| Show EDMUNDS BILL ORICH fifa Kit b bar AN ait alile ABLE AND FEARLESS ARGUMENT in the sen senate ate of the united states mr call of florida florid made the following pointed and forcible on the principles of religious religions ftc mr CALL mr air section 12 of bi the jaleh which to is no now sought 13 it to be amended leat git d urt 4 trusses stieg shall lit be it appointed who lid behall take of the e vady property of this corporation the e constitution 0 ti of the united states provides that private property shall not betaken betoken for public use without compensation Is this private property or not Is the property orthis corporation private or public property it seems to me there lan can be no question in regard to that this property 4 was acquired by this corpor ittoli till the required e protection protect fon of the law MV tt tl belo belongs jigs to it it and to those who no are its beamis best flis atte trust there dail can be no question about that what then is the taking oy for the beds it abo a to td edke possession vj fab a lodger oli er or a shorter time meg does I 1 A it vest power to dispossess persons of their property and substitute others in the control and management of it there can be no question that a taking a dispossession for a moment is as much as a dispossession for an age or a conversion in perpetuity the constitution on is imperative it says a 44 nor shall private property be ta SRI taken tor for public use without lust just compensation pensa en hatim tion this provi provision slon of the pl tat tite not only takes it but d 11 tb public igei tv the eduada uon tion of the children of utah mail without reference to the wishes of its owners to my mind there can be no question whatever that this is clearly within the inhibition of the constitution but in regard to another point the constitution says that congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of relt religion ion senators here say that although you way may make no law an establishment of religion I 1 a you may khlly legislate to destroy the 1 rights of an establishment of bf religion that you tou may impose disabilities bili bil ties ittes upon those who practice it and you may indirectly deprive them of political rights and privileges and ot all rights tor for the purpose of suppressing and destroying it that is manifestly the object of this section and of this bill and is avowed in the argument and the discussion of the legislation proposed in the section under consideration whatever may inay be the evils of this association whatever may be the calamities lami lam ties ittes that it may or way may nol noi produce tile the question which wi we ore are bound to consider is whet whether whittier tier it to is or is not lot an establishment of religion by all our traditions and by all the history of the english race and by all our legislation previous to the commencement men cement of this crusade upon these people the mormon church must be regarded as an establishment of religion senators say it is not the true religion does doe i s the constitution say you shall not legislate respecting the the false religion the act of toleration of sing king william and queen mary which was the outcome af pf all the which the people of england land and this country as well as the people of europe suffered fur many years the tortures of the inquisition the burnings burn lags the hangings hannings hang ings which every church and eve every ry creed have practiced practice d upon the others the act of toleration which is the foundation of our principle ol 01 religious freedom says in in express terms gnat Is and what is not an establishment of religion and leaves no ground of doubt as td the meaning of the terms used in the constitution congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion before we embark in this system of religious relie persecution before we aban don the principles ox of our of our civilization and of the religion of christ it is welt lor ns to consider something of the past history of this and other countries that great society of christian people the followers of john wesley who in in every period of the history ol of this country have bien been its loyal and faithful citizens who have sustained the christian religion i in n heathen lands and in civilized laud lands s those apostles of the poor tind and humble have defined what they consider as religious freedom let us see whether it is the right of any congress or any set of men to say what is religion or what is not la in the days when the english parliament undertook so to declare a committee of the followers of john wesley put forth this declaration that it is the unquestionable right of every man to worship god agreeably to tike the dictates of his hie own conscience and that he has a right to hear and to teach those truths which he conscientiously believes without any restraint or judicial interference from the civil magistrate provided he do not thereby disturb the peace of community and that on no account whatever will wal this committee ever concede e this fundamental principle the society which proclaims this as the meaning of religious establishments as defined in our civilization and our constitution constitutes an immense portion of the prot protestants of this country if a man have the right to worship god according to the dictates of his conscience if he believes as many do b believe in foreign lands the benighted doctrine and the unholy practice as we conceive it of pol polygamy gamy while we have hav e the right to punish the practice pr and if possible to suppress it have we the right to establish a system 0 of religious pt it ti on to destroy the re religious ignotis ea bt because it professes and believes a falsehood shall we vre disregard the very which our own religious liberty shall we overthrow free speech and free thought and the bible a and nd religion of christ and substitute for them the secular power the sword of civil power for the sword of the spirit this Is but to repeat the history of the dark A des elj 4 this is to reenact re enact the inquisition of of spain with all its ita horrors to light it afta anew t theres to ates of rel religious persecution and by fire arid tart ft mid and tuf suffering dufferin ferin 9 to force the human halvdan milid td as true our opinions and out our creeds this bill and this section of the bill undertakes to do this it declares that the chartered rights of succession and ownership of property granted to the religious establishment of the mormon church shall not only be taken benaway away from them but that their property shall be confiscated taken from thew them and used according to the will and discretion cia cretton of congress and to what end end to the avowed end ena declared lit in the bill that this form of heretical this false religious estable establishment shall be suppressed and T 0 t the e end that true rug I 1 fell gion lm as we conceive it to be ul may d y ly be e maintained mr president this is not the punishment of polygamy thesis this is not the suppression of the practice of polygamy it is the destruction of a religious establishment a false religious establishment it is the persecution of its votaries vot aries to the end that by that means it may be extirpated sir we can not mot indirectly legislate for th e 8 e f destroying aay any religion lg fret whether false or at true tine we can not 14 edke e away if its 8 ch chartered chantele artele rights which have been alven td it ly by RM law selecting it as one out of many to the end that it may be destroyed wit without holit violating not only the principles of the constitution but the assent essential 11 principles of the religion of christ this provis provision n af pf the biu bill as well as the whole bi bill 1 to is an assault on the christian re religion 1 on which 11 undertakes by permission n by conviction by teaching t the b doter doctrines