The American citizen : his rights and duties, according to the spirit of the Constitution of the United States

Front matter

H /V

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

Table Of Contents

Intkoduction 15

PEEAMBLE.

Peculiarities of the Federal Constitution. State Sovereignty in harmony with National Union. Constitution established by the people. Hence, the people are the Sovereign power. No title above that of the citizen 19

Chapter I

Eeligion, required by the Constitution, by reason of the official oath. This oath is a religious obligation. The religion intended is the Christian religion, because this was the only religion professed by the people at the time. The Convention which prepared the Constitution. Rules of legal construction applied to the question. The Common Law established by the Constitution. Christianity inseparable from the Common Law. Proofs, from the Commentaries. Statute of "William III. Infidels excluded from office, by necessary implication, under the Constitution of the United States 26^0

CHAPTER 11.

Objections to the argument considered. The contrary construction popular. Objection from the Constitution, which forbids any religious test ; and requires that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Answer to this objection. Other objections stated, and answered. The religious professions of the Presidents, Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, and Madison. The alleged infidelity of Jefferson examined. Not proved. Human inconsistency. Paine. Voltaire. Error of the popular hypothesis. Its danger 41-65

CHAPTER ni.

The religious duty of the citizen, according to the old philosophers. The mistake of the infidel who supposes himself a philosopher. The position of the great heathen philosophers, who had no divine revelation to guide them. State of mankind with respect to revelation. Noah. The ancient Israelites. Eaised up to be the witnesses of true religion to the world. Their influence lost through their unfaithfulness. Idolatry overspread the earth. Philosophy arose six centuries before the Christian era. Thales. Pythagoras. Plato. Aristotle. Epicurus. Antisthenes. The Cynics. The Sceptics. The Stoics. The New Academy. The Eclectics. All the philosophers agreed in the duty of supporting the heathen idolatry established by law and custom, because religion of some sort was necessary to justice, and the worst religion was better than none. Proofs from Pythagoras. From Plato. From his master Socrates. From Aristotle. From Epictetus. From Plutarch. From Cicero. True meaning of philosophy according to the ancients. It signifies the love of Wisdom. TTie term does not belong to those who only excel in the natural sciences. The real philosophers would have scorned the claims of men who refused to do honor to the religion of the nation, and endeavored to imdermine the only basis of real morality and virtue 66-76

CHAPTER IV.

The religious rights of the American citizen. He may choose amongst the varieties of the Christian faith, which existed at the time when the Constitution was established. Legal rule of construction, from the intention of the people who adopted the Constitution. The case of the Jews considered. All heathen religions excluded, by necessary implication. Likevrise all new inventions, such as Morlnonism. The case of the Church of England. The case of the Church of Kome. Constitutional safeguard.

Contents

Anomalous position of the Romanist under the Constitution. Inconsistency of Popery with the toleration of the Constitution. Anathema. The religious duties of the American citizen. 1. To reverence and support Christianity. 2. To study the Bible, in the authority of which all Christians agree. 3. To compare with it the variety of religious professions. 4. To select for his Church that which comes nearest to the Scriptures. 5. To attend upon its services with regularity. Thus much is due to his obligations as a citizen— though it does not make him a true Christian — because Christianity is the basis of government and law. Consequences of infidelity destructive to the public welfare, as shown from the French Eevolution of 1793. Every blessing of the present life depends on the religious principle 77-96

CHAPTER V.

