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(From the Public Ledger of July 8.)
Decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
The Supreme Court of this State, at Harrisburg, has
now given its decision in the long-pending case of Specht vs. the
Commonwealth.
This case was argued some time since by Thaddeus
Stevens and J. E. Brady for the plaintiff in error, and by Judge Nill,
of Chambersburg, adversely. The facts of the case are, briefly, that the
man Specht is a farmer and a Seventh Day Baptist, residing in Franklin
County, who was indicted for pursuing his ordinary avocations on
Sunday—such as hauling out manure, &c.,—and fined by the Court. He
appealed to the Supreme Court, mainly, it would seem, to test, for his
sect, the constitutionality of the law under which he was fined. The
opinion of the Court, as follows, was delivered by Judge Bell, and is
conclusive in favour of the constitutionality of the law.
The plaintiff in error stands convicted under the
first section of the act of 22d April, 1794. It prohibits, inter alia,
any person to “do or perform any worldly employment or business whatever
on the Lord’s day, commonly called Sunday, works of necessity or charity
only excepted.” It is said that as against those who conscientiously
observe the seventh day of the week for the Sabbath, of whom the
defendant is one, the statutory provision is in direct conflict with
Section 3d, Art. , 9th, Constitution of the Commonwealth. It ordains,
“All men have a <<257>>natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God
according to the dictates of their own conscience; no man can, of right,
be compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of worship, or to
maintain any ministry against his consent. No human authority can, in
any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience;
and no preference shall be given by law to any religious establishment
or modes of worship.”
The question thus raised is not presented to the
Court for the first time. It was here made as long ago as the year 1817,
in the case of the Commonwealth vs. Wolf, (3 S. & R.; 4 S.,) and after
argument, solemnly decided adversely to the position of the plaintiff in
error. Until now, so far as we know, the soundness of this determination
has not only passed unquestioned, but is incidentally recognised by
other cases. Upon the maxim stare decisis, and looking only to
the ordinary course of judicial administration, we might, perhaps,
without impropriety, have decided [not ?] to consider the question as an
open one in Pennsylvania. But, impressed with the importance of
preserving and protecting the unrestrained liberty of conscience
guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, and of the several
States of the confederacy, including our own, and desirous of retrieving
any error which, by possibility, might have been committed to so grave
an inquiry, we have given close attention to the ingenious argument
addressed to us by the counsel of the plaintiff in error, who, it is
understood, represents a portion of our citizens belonging to a
respectable Christian sect, which claims and keeps the seventh day of
the week as the true Sabbath. The conclusion at which we have arrived,
after much reflection, is in consonance with that before announced by
this Court in the case just alluded to.
The constitution of this State secures freedom of
conscience and equality of religious right. No man, living under the
protection of our institutions, can be coerced to profess any form of
religious belief, or to practise any peculiar mode of worship, in
preference to another. In this respect the Christian, the Jew, the
Mahommedan and the Pagan are alike entitled to protection. Nay, the
infidel, who madly rejects all belief in a Divine Essence, may safely do
so, in reference to civil punishment, so long as he refrains from the
wanton and malicious proclamation of his opinions with intent to outrage
the moral and religious convictions of a community, the vast majority of
whom are Christians. But beyond this, conscientious doctrines and
practices can claim no immunity from the operation of general laws made
for the government, and to promote the welfare of the whole people. In
the language of Chief Justice Gibson, the right of conscience, as
understood under our <<258>>organic law, “is simply a right to worship the
Supreme Being according to the dictates of the heart; to adopt any creed
or hold any opinion whatever, or to support any religion; and to do or
forbear to do, any act for conscience sake, the doing or forbearing of
which is not prejudicial to the public weal.” Com. vs. Lesher, (17 S. &
R. 16,) enforced in Simons vs. Gratz, (2 P. R. 416.) Does the Act of
Assembly in question impinge upon this natural right, or on the
constitutional declaration which seeks to foster and protect it? It is
insisted this question must receive an affirmative response, because, as
it is said, the statute treats the first day of the week as a holy and
sacred day, and prohibits labour as a profanation of the Lord’s day, and
it is thus proved to be, not a mere civil regulation to give rest to
man, but an attempt to exalt, by law, the religious belief of certain
sects over that of others.
