of morality.
Early this year, some two months after the centenary, the Pope issued
another encyclical, the most important since his accession to the throne of
the Pontiff. Its chief points were the declaration of the supremacy of the
church over the state; its order of resistance to the state if things
prejudicial to the church, or hostile to the duties imposed by religion, or
the authority of Jesus Christ in the person of the supreme pontiff are
commanded. Directions were given to make politics serve the interests of
Catholicism ; that men who promised to merit well of Catholicism should be
supported for office, the encyclical closing with an admonition not to
criticize the actions of a superior, even when they appear to merit just
censure.
No more thoroughly retrogressive middle-age document has appeared from
papacy during the present century, none more antagonistic to the republican
ideas of the equality of man with man, the equal right of each human being
to self-government in all things.
The great danger of the papacy lies in that it places itself above all civil
power; the real meaning of the word ‘papacy,’ is religion in place of civil
power, and it is not confined in signification to the church of Rome. The
papacy exists in the Greek Church of Russia, in the Anglican Church of
England and it is making an attempt to fasten itself upon this country
through the efforts of “the Christian party in politics” to introduce an
acknowledgement of the Christian religion and the bible as the source of all
governmental power in the United States. It is not the Pope of Rome alone
who places himself above all civil power in the demand made by himself and
his followers that he shall be acknowledged the source of civil and
political power, but the various Protestant sects of this country are
working to a similar end—that the form of religion known as Protestant shall
be recognized in the Constitution as the source of all power, instead as
now, the people.
The modern democratic-republican idea is the right of every individual to
his own or her own judgment upon all matters. The centralized-clerical idea
is that no person has a right to his or her own judgment upon either
religious or political questions. In all that most deeply concerns the
individual he or she is to bow to the church, embodied in the priesthood.
The laity, unless acting under specific direction of the priesthood, are not
recognized as possessing right to thought or the exercise of judgment.
But while in this country there is “less friction between Catholics and
Protestants than elsewhere in the world,” it is because here religious
liberty is based upon civil liberty, and while, as shown by the Catholic
Centenary, this body is better and more fully organized for aggressive work
than ever before, it is necessary for us to examine the condition of
Protestantism. In the statements with reference to Catholic intent doubtless
all before me will agree. We have been taught to watch Catholic action,
while blindly looking upon Protestants as to be fully trusted. Because of
this blind faith in the purity of Protestant motives—a belief in their
entire devotion to liberty—the present danger from Protestant effort towards
the destruction of secular liberty in the United States, is much beyond that
of Catholicism. The same spirit animates each body—the effort of each is the
same—a union of the church and the state, with the church as controlling
power. But Catholicism has not proceeded as far, has not taken as decided
steps to bring this condition about, as Protestantism has.
Church aggression is the foremost danger of the day, and in saying church
aggression I do not refer specifically to the Catholics, but more
emphatically to the Protestants. The Church as a Church of whatever name is
based on the one central idea, supreme control over the thought, will and
action of mankind.
The National Reform Association is a body of Protestants, members of many
different denominations, which declares that a written constitution ought to
contain explicit evidence of the christian character and purpose of the
nation which frames it. The silence of the constitution of the United States
in regard to christianity, causes this body to seek an amendment which shall
incorporate in it a statement of such belief. As the preamble is everywhere
recognized as the most important part of a constitution, stating the source
of its authority and the objects for which it is framed, it is this part of
the Constitution that “The Christian Party in Politics” has selected for its
attack. As it now stands the preamble reads thus :
“We the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect union,
establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common
defence, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to
ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for
the United States of America.”
As amended, after “We the people of the United States,” it would read:
“recognizing Almighty God as the source of all power and authority in civil
government, our Lord Jesus Christ as the Ruler of nations, and the Bible as
the standard to decide all moral issues in political life, in order to form
a Christian government, etc.”
At a convention of the National Reform Association, 1888, Rev. W. J.
Coleman, Professor of Political Science in Geneva College, Pennsylvania,
spoke upon “The proposed Christian Amendment.” As has many times been done
at woman suffrage conventions, he critically defined the constitution as
First. “The constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the
land.”
Second. “The constitution is the only authoritative expression of the will
of the people of the United States.”
Third. “The constitution is the exclusive basis of statute law, both in the
national government and in the States.”
Fourth. “The constitution is a statement of the principles by which the
people have chosen to be governed.”