Politics. The science of politics belongs to every citizen, because he is a partner in the republic, according to Aristotle. It embraces the whole range of government, law, and moral action. Politics is also an art, and here it is liable to great abuses. The basis of politics is morality ; as the basis of morals is religion. Cicero's work, De offidis, an admirable summary. The substance of it set forth : 1. On social duty ; 2. On virtue, as the highest good ; 3. On the subdivisions of virtue ; 4. On prudence ; 5. On justice; 6. On fortitude; 7. On temperance ; 8. On various maxims of duty and propriety ; 9. On piety, as first in the order of duty ; 10. On love, as a principle of influence ; 11. On avarice ; 12. On national character ; 13. On the unity of interest and virtue. The claims of Cicero as a high authority on those subjects. Agreement with the Bible, which enjoins the same, on infinitely higher ground. Rights of the American citizen with respect to politics. Freedom of speech. Freedom to form a party. Freedom to change it. Duties of the citizen : 1. To 6« such a citizen as the welfare of his country requires ; 2. To support such candidates as have a moral character, based on a true reverence for religion and the laws ; 3. To reject the pernicious maxim that the private character of a candidate has nothing to do with his publij: character ; 4. To make himself familiar with the Constitution, so as to be an intelUgent as well as a virtuous citizen. Ignorance very prevalent. Suggestion of the best mode of remedying the evil 97-120

CHAP. I.] NO OATH WITHpUT EKLIGION. 27

It is for this reason that no court of law will admit as a witness any man who acknowledges himself to be an atheist, or who does not believe in a future state of reward and punishment. For the oath is the religious guardian of truth, and no testimony is allowed without this solemn appeal to the Almighty. And hence we find that there can be no oflSce undertaken, and no justice administered, under the Constitution of the United States, without the implied profession of religious faith. The man who takes this solemn oath, while in his heart he regards it only as a senseless form, commits a fraud upon the supreme law of the land, and cheats the nation. And no act of hypocrisy and deceit can be more atrocious than this, because it destroys the very root of public authority and order, and virtually nullifies the fundamental principle of all official administration.

2. The second question, however, is more open to a variety of sentiment, namely. What kind of oath is intended by the Constitution ? There are very few men who will dare to patronize absolute atheism, because it shocks the universal feeling of the community. But there are many ready to acknowledge their belief in God, and in a future state of rewards and punishments, who are far enough from professing any form of Christianity. This inquiry, therefore, is indispensable to every mind which seeks to form a true constiTiction of our supreme constitutional platform.

In answering this all-important question, I should say, without hesitation, that the oath intended by the Constitution is a Chkistian oath. The God to whom it appeals is the only living and true God— the God of the Bible. I hold this to be the plain and necessary construction, by every rule of consistency, of common sense, and of sound legal interpretation.

28 MEMBERS OF, CONVENTION. [OHAP. I,

First, then, we must remember that the Oonstitution was adopted by the people of the United States, in a. d. 1789, after it was prepared by a convention, consisting of thirtjT eight delegates from twelve States, under the immortal Washington, the presiding officer of the body. It may be well to specify their names, for the reader's satisfaction :

George Washingtok, President and deputy from Virginia.

New York Alexander Hamilton.

Man/land James McHenry, Danl. Carroll, Dan. of St. Thos. Jenifer.

Virginia John Blair, James Madison, Jr.

Of these eminent men, we do not know of one who has ever been named as indifferent to Christianity ; and it is impossible to suppose that they designed to expose it to discredit in the eyes of the nation at large. Washington himself, Eufus King, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison, were avowed adherents of the Episcopal Church. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was president of the Bible Society in Charleston for fifteen years in succession. But we have the best evidence of their Christian feeling in the well-knowft fact, that at the first assembling of the convention in 1787,

CHAP. I.] THE OAT.H IS CHRISTIAN. 29

when the spirit of dissension threatened to run high, Benjamin Franklin proposed the introduction of prayer, as the only mode of securing the Divine guidance and blessing on their discussions. The motion was adopted unanimously. The Eev. Dr. Duche, an Episcopal minister of Philadelphia, was invited to attend ; and that service of Christian prayer, which has since been so well depicted by the pencil of an American artist, produced the happiest efiect on the subsequent proceedings, until they finally closed in the adoption of the Constitution.

