September 1887
DR. CRAFTS asks a very important question, to which we should be very much pleased to have some Sunday-law advocate give a consistent answer. Here is his question:—
“But how is it consistent with liberty that those whose religion requires them to rest on the seventh day are compelled to give up public business and public amusements on the first day?”
In his answer he separates the Jews from other Sabbath-keepers, and says:—
“In the case of the Jews the case is not as difficult as many have thought. If he cannot do more business in five days in Great Britain and the United States than in six days elsewhere, he is free to remain elsewhere. If when he comes into Great Britain or the United States he finds by experiment that a ‘conscientious Jew cannot make a living,’ the world is all before him to choose where he will dwell.”
And so it appears that whether a man can be an inhabitant of the United States, is to depend altogether upon whether he will keep Sunday. Compel a man to stultify his conscience or leave the country; and yet the cause of all this has nothing to do with religion!
Rabbi Wintner, of Brooklyn, applied a touch-stone to this thing which in an instant proves its “true inwardness.” In reply to questions and proposals of Dr. Crafts, looking to the adoption, by the Jews, of Sunday instead of Sabbath,—
The Rabbi proposed “a compromise between Christians and Jews, by agreeing on ‘a neutral day in the middle of the week’ as a sabbath for all—showing that he is willing to give up Saturday and take some other common day, his national prejudice against the Christian first-day Sabbath being his only reason for preferring the third or fourth day to the first, a prejudice which of course the law cannot recognize.”
But why “of course”? If Sunday laws have relation simply to “health, education,” etc., cannot these be promoted just as well on Wednesday as on Sunday? If not, why not? Cannot the laboring man rest just as well on Thursday as on Sunday? And if the rest is to have no reference at all to religion, nor to the “religious aspect of the day.” then why is not the proposition of the rabbi eminently proper? You ask the Jew to give up the day which he observes; he only asks that you do likewise. He proposes to meet you half way; certainly nothing could be fairer, but “of course” it cannot be recognized. Oh, no, “of course” everything must be given up for Sunday, and every man’s conscientious convictions must be crushed out that Sunday laws may have free course to run and be glorified. And all this without any reference to the religious aspect of the day? Nay, verily! For the “opinion” of these people “is very decided for freedom [on Sunday] from anything that could shock a thoroughly Christian community.”
Of other seventh-day keepers, illustrated by his citation of the Seventh-day Baptists, he says:—
“So, also, the Seventh-day Baptists, being only one five-thousandth of the population, can hardly ask to have the laws changed for them.”
Why not, pray? Is it not just as proper for the seventh-day keepers to ask that the laws be changed in their behalf as it is for the Sunday-keepers to have those laws enacted in their behalf? Or is it true that all rights, civil and religious, human and divine, are summed up in the National Reform Sunday-law advocates?
Again:—
“It would not be reasonable for the Legislatures to compel the other ninety-nine-hundredths of the population who do not regard Saturday as a sacred day, to stop business for the few who do.”
True enough. But suppose that those who “regard Saturday as a sacred day” were the majority, then, according to the premises of Dr. Crafts, and the Sunday-law people generally, it would be reasonable for the Legislatures to compel all who did not so regard it, to stop business on Saturday. But will they admit the reasonableness of this logical conclusion from their own premises? Not for a minute. Suppose, for instance, that in the State of Ohio the Seventh-day Baptists, the Seventh-day Adventists, and the Jews were the majority. Then suppose that they should unite and secure the passage of a law compelling all the people of the State to rest on the seventh day (Saturday), what a roar of indignant protest would immediately arise from united Christendom! Such exclamations as “religious bigotry!” “Destruction of religious liberty!” “Violation of the rights of conscience!” etc., etc., to the end of the catalogue, would fill the air. And justly so, say we. But if the claims of the Sunday-law advocates be just, where would there be any wrong, where any injustice, in such an action? If it would be wrong for Saturday-keepers, when in the majority, to pass laws compelling Sunday-keepers to rest on Saturday, wherein then is it right for Sunday-keepers, when in the majority, to pass laws compelling Saturday-keepers to rest on Sunday?
And, too, in answer to all their protestations, they could say, Why, dear sirs, you need not make so much ado. This is no restriction of your rights; this is no invasion of your liberties. Your right to rest on Sunday still remains to you. You are at perfect liberty to refuse to work on Sunday. Our action is entirely “consistent with liberty.” We do not by this law compel you to keep Saturday religiously; this statute has “nothing to do with religion.” This does not compel you to go to church; you are at “liberty” to stay at home. This law has nothing to do with “the religious aspects of the day,” it only has relation to your “health,” to your “education,” to your “home virtue,” and to your “patriotism”! Now, reader, we ask you candidly, Is there in all the United States one person who regards Sunday as a sacred day, who would accept any such reasoning as that? And yet those who do so regard Sunday are the very ones who offer this reasoning (?) and expect us to accept it as conclusive, for the reason that they are the majority, and for that reason alone.
