THAT the friends of religious liberty are not yet all dead, was demonstrated in the United States Senate when Senator Heyburn, of Idaho, gave expression to his views upon the Johnston District Sunday Bill.
For the third time, Senator Johnston, of Alabama, introduced this bill in the Senate on April 6, 1911. A hearing for the benefit of its opponents was granted before a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia May 17. This, however, did not appear to deter its progress, the measure being favorably reported to the Senate from the District Committee May 22, and immediately put on the Senate calendar, which meant that it was to be called up regularly for action or consideration each legislative day in the Senate, and that some action should be taken upon it or some disposition made of it when called up, unless some member of the Senate objected or asked that it "go over."
May 26, after the bill, upon request of different senators, had "gone over" several times, the measure was called up again, whereupon Senator Heyburn said, "I ask that the bill may go over," and the president of the Senate said, "It will go over." But Senator Johnston at once asked, "What is the purpose of the senator? I will ask him." To this Senator Heyburn replied: "It is a measure that should not be discussed under a five-minute rule. The questions involved here are of more than passing importance. Many questions are involved; and if the bill is taken up at all, it should be under a rule which would permit its full and free discussion."
Senator Johnston, still insisting that consideration be given to the measure, moved to take up the bill, which took it out from the five-minute rule, and the motion was agreed to. Thereupon, after a few preliminary remarks and considerations, Senator Heyburn made the following speech:
Senator Heyburn's Speech
Mr. President: I have always been opposed to this class of legislation. In the very early days of the settlement of this country we had a great deal of it, and on the statute-books in many of the States there are now provisions which are termed "blue laws," that are ignored. There are some now in existence relative to the District of Columbia that are not enforced.
We can not make people good by legislation. You can punish them for being bad. The spirit upon which this is based, I suppose, is the commandment that "six days shalt thou labor." I have never known any one to propose legislation for the enforcement of that part of the commandment, or trouble his mind about it, and yet, I presume, it is just as important, and was intended to be just as operative, as the following provision against performing any labor on the seventh day.
Mr. Gallinger: Does the senator think that the language "Six days shalt thou labor" is a command that men and women shall labor six days?
Mr. Heyburn: It says "Thou shalt labor."
Mr. Gallinger: I think the senator has given that a far-fetched interpretation. I am sure the theologians will not agree with him.
Mr. Heyburn: I am not a theologian. It may be fortunate for all except myself that I am not. I have a due regard for the observance of the Sabbath, and I believe it should be observed, but I do not believe in legislation compelling one to do it. This measure is of more than passing importance. I had not thought it would pass without considerable discussion. I have heard it suggested that it was a delicate question upon which to speak. I do not feel it to be such. A man who can not discuss his religion has none; a man who is afraid to discuss it has none. I do not think this is an appropriate place to discuss religious questions, except so far as they may be relied upon as a basis of legislation, but I can not refrain from expressing my regret that it is proposed in Congress to deal with the questions involved in this bill. I think I opposed a similar bill on a former occasion, and it was charged in certain places that I was an irreligious person and that I did not believe in orderly conduct on the Sabbath day. There is no foundation for that charge. I have always been a person of strong religious convictions. My ancestors have always been largely interested in religious principle and the development of it. I have followed in their footsteps, and it is because of that, at least in part, that I do not approve of this class of legislation. It was such legislation as this that wrote the annals of bloodshed and oppression and intolerance in the religious history of the world where a part of the people undertook to be sponsors of another part... This legislation grants special privileges to people who are members of religious societies. More than half the world and more than half the people in this city are not members of any religious society. It grants a special privilege to those who are which is withheld from those who are not. The law in this land, general and local, was intended to insure perfect freedom and independence to the citizen in regard to the observance of religious principles. So, as a matter of principle, I am opposed to such legislation. . . . Who is to say what is a sacred concert? A concert that is sacred to one person or one class of persons is not sacred to another. . . . No man has the right to set himself up as a moral standard of all the community or of any part of the community except himself. As to the use of the Sabbath day, every man, so far as personal acts that do not include any acts of lawlessness are concerned, should be the guardian of his own morals. It was never intended that law should be down the rules that should constitute a good man, and say that all men must live up to those rules. That never was the intention of the lawmakers, and we discovered it very soon after we became a nation and had organized government, and we abandoned that kind of legislation. It was the legislation that resulted in whipping people at the tail of the cart, placing them in the stocks, branding them upon the hands, and so forth. That was this kind of legislation under which some person or coterie of persons undertook to set themselves up as censors of the morals of the people. I thought that age had passed. I never expected to see it revived, and I never expected to see an attempt made in the Congress of the United States to prescribe rules that are intended, I presume, to supplement the Ten Commandments, and I suppose every year, according to the temper of a part of the people, we shall have new prohibitions and restrictions. . . . If you are going into this question, go into it to the limit, and compel people to live like the old Puritans of New England did, when they were not allowed to have fire in their churches, and when they had to take their luncheons with them and eat them in cold sheds or where they might. If you are going to be erratic in legislation, be erratic according to some established rule, the rule of our ancestors. If you are going to recognize the rule that is recognized, or, at least, I thought it was, in all parts of this country, of religious freedom and freedom of personal action so long as it violates no law of the land and no contractual right of any one—if you are going to uphold that kind of religious freedom—you can not pass this bill. What authority have we, where do we derive authority, under the Constitution, to enact legislation that will interfere with the personal action of a citizen that is in violation of no law applicable to the whole country? Where else in the United States does such a law as this exist? Are we going to have one code of morals in force by virtue of a law of Congress in the District of Columbia and allow people to go right outside into the State of Maryland and perform the acts that they are not allowed to perform in the District of Columbia?
Mr. Gallinger: Why not?
Mr. Heyburn: The senator asks me why not. Are we going to convert the District of Columbia, then, into a sanctuary, into a great church, so that the citizen must get out of the District of Columbia in order that he may enjoy the ordinary and reasonable freedom of a citizen?
Mr. Gallinger: The senator must know that in a large number of the States, tho not in all the States, laws very similar to this are now on the statute-books. The senator must know that in regulating the liquor traffic we have prohibition in one State and local option in another State, and I do not suppose that this is an anomaly which would come under the senator's condemnation. I see no absurdity or contradiction in legislating for the District11of Columbia on any matter different from what Maryland or Virginia or any other State may think it wise to do. So I think the senator's contention is not well grounded on that point.
Mr. Heyburn: Would the senator be in favor of enacting a law such as this, if he had the power, that should be applicable to the whole nation?
Mr. Gallinger: I would on this subject. I do not know that I would take the exact phraseology of this bill; but I would in a general way.—Congressional Record, May 26, 1911, pages 1569-1571.
This was a fine impromptu speech, and a noble plea for religious freedom. Senator Heyburn should be commended for giving expression to these fearless and courageous utterances. His remarks show that he has some knowledge of history and of the workings of religious legislation; and coming from one who is himself deeply religious, and a believer in Sabbath observance, they were doubly weighty.
The reply given by Senator Gallinger, who is chairman of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, and the successor of Ex-Senator Blair of national Sunday Best Bill fame, to Senator Heyburn's last question, is indeed significant, and may itself be taken as a prophecy of what may be expected if Congress once enters the domain of religious legislation.
This speech of Senator Heyburn's, however, appears to have placed somewhat of a damper upon this bill, and checked it in its progress, for they were not able to pass it in the last session of Congress. Well would it be for the country if there were many such champions of right principles and religious freedom. His remark, twice made, that this bill is of more than passing importance, is indeed true, and ought to awaken a wide-spread interest in a study of the principles involved in it, and of the results that must surely follow its enactment into law.