Now, here is the surest test of the reverence which these admirable men cherished for the Christian religion. Franklin himself, who was the mover of the resolution, made no open profession by uniting in communion with any religious society ; but he was educated by parents of the strictest piety, and knew the benefits of Christian devotion. Many

"other membere were doubtless like himself — believers in the truth of the Gospel, but withheld by scruples of conscience, as not sufficiently strict in their personal consistency, from a complete conformity with its claims. Yet they must be supposed to have been Christians in conviction at least; since, otherwise, their unanimous adoption of public Christian prayer, and the excellent effects which followed it, wou^ld be entirely unaccountable.

I ask, then, whether it is consistent with their ofiicial course to believe, that when they made a solemn oath or afiirmation essential to the holding of every office under the

"government of the whole United States, they could have intended such oath to be any other than a Christian obligation ? Did they mean that an infidel, or a deistical philosopher, or a naturalized Turk, or a pagan, might be admitted to the administration of the laws and government of the

30 THE OATH 18 CHRISTIAN. [CHAI^•I,

country, for whose liberty they had labored so nobly and so long ? On the contrary, must we not suppose that they designed this very oath of office as a guard upon the religious faith of every public functionary, so that no man should ever be elevated to honor in 'the land, who did not accord with themselves, in reverence for the Gospel ?

But this was only the preparatory work of the convcHtion. It became the constitution by the act of ths people^ who exercised the sovereign power. And what were the people in the year 1Y89 ? I answer that they were a Christian people, in whose eyes the oath of office could only have been regarded as a Christian oath, since no other would have been accordant with their principles, their feelings, or their accustomed modes of action. This was the oath which they had constantly seen administered in all their courts of justice. They knew nothing of heathen, infidel, or Turkisli forms of appeal to the Deity ; and, therefore, in their minds, the oath of office could not have had any other meaiiiiig than that with which they had always been familiar.

I ask then, again, whether it accords with common sense to suppose that the people of the United States could have intended this oath to bear a different sense from its Christian acceptation ? Is it reasonable to believe that they even contemplated the possibility of having Jews, Turks, pagans, or infidels invested with the future srovemment of their country ? Yet there was nothing in the Constitution to pi-eveat it, but this very oath of office. And if there could have been any doubt in the minds of Christian men that this was a sufficient protection to the Gospel faith, can it be questioned for a moment that there would have been an indignant opposition raised against the proposed scheme of national imion, from one end of the land to the other ?

For it should be remembered that this great measure was adopted at a time of strong and universal excitement, soon after the terrible struggle of the Eevolutionary war, in which the clergy had borne an active part, by public as well as private exhortation. Even if the people had not been roused to the keenest examination of the plan proposed, their ministers would have taken immediate alarm at the form of a constitution which threatened them with a government of infidelity. "What could have quieted their fears, unless they trusted to the oath of office for protection? What could have prevented their loud and earnest remonstrance, but the confidence which they felt in the Christian force of that solemn obligation? Plence, in the very fact that the people adopted the Constitution, with the acquiescence of the clergy, at a period when their voice was listened to with far more res]3ect than now, we have another demonstration obvious to common sense, in favor of its accepted meaning.

Such being the only character of this official oath which can be justified by ordinary reason and consistency, I proceed, in the third place, to consider the accordance of the result with tibie rules of legal interpi-etation. And these I shall set forth from the standard authority of Blackstone's Commentaries.

" The fairest and most rational method," saith this learned Judge, " to interpret the will of the legislator is by exploring his intentions at the time when the law was made, hy signs the most natural and probable. And these signs are either the words, the context, the subject-matter, the effects and consequences, or the spirit and reason of the law.

1. " Words are generally to be understood in their usual and most known signification, not so much regard-

82 FIRST BULK. [chap. I.

ing the propriety of grammar, as their general and popular use.

2. " If words happen to be still dubious, we may establish their meaning from the context — thus the proeme, or preamble, is often called in to help the construction of an Act of Parliament. Of the same nature and use is the comparison of the law with other laws, that are made by the same legislator, that have some aiSnity with the subject, or that expressly relate to the same point.