nes of ch christ st to convert and convince men and not to compel them to believe by the sword it it is a revival of the dark ages when the religious persecutions which consigned domany so many hundred thousand people to the stake in the medieval mediaeval media eval ages commenced they began with comparative mildness and they proceeded from mild forms of restraint to punishments so horrible that they make the blood run cold these cruelties cruel ties were practiced by every sect and every church in n turn upon these who dissented from it motley in the history of the dutch republic says tyranny ever youir oung and ever old constantly reproducing reproducing herself with the same strong features lea turea with the same imposing mark which she has worn through all the ages can never be too minutely examined the history of alvas administration in the netherlands strikes us almost dumb with wonder why has the almighty suffered such crimes in his name p mr president what can we say of a proposition tion here in this day lous 0 liberty b e arty in the face of a provision of the constitution of the united states that property shall not betoken betaken be taken for public use without compensation which requires that the property of a corporation a private corporation a corporation ter for purposes either religious ious or benevolent so avowed upon its face so stated in its charter way may be taken by law and ampro appropriated rioted by the Con congress gross of the united states to purposes not contemplated by and against the will of its owners and to the avowed end that certain people who believe and falsely believe that the interpretation of the bible and the religion of christ justifies and requires them to establish 4 marital relation which we forbid regard with horror to the end that by religious persuasion irmay it may be exterminated and done away with it is true that this section of of the bill describes this confiscation fis as an escheat to the govern went ment but the learned men who prepared ared this bill knew that there could te be such thins thing as an escheat of tile the a corporation which witha the limits of its chartered term of life was performing the gets acts required by its charter the life of which wag terminated by the arbitrary act of tile the government as a measure of public and religious religions policy I 1 cannot see what possible ground there to is for any opinion that the con gress r ess of the united states has a right ft m order to suppress polygamy to confiscate the property of persons of corporations po rations and appi apply it to any use they sm see fit not can be say any argument made in support of it the senator from vermont with very great ability and very great ingenuity proposed to discriminate between what ge he called the political or the temporal and the ecclesiastical features of this organization suppose we were to attack the great catholic church with its hundreds of millions of pro property perty in its corporate institutions using them as it does for benevolent purposes and to declare that we saw fit to the end that the catholic church and her torm form of belief might be extirpated lowith to withdraw her charters confiscate her property and apply it to other uses pro w who would for a moment entertain the idea who would regard it as within the power of this body who w would dare to propose this of any of the great churches into which christians are divided this demonstrates that we have bavy no right aud and no power to proscribe and punish any form of belief religious dous or political cal to legislate men into other beliefs and other kopini opinions ons it la is with practices with sets acts alone that we cau can deal when the time comes I 1 shall move t to 0 strike loftt from the first section of the bill the vvo may be compelled to test testify va y tile the bill requires that the wife shall be c to testify against her husband not permitted but compelled with the WM lege of reserving re servine from such testimony any confidential statement or communication ni Di made by either during the existence of the marriage relation what knowledge is there on t the he part of husband or wife thai abal is not coun conti dent lal ial how flow can you compel one to testify against the other without violating the relation what is the object act of anat provision la Is it to the end that hat in criminal cases gov generally emily this testimony may be made available it is to the suppression as avowed by the bill of this form of religious belief it is legislation respecting a false establishment of religion no one denies that this is false religion that it is a form of re religions I 1 i bious bell belief ef that it is an establishment of religion that the people who profess it t believe and profess to believe that it is religion and a true religion we say it is no religion and that it la Is hurtful but all churches and creeds have said that of those who ho differ from them an and d th they ey have used the power of the state to burn torture and kill all who differed from them this bill proposes pro posea to unish punish and exterminate this false belief ref by the secular power the senator from alabama testifies that these people with a fanaticism and a superstition which he regards a as 8 wonderful wondern at bring the tenth part of all their irabor day after day and year after year as a voluntary con contribution tribu tion 12 why do they do it because they pe believe e falsely if you please that it js is a duty to the their r god to do so we say that this fanaticism encourages them in the practice of polygamy and is hurtful to the same and we make laws to prevent them from spreading their belief from bringing in recruits to their batill faith and impose on them some penal laws and processes unknown elsewhere to our laws I 1 am opposed to mormonism and because I 1 am 0 oppose P to it I 1 oppose this law and the these se methods which can only result in increasing it by dignifying signifying dignify ing these who are persecuted as martyrs in the eyes of their deluded followers but the second section n of the bill in face of the provision of the conati constitution tu that the right of the people to be secure in their persons houses papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated 11 provides that at the hour of midnight at any hour of the day or night without previous char charge ae or accusation cusa tion without notice without a subpoena the officers of the law may drag f from rom their bed any man or woman and hold them in confinement because there is an opinion on the part of some officer that they will nt not obey a legal process not that they had done wrong not that they had refused to obey the law but because there is an opinion that they will it is a discretion com bitted to the marshal or a judge a commissioner or a grand jury or a austice of the peace that attachment lor for a witness may be issued without a previous subpoena compelling the immediate attendance of such witness when it shall appear that there to is reasonable ground to believe that such witness will unlawfully fail to obey a subpoena issued and served I 1 Is that an unreasonable seizure or is it a reasonable one what is tilt object of this provision it is because it is apprehended bended that under the influence of superstition these theae people will be reluctant to obey obe the process of the court in all ages these things run together the difference between persecution I 1 and the belil religion 1 i on of jesus christ with its pure pare method as defined by wesle abick and his followers that religion which zoes goes with the power of conviction and not with the stake and anddie the fagot and the secular arm to enforce it and that superstition that religious persecution which seeks to advance the opinions of sectaries sect aries by the secular arm of the stake by power as they did in the days of the inquisition |