These statements of the reverend gentleman will be admitted, and it is
because a constitution is superior to all statutory enactments that the wary
and jesuitical National Reform Association, and the entire “Christian Party
in Politics,” are not content with the enactment of laws by Congress in
their interest, but demand a constitutional amendment, so that their plans
may enter the very basis of statute laws. Moreover with the wisdom of the
serpent it makes the preamble its point of attack, well knowing that in law,
the preamble is held as the explanatory part—the dictionary I may say of the
whole constitution.
Chief Justice Jay regarded the preamble of the Constitution of the United
States as an authoritative guide to a correct interpretation of that
instrument (2 Dallas 419). Coke says (Lit. 796), “The preamble of a statute
is a good means to find out the meaning of the statute, and is, as it were,
a key to the understanding thereof.”
Judge Story in commentaries on the constitution (vol. 1, book 3, chap. 6)
says, “The importance of examining the preamble for the purpose of
expounding the language of a statute has always been felt and universally
conceded in all judicial proceedings.”
Under this array of authority as to the importance of the preamble, we
easily discover the reason that the National Reform Association desires ‘to
amend’ the preamble of the constitution of the United States. Once that is
changed to read as it desires, this association will possess the power to
interpret the whole instrument in unison with that change. As legal
authorities maintain that the constitution was not established by the United
States in their sovereign capacity, but by ‘the people’ of the United
States, in attacking the preamble, ‘the Christian Party in Politics’ works
as astutely as any Jesuitical body on earth. Subtilty, finesse, intrigue
could go no further than the effort to change the preamble to the
constitution.
At a convention of the Reformed Presbyterians in Newburgh, New York, 1887,
the synod after discussion of “National Reform” and the question of
acknowledgement of God in the constitution, adopted this resolution:
“Resolved, That we will endeavor to teach more forcibly the duty of our
nation to God and the Bible view of civil government, and will make our
testimony more emphatic against the infidelity of the civil government, and
will maintain our position of political dissent in refusing the election
franchise to put into office men who are bound by their official oath to
support the Constitution of the United States, and we will become
responsible for suffrage only when they become responsible to Christ by
their official oath.”
At the convention of this sect in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, June 1888,
resolutions were adopted disowning the nation as long as it refused to
acknowledge Christ as its king and the synod was directed to see that
members of the congregation did not identify themselves with the nation by
any act implying allegiance.
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union is firmly united with the National
Reform Association ; it is a component part of that body ; its chief
officers are officers of that association ; its work is the same, as the
speeches of its president and the resolutions of its conventions fully show.
It not only endorses the aim and ends of that association, but that body
depends more fully upon the work of the W.C.T.U. for ultimate success than
it does upon its own specific efforts. As far back as 1886 the leaders of
the W.C.T.U. were enrolled among the Vice-Presidents of the National Reform
Association. At its annual convention, 1888, Dr. McAllister declared that
“movement bound to succeed through the influence of the Woman's Christian
Temperance Union," while district secretary Gault said, that “The Woman's
Christian Temperance Union and the Prohibition Party had become so entirely
National Reform organizations, that the regular National Reform organizers
had ceased to organize local National Reform clubs as such, but worked
through those bodies to spread its ideas.”
When the purposes of the National Reform Association are accomplished the
consent of the governed for men will stand where it does among women
to-day—nowhere.
The first national convention of the American Sabbath Union was held in
Washington, December, 1888. Just previous to this convention the state of
Illinois held a convention of similar purport at which time two statements
were especially emphasized.
1. That Christians do not keep Sunday as they ought.
2. That other people do not go to church as they ought.
Members of the Christian Party have not hesitated to declare that attendance
upon church should be made compulsory. But as long as the sun shines the
wind blows, flowers blossom and all nature performs its usual functions on
that day, man should be as free as nature. Sunshine and storm are out of
such people's reach or they too would doubtless be held responsible. To be
fully consistent the ‘Christian Party’ should place animals and insects on
trial as was done in Christian lands only a few hundred years since. The
light of advancing civilization has not yet touched the majority of
Christians; the Christian party in politics is the fifteenth century living
in the nineteenth—its members are the heathen of the world whom civilization
has not yet touched.