3. "As to the subject-matter^ words are always to be understood as having a regard thereto, for that is always supposed to be in the eye of the legislator, and all his expressions directed to that end.

4. "As to the effects and consequence, the rule is, that where words bear either none, or a very absurd signification, if literally understood, we must a little deviate from the received sense of them.

5. " But lastly, the most universal and effectual way of discovering the true meaning of a law, when the words are dubious, is by considering the reason and spirit of it ; or the cause which moved the legislator to enact it."*

Now let these rules be applied to the question, and I think the result will be perfectly satisfactory.

1. The first rule directs us to understand the words of the law in their usual and most hnoivn signification, not so much regarding the propriety of gramviar, as their general and popular use.

This is precisely what I have done, by appealing to the well-known sense in which an official oath must have been understood by a Christian people. In propriety of gram-

CHAP. I.] SECOND RULE. 33

mar, the term Oath might be taken in a heathen sense, or in a Jewish sense, or in a Turkish sense, or in a deistical infidel's sense, because all of these are in use by certain classes of men and people. Oaths have been in existence amongst all nations from the earliest antiquity, and employed for the same purpose, namely, to be a guard upon the conscience in the service of fidelity and truth. But the usual and most Tcnown signification — the general andpojoular use among the people of the United States who adopted the Constittotion, must be our rule, according to the learned commentator. And vs^hat these were, is too plain for dispute or prevarication.

2. His second rule, when words are dubious, is to consult the context, and he particularly specifies the preaml)le. Now the preamble to the Constitution is in these words :

" We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, 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." Could the people, who knew and acknowledged no other religion but the Gospel, have intended to attain those objects without a Christian government? Could they have promised these blessings to themselves and their posterity, without the favor of the only living and true God? And with a full knowledge of the awful calamities which befell the ancient Israelites, in consequence of the impiety of their rulers, could they have been willing to expose the nation to the divine malediction, by the total absence of any protection against infidel presidents, and infidel governors, and infidel legislators? Such a supposition is absurd. And therefore, as the oath of office is the only

2"

34 THE COMMON LAW. [CHAP. I.

guard provided in the Constitution, it results from the veiy objects which they had in view, that this oath must receive a Christian interpretation.

But there is an important part of this second rule which aids not a little to strengthen my argument. For the learned commentator directs us to consult the other laws " which have affinity with the subject, or that expressly relate to the same point." And here we have the 6th and 7th Articles of the Amendments to the Constitution, providing that " the right of trial iy jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than aecordi/ng to the rules of the common lawP

These provisions, of themselves, establish the Christian character of the Constitution, and of the oath of office, because the common law was the birthright which the colonies brought with them from England, and in all its oaths, principles, and sanctions, it is inseparably connected with the Christian faith.

Thus Blackstone saith : " Blasphemy against the Almighty, by denying his being or providence, or by contumelious reproaches of our Saviour Christ, as well as all profane scoffing at the holy Scripture, or exposing it to contempt and ridicule, are offences punishable ojt com/mon law by fine and imprisonment, or other infamous corporal punishment ; for Christianity is part of the laws of England."*

And again, the same standard authority lays down the following principle : " Doubtless the preservation of Christianity as a national religion is, abstracted from its own intrinsic truth, of the utmost consequence to the civil state.

