Our Constitution, as all free government, is based upon popular sovereignty. This is a fact which no one can deny. But this fact by no means excludes the higher fact that all government and power on earth are of divine origin, dependent on God's will and responsible to him (Rom. xiii., 1). God can manifest his will through the voice of the people fully as well as through the election of princes or nobles, or through the accident of birth. In the ancient church even bishops (like Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustin) and popes (like Gregory the Great) were chosen by the people, and the vox populi was accepted as the vox Dei. When these come in conflict, we must obey God rather than man (Acts iv., 29). All power, parental, civil, and ecclesiastical, is liable to abuse in the hands of sinful men, and if government commands us to act against conscience and right, disobedience, and, if necessary, revolution, becomes a necessity and a duty.

THE INFIDEL PROGRAM.

A direct opposition to the efforts of the "National Association to Secure a Religious Amendment to the Constitution of the United States" is an attempt of the "Liberal League" to expunge from it every trace of Christianity. The former aims to christianize the Constitution and to nationalize Christianity; the latter aims to heathenize the Constitution and to denationalize Christianity.

The program of the "Liberal League," as published by Francis E. Abbot, in their organ, The Index, January 4, 1873, and separately, is as follows:

"1. We demand that churches and other ecclesiastical property shall no longer be exempted from just taxation.

"2. We demand that the employment of chaplains in Congress, in State Legislatures, in the navy and militia, and in prisons, asylums, and all other institutions supported by public money, shall be discontinued.

3. We demand that all public appropriations for sectarian, educational, and charitable institutions shall cease.

"4. We demand that all religious services now sustained by the government shall be abolished; and especially that the use of the Bible in the public schools, whether ostensibly as a text-book, or avowedly as a book of religious worship, shall be prohibited.

“5. We demand that the appointment, by the President of the United States or by the Governors of the various States, of all religious festivals and feasts shall wholly cease.

"6. We demand that the judicial oath in the courts, and in all other departments of the government, shall be abolished, and that simple affirmation under pains and penalties of perjury shall be established in its stead.

"*7. We demand that all laws, directly or indirectly, enforcing the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath shall be repealed.

8. We demand that all laws looking to the enforcement of Christian' morality shall be abrogated, and that all laws shall be conformed to the requirements of natural morality, equal rights, and impartial liberty.

"9. We demand that not only in the Constitutions of the United States and of the several States, but also in the practical administration of the same, no privilege or advantage shall be conceded to Christianity or any other special religion; that our entire political system shall be founded and administered on a purely secular basis; and that whatever changes shall prove necessary to this end shall be consistently, unflinchingly, and promptly made

"Liberals' I pledge to you my undivided sympathies and most vigorous co-operation, both in The Index and out of it, in this work of local and national organization. Let us begin at once to lay the foundations of a great national party of freedom, which shall demand the entire secularization of our municipal, State, and national government.

"Let us boldly and with high purpose meet the duty of the hour. Rouse, then, to the great work of freeing America from the usurpations of the Church! Make this continent from ocean to ocean sacred to human liberty! Prove that you are worthy descendants of those whose wisdom and patriotism gave us a Constitution untainted with superstitution! Shake off your slumbers, and break the chains to which you have too long tamely submitted."

There are some good religious people who from entirely different motives and aims sympathize with a part of this program, under the mistaken notion that the separation of church and state must be absolute, and requires, as its logical result, the exclusion of the Bible and all religious teaching from the public schools. But an absolute separation is an impossibility, as we have seen already and shall show hereafter.

