Objection 7.    It would unite Church and State, or lead to such a
Union.

        Not infrequently the very persons who have contended that the
proposed acknowledgment in the written Constitution would be a matter of
very little moment, take a new departure, and urge that the religious
amendment would effect a union of Church and State. We might leave these
objections- to an internecine struggle like that of the Kilkenny cats. They
devour each other completely. But having considered one of these already,
it may be well to attend briefly to the other.
        Unless the honesty and candor of the friends of the amendment
movement be questioned, it must be admitted that they have no design nor
desire to unite Church and State. They maintain the entire independence of
each of these institutions, and favor the existing safeguards in the
National and State Constitutions against any ecclesiastical establishment.

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        But to look at the objection itself. Is a religious acknowledgment
in a Constitution of civil government a union of Church and State? This is
the force of the objection. Then nearly every one of all our individual
states is at present in union with the Church. But more. Is it the actual
connection of civil government, as administered, with religion, or the
expression of this connection in the written Constitution, that is most
open to this objection? The State employs the Bible in its schools and
courts of justice; in its prisons and asylums. Is that union of. Church and
State? If so, let every one who urges this objection join the 11 Liberal"
Leagues in their crusade. That is where he consistently belongs. If there
is no union of Church and State in the existing connection of civil
government and Christianity in our country, then the formulating of that
connection in our fundamental law cannot possibly effect the objectionable
union.
        "As Prof. Francis Lieber says in his work on "Civil Liberty and
Self-government," '° The great mission which this country has to perform
with reference to Europe requires the total divorce of State and Church-not
religion." (Page 264.) The State and the Church have been divorced in our
country.But Christianity is still linked with the institutions of our
government. This connection, now threatened and imperilled, it is proposed
to maintain and cherish.

        Objection 8. It would put into the hands of the Roman Catholics,
                should they become a Majority, a Fatal Weapon.

        Should Roman Catholics increase in our land so as to be 'a majority
of our people, it would matter little what might be or might not be in the
Constitution. Holding the power, they would exercise it for their own
purposes. Our danger from Roman Catholicism lies in our not having a legal
sanction for the open Bible-the foe of every intolerant and persecuting
system, and the bulwark of all true liberty. Let the Bible be driven from
our schools and courts of justice, and let the terrors of irreligion and
infidelity overwhelm us as they overwhelmed France, and like France we may
be ready to fall into the embrace of Romanism to escape from the anarchy of
atheism. It would be a choice between Scylla and Charybdis. In mediis
tudssimusibis-the only, safe course lies between atheism on the one hand,
and superstition on the other. In this course the free and open Bible is
our national guide, and the acknowledgment of its authority in our
fundamental law, with increasing practical conformity to it, more than
anything else, will ward off the threatening dangers of Jesuitical
influence in our land.

                                                15          
                Objection  9. It would be an Infringement of the Rights of
Conscience.

        Of all the objections urged against the Religious Amendment, this,
perhaps, has most weight with the people. And if it can be shown that
rights would be infringed upon by the proposed amendment, the objection
would be valid. In a truly free country, all rights, even of the lowliest
and most insignificant of the people, must be held sacred and inviolate.
        But the question arises, What are rights of conscience ? Is
anything that any man may call a right of Conscience to be regarded as -ch
by the state, and nothing done contrary to it?Amidst all the multitude of
conflicting religious beliefs among our people, how can the State act at
all without coming into collision with what some citizens will call their
rights of conscience?   If every man is to be clothed with a veto power,
and arrest the action of government in everything not in accordance with
his conscientious convictions, we shall have anarchy instead of government.
As a matter of fact, our nation in its government has all along come into
collision with what many are pleased to call their rights of conscience.
        Is it a right of conscience of the atheist to prevent the
constitution of government under which he lives from containing an
acknowledgment of God ? Then nearly all our State constitutions infringe
upon this right. Is the acknowledgment, by the state, of Christianity an
infringement of the right of the Jew ? So says the objector. Then our State
governments, by their laws for the observance of the Christian Sabbath,
infringe upon this-right. Would the acknowledgement of God or Christianity
in a constitution which they would have to swear to support, disfranchise
the atheist and the Jew? Then they are already disfranchised by the
governments of many of our States? Thus the infringement of rights of
conscience, on the score of which objection is made to the proposed
amendment, is found already existing in the long-established facts of the
nation's life. And to press the objection is to demand the abrogation of
every theistic as well as every Christian feature of our government.
        Suppose this demand were conceded. Would the difficulty be ended?
Expel the Bible from our public schools, and strip all our school-books and
instructions of every shred of Christian character. Let the States know no
difference between the Christian Sabbath and other days of the week. Let
every Christian institution of our government be swept away. Would there
then be no rights of conscience infringed upon? Would there not be an
overwhelming multitude of Christian people who would awake to the fact that

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their most sacred and precious rights were violated by a government
administered in connection with the religion, or rather the irreligion, of
anti-Christian secularism?
        Thus the question reduces itself simply to this issue: Is the
conscience of the nation, as a unit, or the conscience of dissenting
individuals, to be regarded? In everything where there has been a
collision, the nation has asserted its rights against the so-called rights
of the individual. For example, Wm. Lloyd Garrison regards the exercise and
acknowledgment of the war-power a violation of his rights of conscience..
But the nation exercises and authenticates in its written Constitution this
power, notwithstanding the antagonism of such action to the consciences of
a very large, wealthy, and most respectable portion of American
citizens-the Society of Friends. In like manner it approves and
authenticates, in the Constitution, capital punishment, in opposition to
the consciences of many thousands of individual citizens.       Is this an
infringement of right?
        On the same principle we maintain that neither the actual
connection of the government with Christianity, nor the expression of that
connection in the organic law, is  an infringement of any citizen's right.
God has given to no man the right not to acknowledge him. Much less has he
given to any man or class of men a right to dictate to this great nation
that it shall not acknowledge him. The nation as a republic, has the right
to its chosen of  government, and to the authentication of its republican
institutions in its Constitution. The monarchist dwells here, protected in
everything which is not inimical to the Republic's welfare, and is in no
way wronged by the republicanism of the government and the Constitution.
The nation, as a Christian nation, has the right to its connection with
Christianity, and the expression of that in the Constitution. An infidel,
or atheist, or the devotee of any false religion, may dwell here and be
protected in all that is not hostile to our institutions of government. But
he may plead no right of conscience, nor any other right, against the
Christianity of the government, or its constitutional authentication.   If
aggrieved by this, he is not compelled to remain under our government. He
may seek a " freer" land elsewhere.
        What is the religion of liberty? Is it not, has it not always been,
Christianity? Who is the man most regardful of the rights of others, and
least tyrannical and oppressive? Is it the infidel or the atheist? Let the
blood-drenched streets of Paris answer. Is it not the true Christian? And
what nations, except Christian nations, ever gave liberty to their
citizens? This whole question of rights and liberty

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of conscience hinges just here. Is true Christianity, the Christianity of
the Bible, oppressive? The opponents of Christianity answer, "Yes." And as
opponents of Christianity they oppose its connection with our government.
Will any friend of Christianity join them in their consistent infidel cry
of invaded rights of conscience under Christian institutions? If
Christianity is the true religion, and makes no man oppressive, but most
considerate of others, its acknowledgment by the nation, as the rule of
national conduct, cannot certainly be an infringement of the rights of any
citizen or subject. National Christianity is the only true balance of
liberty and law.