CHAP. I.] TflK COMMON LAW. 35

The belief of a future state of rewards and punishments, the entertaining just ideas of the moral attributes of the Supreme Being, and a firm persuasion that he superintends and will finally compensate every action in human life (all which are clearly revealed in the doctrines, and forcibly inculcated by the precepts of our Saviour Christ), these are ikiQ grand foundations of all judicial oaths; which call God to witness the truth of those facts which perhaps may be only known to him and the party attesting. All moral evidence, therefore, all confidence in human veracity, must be wealMnedhy apostasy, and overthrownhy total infidelity. Wherefore all aflfronts to Christianity, or endeavors to depreciate its efficacy in those who have once professed it, are highly deserving of censure."*

The crime of apostasy was formerly punished by death, in England, and the writ de hcBretico comburendo was " thought by some," saith Blackstone, " to be as ancient as the common law itself'f But this severity was done away by the Reformation, and the nation was afterwards afliicted by a great irruption of licentiousness in the time of Charles II. The account of this, given by the learned commentator, is instructive and valuable. " About the close of the 17th century," saith he, " the civil liberties to which we were then restored being used as a cloak of maliciousness, and the most horrid doctrines, subversive of all religion, being publicly avowed, both in discourse and writings, it was thought necessary again for the civil power to interpose, by not admitting those miscreants to the privileges of society, who maintained such principles as destroyed all moral obligation. To this end, it was enacted by statutes 9 f pommentaries, B. IV. p. 48. t It>. p. 46.

86 THE COMMON LAW. [CHAP. h

and 10, W. III., c. 32, that " if any person educated in, or having made profession of, the Christian religion, shall, bywriting, printing, teaching, or advised speaking, deny the Christian religion to be true, or the holy Scriptures to be of divine authority, he shall, upon the first offence, be rendered incapable to hold any office or place of trust ; and, for the second, be rendered incapable of bringing any action, being guardian, executor, legatee, or purchaser of lands, and shall suffer three years' imprisonment without bail. To give i-oom, however, for repentance, if, within four months after the first conviction, the delinquent will, in open court, publicly renounce his error, he is discharged fo)' that once from all disabilities."*

This salutary statute was adopted in principle by many of the colonial legislatures, and became the general guide of public sentiment throughout the whole ; thus affording another strong legal ground for the fact which I have asserted, viz., that the people of the United States, at the time when they adopted our great American Constitution, could never have intended infidels to occupy any public ofiice, and therefore must have understood the oath which they required, according to its established and customary sense, as importing a belief in Christianity.

But to recur to the common law, which is distinctly recognized in the Amendments to the Constitution, I claim it, under the second rule of legal construction, as perfectly conclusive upon the character of the oath of ofiice, because there can be no such thing, in legal interpretation, as the separation of our common law from the Christian religion. It was under Christianity that this law assumed its English

CHAP. I.] THIRD EULE. 37

form. The very name of jury {juratores) is derived from the oath, as they swear to give a true verdict, and this oath, by which they are qualified, has never been, and can never be, dissociated from the sense of Christian obligation. So true is this, that a conviction for blasphemy or a sentence of excommunication, would be, at common law, a fatal objection to a juror; and on challenge, propter deliotum, in legal parlance, he must be set aside.* Indeed the very idea of a jury of Turks, Jews, or infidels, would be regarded, in law, as a pure absurdity. TIius, the oath demanded by me part of our Constitution as an essential qualification for 3very oflSce in the United States, is virtually defined by the jommon law and trial injury, which are demanded in the 3ther. For it is not possible to find any reason why the character of that solemn appeal should bear a difierent in- :erpretation, in the several clauses of the same instrument.

3. I pass on, accordingly, to the Sd rule of construction, vhich is, that words are always to be understood as having I regard to the subject-matter, for that is always supposed to ie in the eye of the legislator, and all his impressions di- 'ected to that end.

This is precisely the ground which I have taken. The •uhject-matter of the oath of office can only be underetood IS a qualification for office, since, if it be not this, it is manfestly good for nothing. But I have just shown, on the -uthority of Blackstone, that a belief in the essential truths if Christianity is the grand foundation of all judicial oaths, ,nd that all moral evidence, and all confidence in human eracity, must he weakened iy apostasy, and overthrown hy otal infidelity. Hence, when the foundation of Christian

38 FOURTH KtJLE. [CHAP. I.

belief is taken away, the oatli is stripped of all validity in the eye of the English common law, from which we have derived om- own. The intended qualification for official character becomes an idle form, and the whole subject-maiter of this Constitutional requirement is perfectly annihilated.

