| Show THE HE SUPREME E COURT salt salt sait lake herald jan 16 9 bevie bevle REVIE rE viii jy I 1 there Is but one i r really supreme court in the united un fied states and that Is the people of the whole country the washington tribunal has always beel been reviewed and corrected by this truly ultimate tribunal tribunals the people themselves this j judgment la lately tely rendered inthe in the case against george georgo ge org e reynolds come eDme sunder ultimate critical examination by the people of the compared with this august court the washington tribunal is a petty affair and its judgments are liable to be bv unhesitatingly overruled as was the case in the shedred dred scott matter wherein not only was the decision examined and repudiated but the institution of slavery which the judgment sustained was abolished I let us then respectfully but freely look into the judgment given by the court in a the case of george reynolds it will be seen that the decision includes the two points the law itself and the reason of the law the first amendment to the constitution forbids all legislation which shall abridge the free exercise of religion the debated point is whether or law of congress making polygamy a crime is in contradiction to that amendment madison and jefferson are quoted in explanation jefferson says it 1 is a dangerous fallacy for the civil hint hinn hIft bi et sion slon and propagation of principled on the supposition of their ill tendency though this has haa not the remotest at applicability to the A question before the court it does apply directly to the popular allegation against polygamy and is in fact an answer to the subsequent averment that to tolerate polygamy would embarrass social and legal practice JeTer jeffersons sons preamble fur ther quoted says it is time enough for civil government to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order consequently government may not interfere in any case wherein principles have not broken out into acts against peace and good order this really neally goes to secure the mormons cormons against interference inasmuch as they have not broken the peace of society and to make them guilty of offense against good order if it would be necessary to assume the point by an facto interpretation of good order to do the court justlee just lee iee however the distinction between principles and the acts flowing from themas drawn in the quotation is intelligible actions only and not opinions are cognizable by law says jennerson jefferson but religion according to al all ail common judgment arid common sense gense is both action and opinion and therefore to give the legislature control of action is to give it control ol 01 of religion suppose to the outward act of baptism sixt or of the sacrament of the nords lords super sapper would it not interfere with re religion of igdon the whole distinction between opinion and action is therefore sophistical As to the qualifying phrase good order an infidel legislature might say that the sacraments of the christian religion were contrary to good order as the french assembly did say eay and consequently abolished the rell relf religion gion glon itself with which school of politics jefferson was immediately and fondly connected A A partner copartner co in the triumvirate that produced the Fed eed federalist wasl was not likely to be surprised in an ambitious attempt at glitter coldly correct but never critically dull Madi madl madison sons in his hia quiet way analyzed jeffersons crudely conceived d theo theory and the result was waa the first amendment and just here hero it may be presumptuous but one feels impelled to say that thero ia Is a miser able in all this reference referenced to Virginian ism because the is y pettiness petti ness nesa in Virginia ism nisai ret itself bein self T the he proper term for the states rights lights a school c hool hooi of opinion would be provincialism patrick henry for example wasa was a except when acting and speaking under an indignant impulse against tyranny he subsided so soon as his noble passion subsided the choicest affections of the entire school of area are aro and have always been lavished on the narrower statehood rather than on the nationality in the grand breadth of which virginia provincialism is slightly pitiful blitte glittering r ing generalities ali ties whether practical or not hot were jeffersons forte let us us lex amine amino further quotations pausing only to observe that the washington court catches at and fondles the old virginia hobby church and ard state a phrase which borrowed from its rightful owners helps to clear the question of the right bof cons conscience clence or give the distinction between opinion and action the tho abolition of the union of church and state basfor was for years the pet hobby of virginian demagogues but does that matter really illustrate the tights lights of 0 conscience the same rights of cou edu conscience science which abolished the union of 0 church and state in virginia maintained and confirmed that union in hi great britain and the british people are as free in establishing and up upholding holdin g the union of church and state as in virginia in abolishing that union church and state was and is only a demagogical catchword catch word expressing no pie and vindicating no right either social or religious its use bythe by f the court at washington is consequently neither pertinent nor dignified to determine what the word religion means in the constitution constitutions an electioneering electioneer ing utterance of jefferson is quoted in reply to a rural committee of the baptist froni danbury that is the virginia Virgin li backwoods jefferson talks grandiloquently if not confusedly 3 about religion being a matter solely between a man and his god and says that man owes account to none other for his mth faith or worship Is it easy to see the re remotest ma test bearing of mami oration erat fon Is the court capable of trifling jefferson however fur ther edifies his baptist trien friend dei dEf by repeating the conclusive phrase actions only and