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Show CHURCH AND STATE. ElflH The Muscatine (la.) Journal quoted from the hHB Constitution that "No religious test shall ever be HBF1E required as a qualification to any ofllce of public wHiEi trust under the United States," and then proceeds iKillHB to say: mTlttH "This brings up the question of wnat are the kViIwH! legislators going to do about it in case Mr. Smoot SB is elected. If chosen he has the right to a seat in I KH the Senate whether a polygamist or not. If he JSflk has a plurality of wives he is amenable to law, IBH but this does not disqualify him from holding of- 9H flee. These are the plain facts. In view of this iHI wise legislators will keep hands off even though ll they are bitterly opposed to Mr. Smoot's religious lHI views fn common with a great majority of other liHI people." iffl Will the Journal writer, when he has a little hH leisure, explain what connection there is between IhI his remarks and the quotation he makes from the $ H Constitution? We had supposed that the words I'JSH quoted were those chosen by the fathers through HI which to give notice that no established church ifll should ever in the United States keep a citizen tH from holding ofllce because he did not happen to RJIHH belong to that particular church. They had in Ml'jHB mind the manifold tyrannies of one established K li church in England, of another in Spain, and an- B jH other In Russia, and the purpose from the first B jH with them was that while all churches and creeds !6$flH should receive ample protection under righteous EHH laws, not one should ever be in a situation to in- SltiHn terfere, by authority, with the civil government SilwIH of this country. MlHH Considered in that light, In what way can it be MB used as a text on which to preach a sermon for BlOI the benefit of Apostle Smoot? KUBBB Again, by common law, by ecclesiastical law, MfftBBB and by direct statute, polygamy is a crime. By BfwBH what process of reasoning does the Journal writer jKlaBH reach the conclusion that if a criminal is elected BHHH to office, it Is beyond the power of this govern- S9BH ment to question his right to hold that office? And BIESfl in case the Senate were to refuse such a member BHHfl a seat, what redress would he have? But taking HBH the converse of the dictum of the Constitution, HJHIB and assuming that as no religious test shall hi HB required, neither shall a religious test be invoked flflHI i jKKKBfKKM im 1 1 m ft I to debar a man from holding office, and all Amer- fmm I V leans will subscribe to it unless there Is some- mm I M thing in the religion professed which is a menace L i to our tree institutions. Right there is where 1 m Apostle and Senator-elect Smoot's trouble begins, Uj. jjl because religion, like everything else, must be if jja subject to law. To reason that religious freedom j jl means that no matter what a man does, if ho only ft i'i does it because his religion dictates it and that jlj must not be questioned, is to say that liberty is but license, and that our boasted freedom is but a I ) 1 rope of sand. i 1 When it is said that Apostle Smoot is a be- ( K liever in the faith of the creed of Latter-day fijil Saints and that is his own affair, we all agree to ? ;ij i it. But when Apostle Smoot puts aside his priest- 1 Iy office, turns politician and has an obedient leg- 1 i islature elect him to the Senate of the United 11 ' ffi c States, then it is the right of all Americans to m fife question as to the precepts and practices of his H J J; faith, and if it is found that in devotion to his m WW creed he has surrendered his allegiance to the m ' I ijl government under which he was born, that he has m M voluntarily expatriated himself and cannot go to B II 1 the Senate except as the subject of one who ijB j 1 1 ff claims his right to rule as the accredited agent of iH m m Almighty God; that this claim is not like that of m j I K other creeds, a spiritual affair which relates only H ; jjj 1 1 to the world to come, but to a local temporal gov- M -1 r ernment on earth which has its president, its i ' I m courts, its nucleus of an army and which only fi I if s lacks the power to brush aside the government H j of the United States and to substitute this king- jHf jl H dom, then the most charitable of us begin to see H ill nat tllls claim is a menace to free institutions B Mm j and that if twenty-two or three more men, feeling H 1 1 i as Apostle Smoot feels, and believing what he be- Hf iFl i ( lieves, and enslaved as he is enslaved, H till j could be elected Senators, the government H I II fj ot the United States would really be removed to Salt Lake City, and one very inferior man would be king. Then those of us who were brought up with the belief that the government should never oppress a church, and that no church should ever have any dictation in the government of our country, coun-try, feel a natural disquietude and insist that no man so involved, expatriated and cowed as is Apostle Smoot should ever be given a seat in that hall sanctified by the Immortals of the past, and which is the highest exemplification of the glory of .our free institutions. |