4. And this brings me to the 4th rule of construction, which is equally applicable to my conclusion, namely, the effects and consequence — a rule of so much importance that when the words of a law, literally understood, hear either none, or a very absurd signification, we must a Utile deviate from the recevoed sense of them.

Happily, in the present case, there is no such difficulty, because the word Oath, in its proper legal sense, and in its established popular meaning, bears the right interpretation. But the practical abuse of our political liberty, on account of which I have considered it necessary to treat the subject so much at large, has debauched the public mind to a fearful extent in our day. And therefore I proceed to show that this 4th rule is worthy of an important place in the argument.

"What then would be the effects and consequence of the construction for which I contend ? Simply these : that no man could take the oath of office in its true Constitutional sense, unless he were a believer in the essential truths of the Christian religion, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and thus all infidels would be excluded, in accordance with the statute of William HI., not from their social intercouree, not from the free exercise of their business or profession, not from the unmolested indulgence of their individual opinions, but from those high and public functions which invest men with authority and influence, and render their

HAP. !•] FOUETH EULK. 39

rinciples and conduct practically operative, to a wide xtent, on the whole character and destiny of the nation.

What, on the other hand, are the probable effects and onsequence of the opposite construction ? That the popular lind will learn, more and more, to discard the religious asis of oaths, and of all other moral obligations — that the lost solemn appeal to the only living and true God will be onsidered as a mere form, signifying nothing — that the Ivor of the Almighty towards these United States will be xploded, as being no real element of national prosperity r success — that every thing will be held to depend on luman talents and human energy, without regard to reliious truth or conscience — that public honor and respect rill be considered as having no connection with individual irivate charactei* — that the most abandoned profligate will ften be preferred as the best and worthiest representative nd legislator — that the highest temporal good will be conidently expected from an evil instrumentality — that the lan who chooses a reckless and unprincipled course for imself, will be thought as likely as any other to jjui-sue a ure and patriotic career for his country — that, in fine, the Jonstitution will be regarded as if it were constructed for Qe express accommodation of the infidel — as if the voice f the people were the only voice of God, and he who could 3cure this, in the awards of the present life, need give him- 3lf no concern about the judgment of eternity.

Surely the effects and conseq^iences of these opposite conductions give vast importance to the right decision of the uestion. No refiecting mind can doubt that the exaltation f men to ofiices of public honor and profit, who are known ) be irreligious and profane, must work increasing evil to le faith and morals of the nation. "While, on the con-

40 FIFTH EUI-E. [chap. I.

trary, a just respect to the tnith and majesty of God, exacted, by general consent, from every candidate for popular distinction, must tend most powerfully to guard and preserve the best and highest principles of real patriotism, and elevate our noble republic more and more, by the divine favor, in the esteem and confidence of the whole civilized world.

The 5th and last rule of the learned commentator, which he calls " the most universal and effectual way of discovering the meaning of the law," is " to consider the reason amd spirit of it, or the cause which moved the legislator to enact it." And this I hold to be pSrfectly conclusive on the point. For the reason and spirit of a law demanding an oiBcial oath, can only be found in the obligation which it is believed to impose on the religious conscience of the officer who tabes that solemn form upon his lips. And it is impossible to assign any cause which moved the convention who prepared, or the people who adopted the Constitution, in requiring such an oath, except the determination to exclude from public ofiice every man utterly destitute of Christian principle.

I have thus gone over the whole of the tests to which this grave and important question should be subjected, because I am perfectly aware that my conclusions are likely to meet with little favor, in the reckless liberality of the present day. Yet I may safely challenge a refutation of the argument, on any ground of law or reason. And I pass on to some other aspects of the subject, with a consoling reliance on the familiar maxim, that " truth is mighty, and will prevail." Perhaps not now — perhaps not soon — but certainly hereafter.