The true Democrat., 1854-12-06

Now am Queen of Assyria,' exclaimed Semlrams; and perish every one, like the eu- much and like Minus, who dare disobey my or ders.''
 Report of Special Committee upon the
 Subject of Employing a Chaplain.
 We, majority of your committee, beg leave to report that we have had the resolution en- qulrlng into the propriety of electing a chap lain, to open this House by prayer, and paving him out of the State Treasury, under due con- slderation, and knowing that great conrariety of opinions are entertained, and that numerous conflicting prejudices exist in the minds of many honest and zealously religious sectarians on the subject under consideration, and being aware that the due discharge of the duties as- signed to the committee require them to explore ground, which, by some persons, is deemed holy and to disturb questions which by many have long been considered as fully and righteously settled, the committee have examined the sub- Ject referred to them with all that candor and clrcumspecGlon which they deem necessary, the due exercise of their own rights of con- science, and their disposition to treat the opin- ions of their fellow-men with all that defer ence, and respect to which by law of equal rights and the provisions of the constitution of the civil government of the State, they are en- titled.
 Your committee have not deemed it necessa- ry or useful on the present occasion to grope amidst the ignorance and superstition of the dark ages, to discover the origin or utility of Legislative prayers; nor to learn what nations have or what nations have not practised them.
 Yet amidst all the heterogenious detail of fal f,Ll ;ol IL history of men, of nations and of governments there are no truths more clearly illustrated by historic records, and the concurrent testimony derived from the present state of the civilized world, than that TO nation was ever free. or could be so while subject to government constituted of union of political and eccle- siastical powers. that no political despotism ever did or could long exist unsustaned by clerical influence; that no religion could be pure and undehled when perverted to political pur- poses, and that no people could escape being depraved and miserable when subjected to the double tyranny of spiritual and political power. Nor can different result be rationally expected from the combined operation of church and State machinery-for 1t generally follows that where political authority has been given to men, who ! believe themselves to be elected ministers of power above the people and to possess authority 1 beyond the clVll laW who are prone to regard thelroWn opinion as the will and word of their master, and whose iHterestand business calling Is to propagate their own religious creeds. They have ever been disposed to render their political influence, subservient to their own views, and have always exercised their own political powers to sustain their own particularchurcheS and faith to the detriment and exclusion of all others And after the adoption of civil government, repugnantt to lt-both i'll spirit and provisions cusnt0ma Is no sufficient reason for its continu- ance, nor proof of its harmless influence on the religious liberties of the people-so intimate an association of official Legislative duties, with religious forms and ceremonies is practical ap- proXimatOn to union of church and State the facilities which it affords for the exercise of clerical influence in the Legislative department of the government, initiates against the equal rights of conscience.
 Your committee will now proceed to show that the Legislature possesses no legitimate au- thorlty to associate religious prayers with Le- glslatlve proceedings, nor to appoint Legis lative chapans, nor to appr0prate puplc money to pay for religious services and because, 1st, no such authority has been delegated to them--2d because the exercise of such power is not only repugnant to the constitution, but ex pressy in- -O which read as follows:
 That all men have a'natural and indefeasible right to worship almighty God according to the dictates of their own colscience-a no man can of right be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of worship, or to maintain any minister against his consent; that 10 hu- man authority can in any case whatever, inter- fere with the right of conscience, and no pre- | Sha al Ea ri,, f. tablishment, or mode of worship" It will not be denied, and hence not necessary to prove that the Legislature is vested with civil power only and have not been clothed with spiritual juris- diction, nor will 1t be requisite to enquire into the utility of religious prayers, or the obliga- ton to pray as a religious duty-religion Is a concern between mans conscience and his God, with which no human tribunal has a right to meddle
 If prayer be deemed religious devotion, the Legislature have no authority officially to per form it, nor to require others to do so, or attend their performances the people have not dele gated power to the Legislature to perform re- ligious worship of any kind, and if prayers or acts of an ecclesiastical character, and of rel- gious duty Legislative prayers or acts of a superofogatiOn and Legislative acts which tran scend the power delegated by the people to the  Legislature are an official exercise of power, be- yond the law and as unauthorized as they would be, if expressly interdicted by those provisions of the constitution, which are in- tended to prevent an alliance of political and ecclesiastical power, and to preserve the unre- strained exercise and the enjoyment of religious opinion.
 But the absence of legal authority is not the only objection to which the practice under con- sideration is obnoxious, it often interteres with the legitimate business of the Legislature, and thus operates unpropitiously to the public inte- rest
 Some members of the Legislature, with ma nv of their constituents conscienciously dsap- prove of Legislative prayer, others do not hold to prayers in public places, in the midst of the congregated assembly of persons, of va rious religious sects, and adverse to religious opinion, and who are elected without any re- ference to their religious creeds, there are but fo,, o+ any, ono lima who oop boorti11y in