This National Sunday Union, which is another branch of the Christian party
in politics, was first suggested by Dr. H.F. Crafts in 1887. In May, 1888,
he addressed a memorial to the Methodist General Conference assembled in New
York,—that same General Conference, that in emulation of the world's
anti-slavery conference in London, 1840, and the world's temperance
convention in New York, 1854, refused to receive regularly appointed woman
delegates. The Methodist Conference of 1888, having denied to women the
right of representation on the ground that laymen did not include women,
entered “cordially” into the plan of a National Sabbath Union. The general
assembly of the Presbyterian church north, the Presbyterian church south,
the United Presbyterian church, the Baptist Union, the Congregationalists,
the Methodist Protestant church and fifteen others entered heartily into
this plan of organization. In addition the Woman's Christian Temperance
Union, the National Reform Association, the various State and National
Sunday Schools, the Knights of Labor, the body of Locomotive Engineers and
the 9,000,000 of the Catholic church, priestly and lay, men, women, children
and the babe in arms, are all counted as sustaining this union.
As Catholics and Protestants are united in this Sunday observance demand it
has been pertinently asked which kind of Sunday keeping is expected? All the
Catholic priesthood require is morning attendance upon mass ; this is
especially true in Europe, after which observance the day is spent as one of
holiday enjoyment. Bull-fights in Catholic Spain, the opera in music-loving
Italy, dances in merry France, drives, sails, drinks everywhere.
Is this to be the style, or are we to return to Puritan custom,
“Hanging of his cat on Monday
For killing of a mouse on Sunday,”
and no one allowed to drive or walk for pleasure, or for rest. Which
Sunday is it to be? The purpose of this Sunday observance as directly stated by Dr. Crafts
himself is not that people should enjoy the day as one of rest from usual
labor, it is not for the benefit of man, but in order to commemorate the
work of creation. The grounds for its demand are purely religious.
Every law of this character is dangerous because of the fact that law and
right soon grow to be synonymous in the minds of men. Hon. Sheldon Amos,
former Professor of Jurisprudence in Oxford University, speaking in regard
to certain evil legislation in England, said: “Whatever law recognizes and
provides for is regarded as morally right, comes to be so regarded by the
hereditary instincts of the human mind.”
It has been clearly proven that the enforcement of rest at any time, is the
enforcement of idleness, and not only tends to the destruction of
self-reliance but to the increase of crime. In some branches of business
enforced Sunday rest means overwork the remaining six days, or as Chauncey
Depew says of railroading “somebody must work harder during the rest of the
week than has hitherto been the case.” While France, Mexico, Brazil and other countries are getting rid of
clericalism and centralized power, it is one of the mysteries of the age
that the United States seems striving to incorporate these two systems in
her form of government. This tendency strikes every observant person, as
does also its pretext, ‘protection of the people.’ This theory of
‘protection’ has been the assumption through past ages, governing every
attempt for the destruction of liberty. There are now before congress
several bills and amendments of this dangerous ‘protective’ character.
Forty-four amendments to the constitution were introduced during the
fiftieth congress, ranging from the control of marriage and divorce to a six
years term for the Presidency. The chief danger of the present situation lies in the fact that the majority
of the people do not see that there is danger. One friend wrote, “To me it
does not mean that so alarming a state of things exists, to me it is
daybreak everywhere.” Yes, it is daybreak everywhere; we see its radiance in Europe, in South
America, in Africa. Peaceful revolutions are rapidly taking place on two
hemispheres, yet just as a dark cloud shadows some parts of the earth even
at break of day, heralding a coming storm, so while it is breaking day in
many countries, yet over our own beloved land the fell shadow sweeps, — over
it falls the pall of a coming storm. Amid so much liberty, people fail to
see the gradual encroachments of organized power either in the church or in
the state. But so sure am I of the coming storm that I cannot believe it
will pass over us without the possible shedding of blood. The struggle will
be fierce and bitter; a man's enemies will be of his own household, for this
storm will not be, as some surmise, a warfare between Catholic and
Protestant ; it will be a battle of the liberal element against the church
and its dogmas of whatever name or nature. After a time liberty will
triumph, and then and not until then shall we see a true Republic upon this
soil. As the battle for political liberty began here so will that for full
religious liberty end here. The conflict we were sure had gone by will again
arise; the decisive battle has yet to be fought. It seems to me when that
hour has passed there will be no more church forever, for science and the
spirit of free thought will have destroyed its very foundations. |