not opinions fons lons 11 winding up hla hia declaration with the ever prevalent popular catchword church and state this I 1 will only say is the whole of the washington courts explanation of the meaning of religion in the constitution in the hope of measurably forestalling complaint that we are unnecessarily peevish and hard to please one begs bogs to say bay that the phrase gf sovereign reverence 11 adopted by the court from jenner jeffer stump tA utterance terance to the baptist committee is on the whole exceedingly apropos there is a jumble doubtless in king richards mind when he 19 thanks god for his bis humility slightly Blight ly in the barme earne way vay jefferson and the court after him talks of their sovereign reverence for the rights of conscience very sovereign their reverence Is rathel rather hib fib absolute solute one fears on ithe whole but it was jemerson jeffersons foff offhand talk to the crowd and he heg only in ay meant to say something that should have an lne Ine inspiring never imagining that he was furnishing the true key wherewith to unlock the constitution nevertheless we are glad to have a precedent so eminently flexible that while it establishes the ju judgment dament of the court equally sanctions a critical rejection of that therefore we yield the court our sovereign reveren reverence cey ces not we at are sorry to have to say profound IT bui but like thomas jeffersons bur reverence ia is sovereign our deference is ig also sovereign not to make the most of slip elip shad jefferson probably nien mien meant rit tit that the people were sovereign when he talked about hla hia sovereign reverence and according to the best beat patriotic formula the present reviewer shelters himself under tho the fact that he is of the people ll 11 and now for a brief glance at the reasons of the law of congress against polygamy as those reasons are given in the judgment the court evidently supposes that it has touched bottom when talking of the fundamental interest of society 12 society hab haa fundamental interests I 1 plainly however those interests demand not the abridgment of tho nighta righta of con science or even the severe limitation of them it is really quite possible that polygamists ts would ap pal to those fundamental interests in doense of their views and practices at all events there is no conclusiveness in the reference to the fundamental social interests but rather splendid opportunity is given for since those interests embrace both and purity of character in thila proper scope beope the clinching of othe court decision la 19 in the tho illustration from human sacrifice W and the immolation of widows this takes one back to his childhood reading and sunday school books noue none the worse e ar argument gumen t however for having so sd long done service inthe in the missionary cause it would not do for congress to allow human sacrifice and the burning of widows therefore polygamy must be forbidden that is to say congress may not legalize any special multiplication of the species because it would be wrong to legalize a special des destruction t of the species in may y pot kIll offspring therefore ob offspring spring may not be begotten human sacrifice 11 ff Is 11 bad therefore human propagation ia Is bad this it ia is necessary to bay say is fundamental reasoning this ia is the way in which the washington court gets to the bottom i af the question concerning the fu fundamental ada mental interests of society but human sacrifice bately for the court and its clinching illustrations is still in use tho old heathen were moved by reverence of the deity delty not sovereign ho however wever weyer but profound to give the fruit of their bodies for the sin of their souls the modern heathenism makes offerings of hecatombs of offspring spring body and soul to brute just the eid eld sacrifices were open the modern are in becoat prostitution and the soul and body rottenness clinging to it surely have something to do with the fundamental interests of society but tho the washington court cannot see bu human sacrifice unless lit it up by sympathize with the woman whose very life is a living death the court seems shocked at the offering of a widow on her hus bands funeral pile buijs blissful blissfully ly V curvat ur ine ino borror of the poor but honest creature whose body becomes a ef living sepulchre in her husbands lif etline think ot of it however men and women bead read the vile advertisements in the newspapers dd da not turn too quickly from tha horror it implies tho washington court never looked into the records of hospitals never inquired into average medical practice never glanced from civilized to savage life and witnessed the decay of races by the rottenness of prostitution and its invariable horrors it is to bo be feared that however iid lid wever the court never dreamed of it and languidly doses oyer over the story of bel and the dragon dragons never apparently suspecting that children can be destroyed except by fire human sacrifice has not been more rife an in any landy lands land at any time than it ia Is now in america the courts phrase is a good phrase when it speaks of the fundamental interest of ad Bo clety its instinctive recoil from human sacrifice and the immolation mo lation of widows ia is a good instinct nevertheless on its ita own showing argumentatively since human sacrifice prevails in america by ty means of prostitution and kindred barbarities and woman i 1 a actually immolated immo and bummers suffers a hundred deaths while living though the court has no suspicion of such facts contrary to the fundamental interests of society yet it follows that its argument is fieland fie dand polygamy not being either human sacrifice or immolation of widows should be legally tolerated first because consistent with humanity second seconds because esteane es d by its advocates a religion otherwise expressed since congress indirectly winks at human sacrifice and the immolation of woman it may consistently tolerate polygamy which instead of sacrificing offspring propof proposes 0 es to replenish human kind |