But if it be thus, as Mr. Crafts says, that “laws for protecting the worshiping day of the prevailing religion from disturbance, are then “vindicated,” who does not see that laws for the protection of the institutions of the prevailing religion are vindicated in the same way, whatever and wherever that religion may be? And then is not the Mohammedan, in his own country, fully justified in enacting laws compelling Christians to shut up their places of business, and rest on Friday, his Assembly day, and saying to them, in the words of Dr. Crafts, “If you cannot do more business in five days in Turkey or Arabia than in six elsewhere, you are free to go elsewhere. If you find that in Turkey or Arabia a conscientious Christian cannot make a living, the world is all before you to choose where you will dwell.” Every man who has the least conception of liberty will say that that would be oppression. Yet these same Sunday-keeping Christians, who would unanimously pronounce that oppression in Turkey, will do the same thing in America in behalf of Sunday, and call it liberty. And wherever a voice is raised against their action, it is immediately branded as the “brazen despotism of a loud and low minority,” even though the opposition be made by a majority of the inhabitants of a whole State, as in California in 1882. And for this these free citizens of the State of California are called by this Sunday-law champion, “this oligarchy of foreign liquor sellers.” Hear Him:—
“In California this oligarchy of foreign [68] liquor sellers was actually allowed to repeal the Sabbath law, as a ‘league of freedom.’”
His application here to the “League of Freedom,” is as false as any of the other of his claims. The Rescue, the organ of the Good Templars, said of the Sunday plank in the Republican platform, that it was an “entire blank, acceptable to the League of Freedom, and entirely in their interests.” And Dr. McDonald, president of the Home Protection Association, said that he was “disgusted with the Sunday-law plank in the platform;” that it was “too treacherous and unsafe,” etc. And the Home Protection Association was the most active opponent of the League of Freedom. It “is a consummation devoutly to be wished,” that, while these folks strive so strenuously for their Christian Sabbath, they would show some respect for the Christian duty to “speak the truth,” and to “not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”
They were “actually allowed,” he says, to “repeal the Sabbath law.” “Allowed!” By whom? That Sunday law was repealed by virtue of an issue that was carried by a majority of 17,517 votes, in the State election. And the governor and other State officers who were “actually allowed” to be elected in that campaign, were also “actually allowed” to conduct the affairs of the State for four years. And by the same token, and on the same day, Secretary Folger was “actually allowed” to be beaten for the governorship of New York by a majority of about 200,000. We should not wonder if Dr. Crafts would one of these days volunteer the information that the people of the United States were “actually allowed” to abolish slavery! After this display of erudition, we are not at all surprised to find him, in the very next sentence, calling the repeal of that law an act of oppression. See:—
“This oppression of masses by margins must be stopped.”
So, then, a condition of affairs under which all people are at liberty to keep the day as they may choose, without the slightest interference, is oppression. But if only a law could be enacted compelling all to keep the Sunday, under penalty of fine, or imprisonment, or confiscation of goods, or banishment, that world be LIBERTY. To quote his own words, it “leaves a man’s religious belief and practices as free as the air he breathes.” Yes, it does. As free as the air that was breathed in the Black Hole of Calcutta.
And in leaving “a man’s religious beliefs and practices” so free, “it only forbids the carrying on of certain kinds of business on a certain day of the week, … in deference to the feelings and wishes” of a certain class. It therefore was no restriction whatever of the “religious beliefs and practices” of the apostles when the priests and Sadducees laid hands on them and put them in the common prison, and commanded them not to speak at all nor to teach in the name of Jesus. That was perfect religious liberty! And for the apostles to oppose the will of the majority as they did, was the “brazen despotism of a loud and low minority,” we suppose. Acts 4 and 5. The priests and Sadducees and the Council did not command them to not believe in Jesus and his resurrection. They did not command that they should not worship him. They only commanded that they “should not speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus.” The Sadducees were the “majority,” and as the preaching of the apostles disturbed their “thoroughly” Sadducean religion, “this oppression of masses by margins” had to be “stopped.” And thus might Dr. Crafts and the National Reform party justify every act of oppression, and condemn every work of reform that has ever been in the world.
A. T. J.