Though it may have been a motive with the law
makers to prohibit the profanation of a day regarded by them as
sacred—and, certainly there are expressions used in the statute that
justify this conclusion—it is not perceived how this fact can vitally
affect the question at issue. All agree that to the well-being of
society periods of rest are absolutely necessary. To be productive of
the required advantage, these periods must recur at stated intervals, so
that the mass of which the community is composed may enjoy a respite
from labour at the same time. They maybe established by common consent,
or, as is conceded, the legislative power of the State may, without
impropriety, interfere to fix the time of their stated return, and
enforce obedience to the direction. When this happens, some one day must
be selected, and it has been said the round of the week presents none
which, being preferred, might not be regarded as favouring [?] some one
of the numerous religious sects into which mankind are divided. In a
Christian community, where a very large majority of the people celebrate
the first day of the week, as their chosen period of rest from labour,
it is not surprising that that day should have received the legislative
sanction; and as it is also devoted to religious observances, we are
prepared to estimate the reason why the statute should speak of it as
the Lord’s day, and denominate the infraction of its legalized rest a
profanation. Yet this does not change the character of the enactment. It
is still, essentially, but a civil regulation made for the government of
man as a member of society, and obedience to it may properly be enforced
by penal sanctions. To say that one of the objects of the Legislature
was to assert the sanctity of the particular day selected, is to say
nothing in proof of the unconstitutionality of the act, unless in this
the religious conscience of others has been offended and their rights
invaded.
But it is argued, with apparent conviction of its
truth, that to compel <<259>>men to refrain from labour, solely from regard to
the imputed holiness of a particular day, is, within the meaning of the
Constitution, to “control” the religious observance, and to “interfere”
with and constrain the consciences of those who, honestly, disbelieve
the asserted sanctity of the selected day. We cannot assent to this. So
long as no attempt is made to force upon others the adoption of the
belief entertained by the governing power, or to compel a practice in
accordance with it, so long is conscience left in the enjoyment of its
natural right of individual decision and independent religious action.
There is nothing to prevent the unrestrained expression of an adverse
belief—though, perhaps, with less of imposing effect than power lends to
opinion, nor any hindrance offered to the full enjoyment of it, at
least, so far as the exercise of religious devotion is involved. The
error of the plaintiff’s position is that it confounds the reason of the
prohibition with its actual effect, and thus mistakes the mere restraint
of physical exertion for the fetters that clog the freedom of mind and
conscience. But were this otherwise, the plaintiff’s argument is
inapplicable to the act of 1794.
The conclusions drawn from some of its language are
as inexpressive of its practical operation as of the principal intent of
its maker. The phraseology used may indicate a conviction of the holy
character of the first day of the week, but as this simple expression of
an abstract opinion, which all other men are at liberty to adopt or
reject, carries with it no obligation beyond the influence attendant
upon the expression itself, it cannot be said a primary object of the
act was, authoritatively, to assert the supremacy of Sunday as of Divine
appointment. Had such been the intent, irrespective of its statutory
character as a day of rest from secular employment, its framer would not
have stopped short with a bare interdiction of labour and worldly
amusements. Following the example offered by older states and
communities; they would have commanded the performance of religious
rites, or at least, some express recognition of the day as the true
Sabbath. Such a requisition, we agree with the plaintiff in error, would
be a palpable interference with the rights of conscience. But nothing
like this is exacted. On the contrary, every one is left at full liberty
to shape his own convictions, and practically to assert them to the
extent of a free exercise of his religious views. In this, as in other
respects, the conscience of each is left uncontrolled by legal coercion,
to pursue its own inquiries and to adopt its own conclusions. In this
aspect of the statute there is, therefore, nothing in derogation of the
constitutional inhibition.