The state cannot be divorced from morals, and morals cannot be divorced from religion. The state is more in need of the moral support of the church than the church is in need of the protection of the state. What will become of a state, or a school, which is indifferent to the fundamental virtues of honesty, integrity, justice, temperance? And how can these, or any other virtues, be more effectually

maintained and promoted than by the solemn sanctions of religion which binds man to God? We will not speak of the graces of humility, chastity, and charity, which were and are unknown before and outside of revelation. The second table of the Ten Commandments is based upon the first. Love to man is impossible without love to God, who first loved us. If the aim of the "National Association" is impracticable, the aim of the "Liberal League" is tenfold more impracticable. The change in the preamble of the Constitution would be an easy task compared with the task of expelling the Christian religion from the national life. To carry out their program, the Free-thinkers would have to revolutionize public sentiment, to alter the constitutions and laws of the country, to undo or repudiate our whole history, to unchristianize the nation, and sink it below the heathen standard. For the wisest among the heathen acknowledged the necessity of religion as the basis of the commonwealth. Socrates said to Alcibiades, according to Plato: "To act justly and wisely, you must act according to the will of God." Plutarch, the purest and noblest of the Platonists, in a work against an Epicurean philosopher (Adv. Colotem), makes the remarkable statement: "There never was a state of atheists. You may travel all over the world, and you may find cities without walls, without king, without mint, without theatre, or gymnasium; but you will nowhere find a city without a God, without prayer, without oracle, without sacrifice. Sooner may a city stand without foundations, than a state without belief in the gods. This is the bond of all society, and the pillar of all legislation."

THE STATE CONSTITUTIONS.

The Federal Constitution did not abolish the union of church and state where it previously existed, nor does it forbid any of the States to establish a religion or to favor a particular church. It leaves them free to deal with religion as they please, provided only they do not deprive any American citizen of his right to worship God according to his conscience. It does not say: "No State shall make a law

respecting an establishment of religion"; nor: "Neither Congress nor any State," etc., but simply: "Congress shall make no law," etc. The States retained every power, jurisdiction, and right which they had before, except those only which they delegated to the Congress of the United States or the departments of the Federal Government. In the language of the Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Hence, as Justice Story says: “The whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusively to the State governments, to be acted upon according to their sense of justice and the State constitutions." The States are sovereign within the limits of the supreme sovereignty of the general government, which is confined to a specified number of departments of general national interest, such as army and navy, diplomatic intercourse, post-office, coinage of money, disposal of public lands, and the government of Territories.

In New York and Virginia the union of church and state was abolished before the formation of the Federal Constitution; but in other States it continued for many years afterward, though without persecution. Connecticut and Massachusetts retained and exercised (the former till 1818, the latter till 1833) the power of taxing the people for the support of the Congregational Church, and when such taxation was finally abolished, many good and intelligent people feared disastrous consequences for the fate of religion, but their fears were happily disappointed by the result. In Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, and New Jersey, atheists, and such as deny "a future state of reward and punishment," are excluded from public offices, and blasphemy is subject to punishment.' In Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Tennessee, clergymen are not eligible for civil offices and for the legislature, on account of their ecclesiastical functions. The constitution of New Hampshire empowers the legislature to authorize towns, parishes, and religious 1 See the constitutional provisions of these States in Judge Cooley's "Constitutional Limitations," p. 579, note.

societies to make adequate provision, at their own expense, for the support of public Protestant worship, but not to tax those of other sects or denominations. An attempt was made in 1876 to amend this article by striking out the word Protestant, but it failed.'

It is remarkable, however, that since the adoption of the Federal Constitution no attempt has been made to establish a religion, except in the Mormon Territory of Utah.

Most of the more recent State constitutions expressly guarantee religious liberty to the full extent of the First Amendment, and in similar language. We give a few specimens: '

The constitution of Illinois (II. 3) declares that "the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination, shall forever be guaranteed, and no person shall be denied any civil or political right, privilege, or capacity on account of his religious opinions," and that "no person shall be required to attend or support any ministry or place of worship against his consent, nor shall any preference be given by law to any denomination or mode of worship."

The constitution of Iowa (I. 3, 4) declares that "the general assembly shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; nor shall any person be compelled to attend any place of worship, pay tithes, taxes, or other rates for building or repairing places of worship, or the maintenance of any minister or ministry. No religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust, and no person shall be deprived of any of his rights, privileges or capacities, or disqualified from the performance of any of his public or private duties, or rendered incompetent to give evidence in any court of law or equity, in consequence of his opinion on the subject of religion."

Similar provisions are made in the constitutions of Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon,

1 1 Cooley, l. c., p. 580, note 2.