The Arizona sentinel., 1875-02-20
CHURCH AND STATE.
A Dangerous Move.

and promised that we would this week speak about the matter
 We now proceed to redeem that promise. Let no man think that we are moved by religious pre- judice in what we have to say. Far from it. We are no sectarian. We believe in God and immortali- ty, but we entertain our own views ill regard to theology, un. trammeled by any church or sect. We have respect for the religious views and feelings of all men and would not in any manner inter- fere with them. But the action of our legislature here referred to we consider dangerous, damnable and smacks of the old abomination of Churchs and State. When our fathers fled from religious prese. cution in Europe and planted the tree of liberty on the American Continent and watered and nur- tured it with their blood, they solemnly decreed that church and state should never have any union here. In fact the principle of re- ligious liberty was the foundation of our free institutions. The right of all men to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences was fully recog- nized and declared by the immor- tai men who framed our constitu- tion. And through all the con- stitutions and laws of all the states it is solemDly laid down that no religious sect shall ever receive any preference or privelege over others, but all shall be equal be- fore the law and all equally pro- tected by the law.
 Now the public school system is sacred to freedom. The peo- pie are taxed for its support. and for the legislature to appropriate any of the funds thus raised, to the support of schools controlled by any church, religious denomi
 nation or sect, is a terrible out rage, very dangerous precedent and is really a step toward the old abomination so hateful to free men, of church and state. If the members of any church don't like to send their children to the pub lie schools, let them establish and support their own schools. Mo- body has any objection. But they have no right to any of the public money, and a legislature that votes to give it to them com mits shameful outrage against the whole people. We would say the same if the public money was given to the support of a Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian or any other sectarian school. And it makes it no better because a Judge, a Chief Justice even, descends from his high estate and soils his ermine by giving pub lie lecture before the members of the legislature in advocacy of this iniquitous appropriation. "Oh shame, where is thy blush ?" It is humiIiating to know that this has occurred in free America, in the light of the latter part of the nineteenth century, when by the spread of civilization, science and refinement, the whole world is throwing off the shackels of priest craft by which the people had so long been bound, and under the sanction of which the most terri. bIe and revoltiDg crimes and cruelties that stain the pages of history have been committed ]; and at a time when poor, down trodden, priest-ridden Mexico has just shown signs of vitality, by taking her public schools out of tbe hands of the priests. And must our young and beautiful Territory take the lead in the re- trogression of civilization !? God forbid The little play of the