Nor, so far as I can perceive, is it obnoxious to
this accusation in any other particular. It intermeddles not with the
natural and indefea<<260>>sible right of all men to worship Almighty God
according to the dictates of their own consciences; it compels none to
attend, erect, or support any place of worship, or to maintain any
ministry against his consent; it pretends not to control or to interfere
with the rights of conscience, and it establishes no preference for any
religious establishment or mode of worship. It treats no religious
doctrine as paramount in the State; it enforces no unwilling attendance
upon the celebration of Divine worship. It says not to the Jew or
Sabbatarian, you shall desecrate the day you esteem as holy, and keep
sacred to religion that we deem to be so. It enters upon no discussion
of rival claims of the first and seventh days of the week, nor pretends
to bind upon the conscience of any man any conclusion upon a subject
which each must decide for himself. It intrudes not into the domestic
circle to dictate when, where, or to what God its inmates shall address
their orisons, nor does it presume to enter the Synagogue of the
Israelite or the church of the seventh day Christians, to command or
even persuade their attendance in the temples of those who, especially,
approach the altar on Sunday. It does not, in the slightest degree,
infringe upon the Sabbath of any sect, or curtail their freedom of
worship. It detracts not one hour from any period of time they may feel
bound to devote to this object, nor does it add a moment beyond what
they may choose to employ. Its sole mission is to inculcate a temporary
weekly cessation from labour, but it adds not to this requirement any
religious obligation.
Nor can it be objected against the statute that it
gives a preference to any religious establishment or mode of worship. It
leaves all free alike in the exercise of their distinctive religious
tenets, saying to none, what doest thou? As I have said, the selection
of the day of rest is but a question of expediency, and if from the
choice falling on the first day of the week, the Jew and seventh day
Christian suffer the inconvenience of two successive days of withdrawal
from worldly affairs, it is an incidental worldly disadvantage,
temporarily injurious, it may be to them, but conferring no superior
religious position upon those who worship upon the first day of the
week. The law intends no preference. The command to abstain from labour
is addressed to every citizen, irrespective of his religious belief, and
if an inconvenience results to some, it is a consequence of the
generality of the provision. But this affords no argument against the
constitutionality of the law, however strong the argument might be felt
when addressed to the Legislature as a reason for a modification of the
statute.
The only remaining ground upon which the plaintiff
in error attacks the validity of the statute, is found in the assumption
that, in conscience, <<261>>he is as fully bound to attend to his secular
affairs upon the first six days of the week as to cease from labour on
the seventh. Were this so, the law which compels him to inaction upon
one of the six, might well be regarded as an invasion of his
conscientious convictions. But for this supposed article of his faith,
his counsel refers us to no other warrant than that command of the
decalogue which teaches, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy; six
days shalt thou labour and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the
Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work.” But
without other evidence than the mere suggestion of counsel, we cannot
believe that the religious sect to which the plaintiff in error belongs
have so construed this commandment as to make it imperative on its
members, literally, to labour on every day of the week other than the
seventh. Such is not, rationally its meaning, nor is it that assigned to
the word by the ancient people to whom it was originally delivered by
the Deity.
From the beginning even until now, it is regarded
by them as intended to set apart a day of religious rest, but not as
commanding six days of labour. Within six days the Israelite was
directed to do all his work in order that he might devote the seventh,
uninterruptedly, to the service of God, but it was never imagined that
he was under an imperative obligation to fill up each day of the other
six with some worldly employment. In the Commonwealth vs. Wolf, the
Court rightly repudiates such a notion, and in this it has been followed
by other tribunals. Indeed the meaning of the command is so obvious as
scarcely to leave room for construction, and accordingly, so far as we
are informed, the practice of all who profess to believe in the Old and
New Testaments, has been in consonance with the original interpretation.
Beside the adjudications already referred to, the
determination to which we have attained is fortified by the recent
decision of the Court of Errors of South Carolina in the case of the
City Council of Charleston vs. Benjamin, decided in January, 1848, and
is not impeached by the city of Cincinnati vs. Rice (15 Ohio Rep., 225)
cited for the plaintiff in error. This last case was determined upon the
proviso of their statute, that nothing contained therein shall be
construed to extend to those who, conscientiously, observe the seventh
day of the week as the Sabbath. Did our statute offer a similar
provision, this controversy would probably, never have arisen.
Proceedings Affirmed.
Note.—Judge Coulter’s opinion will be given
in our next. |
